Do you remember Flappy Bird? It was a mobile game released in 2013 that generated an unprecedented global craze. Its success was such that it led to very high levels of addiction among players, forcing its creator to remove it from the app stores in less than a year. After it, many others came that tried to copy it, such as Happy Frog 2 or Pollo Pollo, but they did not achieve the same success.
Now, in mid-2024, a rumor has begun to spread on social networks that has everyone on hold: Flappy Bird is officially back on Android and iOS after more than 10 years. However, we have some bad news for you: Flappy Bird’s Return Would Be a Cryptocurrency Trap.
The new version of Flappy Birds looks like something interesting, but there’s something wrong with it
Through various media and social networks, the news began to spread a new version of Flappy Bird is about to be released. The origin of this project comes from the web Italian:FlappyBirdfrom the Flappy Birds Foundation, through a very elaborate page that promises very interesting changes in the game. Some of them? These:
- Different game modes: Classic, Easy, Basketball (like Flappy Dunk) and Battle Royale against 99 rivals.
- New characters: with unique abilities that players can use to try to improve their scores.
- Multi-platform: launched first for web browsers and then as a mobile application.
So far everything seems pretty good and there doesn’t seem to be anything strange. However, the theme of this new edition of Flappy Bird goes beyond that. Someone decided to snoop around the project and investigate on their ownespecially since it is sold as official. The result? I found things that smell bad.
Flappy Bird 2024 Could Be a Crypto NFT Game, But Some Things Point to a Possible Scam
The person in charge of investigating the new Flappy Bird project was Varun Biniwale, a cybersecurity specialist. Biniwale went into more detail about this “promising” video game and The more he read, the more suspicion he aroused.. Let’s summarize their findings:
- Property: even if the game is sold as official, the truth is that Dong Nguyen (creator of Flappy Bird) does not appear in any documents. According to the., the original trademark expired when Nguyen left the game United States Patent Office (USPTO). In 2023 it was acquired by Gametech Holdings LLC and subsequently by The Flappy Bird Foundation.
- The quality of the website and promotional video: which Biniwale thought were too well done for a project like Flappy Birds which stood out for having very simple graphics.
- hidden sections: Being a blog designed in WordPress, the sitemap was open to the public and Biniwale found many pages that are not visible and that they retain relevant information to speak about the veracity of the project.
- Notes on Web 3.0: on many of these hidden pages Web 3.0, talking about the use of a decentralized economy and cryptocurrenciesin particular the SOL token from the Solana blockchain. This was particularly evident in the “Collaborations” section.
- Prototypes: Biniwale also came across some prototypes of the game in its browser version, where he found sections where you could Affiliate your account with different digital wallets and others to claim rewards.
all this suggests the new Flappy Bird could be an NFT gamelike those that swarmed between 2019 and 2021. At first glance, this would not mean that it could be a scam (not all NFT games are). However, The fact that the developers are lying about it being an official game raises a lot of doubts. Moreover, hidden sections of the website also create suspicion.
What does the security expert think? What you have to take the project with a pinch of salt and that he thinks that developers have already bought the SOL token and are just waiting for their game to generate a boom that will increase the price of this token so they can sell it.
Biniwale did not refuse to accept the fact that someone wants to go ahead and try the game at launch, but he warned that this must be done carefully, taking into account caution regarding things that are accepted and knowledge of the risks involved.
