Atari’s new Ethereum token fell off a cliff when trading began, leaving investors wondering what was behind the dump.
Atari Token (ATRI), the first foray into a gaming digital currency by legendary video game developers Atari Interactive, ended its first 36 hours of trading down almost 70%. The current price is well below the public sale price and is even below the discounted price in the presale rounds.
The token sale — held on Bitcoin.com exchange and concluding two days before trading began — was reportedly marred by several mishaps. These included challenges with order processing, non-crediting of funds, and delays in withdrawals of up to 16 hours. The Atari Token team has yet to comment on these issues and their usually-active Twitter account has been relatively silent over the last few days.
By the time public sale participants were able to access their tokens, on Nov. 2 around 3pm UTC, the price of ATRI had already been crushed, falling as low as $0.04, which represents an 84% discount from the public sale purchase price of $0.25.
Tokens were also sold at a discounted rate in three presale rounds, at $0.08 per token in the first two rounds and $0.16 in the third. In all rounds, token sales reached their hard cap amounts of $1 million per round.
Though initially launched on Bitcoin.com Exchange, trading volume for ATRI has been quick to migrate to Uniswap, which now hosts the token’s most popular pairing: ATRI/WETH.
Atari Token’s stated mission is to “bring decentralization and universality to the video game and interactive entertainment industry,” with ATRI used as a utility token across multiple video games and other facets of interactive entertainment.
The concept for the token was first introduced by Atari in June of this year. On November 2nd, Atari announced that the online multiplayer game Karma the Game of Destiny will use ATRI as an in-game currency for purchases and transactions.
In addition to its utility token endeavors, Atari also plans to launch a line of NFT collectibles on the WAX blockchain. The first series to be released features video game box art from Atari’s original console games, enhanced by added motion, graphics and 3D elements.
