decrypt.co
If you’re playing the first-person shooter game Ev.io, then you might notice something new among the enemy-packed corridors: collectibles featuring the logo of Solana’s BONK meme token. And it’s not just decor: Picking it up will earn you millions of BONK tokens—but only if you have a certain NFT-based player skin equipped.
Ev.io, a competitive web-based shooter that recalls past hits like Halo and Quake, launched the in-game BONK event late Wednesday. As a teaser video shows, a player spots the floating BONK orb and picks it up, and then sees a bounty of 8 million BONK tokens added to their connected Solana wallet.
Granted, each token is worth a tiny fraction of a penny—much like the popular Ethereum-based Shiba Inu (SHIB)—and 8 million BONK comes out to about $4 worth of tokens as of this writing. Still, that’s free crypto that is automatically deposited into a player’s wallet.
Tomorrow at 5 EST we'll start dropping @bonk_inu in deathmatch! You need a Bonk character skin to participate.
Here's what is looks like to find and pick up Bonk ... pic.twitter.com/WdLN2qcLDH
— ev.io (@play_evio) May 30, 2023
Here’s the catch, however: The token rewards are only available to players who own one of the BONK NFT character skins in the Solana-based game. The NFTs start at 2 SOL (about $41) on secondary marketplace Magic Eden.
On May 18, when Ev.io launched the skins, the game creators tweeted that billions of BONK tokens will ultimately be given out, and that players who equip the BONK NFT skin will also earn tokens for each kill. Ev.io, which bills itself a play-to-earn game, already gives out SOL rewards for kills to holders of its NFTs.
Decrypt reached out to Ev.io for more details on the events, but did not immediately hear back.
BONK launched late last year and had a brief surge at the start of 2023 as the Solana community celebrated the Shiba Inu-inspired meme token’s playful vibes, following a rough 2022 for the network and its cryptocurrency price. BONK has fallen sharply since its January peak, now down nearly 90% to a current price of $0.000000510680.