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.