Gibraltar court freezes $7M PLAY tokens amid crypto gaming firm’s internal biff

The US-based Web3 gaming firm Ready Makers has won a court order against itself, with Gibraltar’s top court freezing crypto from Ready Maker, the US firm’s local subsidiary.
The US-based Web3 gaming firm Ready Makers has won a court order against itself, with Gibraltar’s top court freezing crypto from Ready Maker, the US firm’s local subsidiary.

Web3 gaming firm Ready Makers Inc. says the Supreme Court of Gibraltar has handed it a win and frozen $7 million worth of its cryptocurrency amid litigation against its own local subsidiary.

The US-based Ready Makers, which operates as Ready Games, is in a legal dispute with Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Limited and its CEO, Christina Macedo, over claims she took over the firm and its PLAY token, which are used as rewards by games using its platform. 

Ready Games said in a Feb. 11 statement that nearly 440 million PLAY tokens — nearly half of the token’s circulating supply — were handed over to a court-appointed custodian in its case against the Gibraltar-based Ready Maker, which operates as PLAY Network.

It added that the court issued an order to freeze over 450 million PLAY earlier this month. The order also blocks “any attempt to redomicile” the Gibraltar firm or the tokens, it said.

The court order is said to involve over 300 million tokens held in wallets controlled by the Gibraltar-based PLAY Network, along with nearly 151 million tokens Ready Games claims to own.

Ready Games claimed that PLAY Network and Macedo “breached trust arrangements by claiming personal ownership of Ready Gibraltar and its assets, including the $PLAY token,” which it said was made using its technology and funds.

It added its court action was to “recover control” of the Gibraltar firm, which Ready Games founder David S. Bennahum said in the statement was “to serve as our token launch vehicle.”

Last month, Ready Games said a Delaware business court issued a temporary restraining order requiring PLAY Network to restore Ready Games’ access to the firm’s tech stack, such as “GitHub repositories, cloud systems, and domain accounts.”

Source: David S. Bennahum

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“Ready Games developed this infrastructure with funding from leading gaming investors. Ready Gibraltar seized control of that technology and falsely claimed to have developed it independently,” Bennahum said in a statement at the time.

Cointelegraph contacted Macedo for comment. PLAY Network could not be reached for comment.

The PLAY token, which launched in December, has dropped over 12% in the last day to a market value of $13.2 million, according to CoinGecko.

It hit a peak value of $78.1 million in mid-December, when its price peaked at 19 cents. It’s now down over 90% from the peak and is trading at a little over one and a half cents.

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