The original creator of the short-lived mobile game Flappy Bird has distanced himself from a group that claims it’s bringing the game back after a decade hiatus — and some online clues suggest it could have crypto ties.

Dong Nguyen posted to X on Sept. 15 for the first time since 2017 to call out the company planning to re-release the 2013 game after it nabbed the trademark earlier this year.

On Sept. 13, a group calling itself The Flappy Bird Foundation said it was re-releasing Flappy Bird, claiming in an X post that it took “acquiring legal rights and even working with my predecessor” to launch the game.

“I did not sell anything,” Nguyen wrote, adding he has no relation to the game. “I also don’t support crypto.”

Source: Dong Nguyen

The Flappy Bird Foundation said it acquired rights to Flappy Bird from Gametech Holdings LLC.

Gametech filed an opposition to Nguyen’s Flappy Bird trademark last year and won the rights to it in January after the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) determined Nguyen abandoned it and terminated his claim.

Flappy Bird, released in May 2013, was a side-scrolling mobile game where players tapped their phone screen to guide a bird through gaps in green pipes, with the score determined by how many they successfully navigated.

By early 2014, it became a viral hit and was the most downloaded game on Apple’s App Store, with Nguyen claiming it was making $50,000 a day.

In 2014, Nguyen suddenly pulled the game — nine months after its release and at the peak of its popularity — posting to X that he “cannot take this anymore.” He later told Forbes he took it down because it became “an addictive product.”

“Flap-to-earn” crypto fingerprints on new game

Hidden website pages for the Flappy Bird Foundation’s revived game indicate that crypto could play a role when it launches — with hints at a token, a launch on Solana and a play-to-earn game model.

In a Sept. 12 blog post, researcher Varun Biniwale found one of the site’s pages — which has now been pulled offline — said Flappy Bird “will fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into Web 3.0."

The page adds it will be a “Web 3 game,” with “play and earn” and also mentions “stake to own” and “free airdrops.”

A now-deleted page indicates the new Flappy Bird could have links to crypto. Source: Varun Biniwale

A loading screen for a prototype of the game also mentioned a “$FLAP token” on the Telegram-linked The Open Network (TON) blockchain, Biniwale reported.

Another prototype game invited players to connect a TON wallet for rewards, and a separate popup detailed a Telegram-exclusive “flap-to-earn event” — a marketing spin on the tap-to-earn games that have exploded in popularity on the messaging app.

A popup showing Flappy Bird could have elements of a Telegram crypto tapper game. Source: Varun Biniwale

Biniwale pointed to the person behind the game — Michael Roberts, the head of studio at crypto game developer 1208 Production, who wrote on his LinkedIn that he “spearheaded the return of Flappy Bird.”

Roberts did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Is this a somewhat shady project with the goal of capitalizing off the nostalgic appeal of a beloved game while quietly aiming to make money from cryptocurrency and Web3 integration?” Biniwale wrote. “It sure seems like it.”

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