Court Freezes $7M in PLAY Tokens Amid Legal Dispute

The Supreme Court of Gibraltar has ordered the freezing of $7 million worth of PLAY tokens, amid a legal dispute between US-based Web3 gaming firm Ready Makers Inc. and its local subsidiary, Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Limited. The court-appointed custodian now holds nearly 440 million PLAY tokens, representing nearly half of the token's circulating supply.

The dispute centers around claims that Christina Macedo, CEO of Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Limited, took over the firm and its PLAY token, which are used as rewards by games using the Ready Games platform. Ready Makers Inc. alleges that Macedo and the Gibraltar-based PLAY Network breached trust arrangements by claiming personal ownership of Ready Gibraltar and its assets, including the PLAY token.

The court order, issued earlier this month, freezes over 450 million PLAY tokens, including over 300 million tokens held in wallets controlled by the Gibraltar-based PLAY Network and nearly 151 million tokens claimed by Ready Games. The order also blocks any attempt to redomicile the Gibraltar firm or the tokens.

In a separate development, 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. Ready Games founder David S. Bennahum stated that the infrastructure was developed with funding from leading gaming investors and was falsely claimed to have been developed independently by Ready Gibraltar.

The PLAY token, which launched in December, has experienced a significant decline in value. It has dropped over 12% to a market value of $13.2 million, according to CoinGecko. The token hit a peak value of $78.1 million in mid-December when its price peaked at 19 cents. It is now down over 90% from the peak and is trading at a little over one and a half cents.