BitRivals — Scam Or Just Complete Incompetence?

Spoiler: It is incompetence!

I was planning on doing a video about this topic but I realized it is just a waste of time. So I am going to just discuss BitRivals, a site very similar to the Buff app but with a big difference: it uses blockchain technology.

Long story short, BitRivals is a site/app that promises to give you rewards for playing your favorite video games like League of Legends, Fortnite, Overwatch and so on. And you also get a token, the $RIVAL token. This token would eventually have a monetary value and you could make actual cash with it. That is if it is ever launched. It should be launched in January in an official capacity but with this team behind it, you never really know. Honestly, it does feel a lot like a rug pull operation but only time will tell if this is the case.

Important Things To Know About BitRivals

There are different things that scream out problems when looking at BitRivals. For starters, this is not a new project. BitRivals managed to raise $1.35 million dollars in two rounds in 2022. I will not mention that now we are in 2024 and there is still no real way to buy that Rival token.

Everything that happens around BitRivals is actually run through a Discord server. The site, which they call app when in fact it is a site, is just there to record your stats in games. Then, they give you RP points, which you use to participate in raffles.

It is important to mention that so far there were only 100 total winners. I was one of them but I refused to get the prize after I saw the lack of professionalism behind the team. But that is a story for another day.

So we have 22k daily visitors, 51k registered users, millions of RP points obtained that have no value except to buy tokens to participate in raffles, and a total amount of rewards handed out of $1,700. After receiving 1.35 million dollars in funding. Still, let’s just say that is fake information and they did not actually get that money. Or they did and they are just saving for a better future outcome.

BitRivals had a recent funding phase. Handled through Gempad. The goal was to raise $1 million USDT. The result was raising 103,797.821 USDT from just 44 contributors. Hardly a success story. After seeing that, it was when I realized something is very weird.

The discord server BitRivals has features 17700 people. out of them just 44 contributed? That is very weird! Did I also mention there is a BitRivals premium membership people can pay to get more RP points and Rival tokens? The money coming from that alone is most likely over $1700 since people actually trust what BitRivals promises.

Did I also mention there is a premium membership available? $11.99 for monthly payment down to $7.99 per month when billed yearly. We can safely assume that at least the 44 who contributed did get the premium memberships. So incoming $350 per month. And just $1700 in prizes during all this time? Yeah…does not really make sense.

My Experience With BitRivals

This brings me to the story of my experience with BitRivals. I used to stream a lot more than I do these days and back then I was contacted to become a BitRivals ambassador. Honestly, I thought this was interesting and I joined.

As time passed I started to notice some problems with the system. For instance, they have a leaderboards section. In it you see that if you are among the top earners during a specific time frame you get Rival tokens as a reward. Turns out that leaderboards section there is no longer active.

I pointed out the fact that it should then be removed but the response was: it says Time’s Up so no reason to remove it. Of course there is a freakin reason to remove it. I join, see a leaderboard, I think it is active, no? Very very easy to misunderstand what they ment through the text on that page.

Ok now whatever! Let’s just say that is a conflict in how I understand things. It is not. but still.

Then I win a raffle. Nothing interesting, $20 in USDT. I say ok, sweet, I open a ticket to claim the raffle reward. Yeah, in order to get the raffle reward you have to open a ticket in Discord. There is no such functionality on the website. Someone in the backend gives you the prize and then they most likely manually add more Rival tokens to your account if that is what you win, stuff like that.

I open that ticket, over 24 hours pass, no response. Literally zero activity anywhere in the main areas of the Discord channel. I start a more aggressive conversation because based on my experience (yeah I actually have experience as opposed to these people running BitRivals), this is when people disclose what is actually going on. And here it comes. Someone who knew the person who makes the payments from the raffles answered.

Turns out that the company PayPal only had 6 pounds in it. And that Gregg, this guy who will make the payment, will make the payment when he has the funds. Leaving aside the obvious improper use of the I pronoun in a business setting, which automatically makes me think that the number of people involved in this is very small, this guy, who is the main community manager and supposedly a highly experienced person at his job, I quote:

Gregg only had 6 pounds in the PP account so his decision was to ghost me and not answer until he gets the funds. He was waiting for some transactions. Whatever. This is NOT the reaction of a specialist. A specialist would never do that, especially if they were aware of a lack of liquidity to make payments.

The rest of the support staff is handled by volunteers who have no experience in customer support whatsoever and it shows. At the same time with the raffle win, there was a technical problem and I couldn’t log into my BitRivals account. I opened a ticket for that one and the guy who answered actually started talking about the payment instead of that. And his solution was “chill out dude” it will be paid when it will be paid. Again, zero professionalism.

So the support department that BitRivals has is laughable at best. Beware if you have problems with them and you do not kiss their ass. Yeah there is a lot of ass kissing in this project coming from loyal supporters who think they will become millionaires when this BitRivals token finally launches. Supposedly somewhere in January. This is to be expected. Logan Paul still has loyal fans who would buy tokens from him even if they were scammed dozens of times already.

But let’s get back on track. We have a very bad customer support department and a marketing department that definitely has no idea what they are doing.

It’s A Shame!

After all this I wanted to be removed from the Ambassador program. I do not want to be associated with something so shady and the response that came from Fox, whoever he is (he is listed as the co-founder of BitRivals, so one of the two) was to ban the account completely. So all the Rival tokens I had were just eliminated out of the blue. All because I dared to point out the disastrous situation behind the scenes at BitRivals.

Now you can make your own choices, of course. This is what my experience was. However, I should also point out that there are reports that the Rival token was already launched. And Coinsniper highlights there are 6 holders that practically hold all the supply. Coincarp states that the supply is of 1 million Rival tokens. Given that I already had around 10k Rival tokens in my account when it was banned, obviously in theory, I wonder how much the top players on those leaderboards have to receive. Will they get that supply or not? Only time will tell!

The Bottom Line

I do not care about the fact that I did not receive 20 USDT. I told them not to send it to me. I do not care about the fact that I got my account banned. I care about the fact that this seemed to be a very good project and it is ran by completely unprofessional individuals.

Here’s the deal. You want to launch something good? You have to be professional. You need to actually deliver on what you say you will deliver. Ever since I joined the Discord channel, every single deadline for the project was not met. The deadline was always postponed. This, together with the other signs I highlighted before point to only one conclusion:

BitRivals is destined to fail!

I want to be proven wrong and will keep an eye on it. I will be the first one to admit that I was wrong if this is the case. But, for the time being, anyone recommending BitRivals to anyone else is simply doing every gamer a disservice. I cannot, in good faith, not highlight how bad BitRivals is at the moment and it is clear. Behind the scenes, it is a complete mess. You are better off joining the Buff app if you want to participate in raffles. With BitRivals you are losing your mind. Check on the project after January to see if it catches any steam. But, based on the last milestone launch they had, a crowdfunding one in which they should have received 1 million USDT, they only got 100,000 USDT. How much of a successful launch can you expect?

Everyone talks a big game in the crypto industry. Few deliver. BitRivals right now does not deliver. And it is a shame since a team with actual experience and knowledge could make this work. Yes I was aggressive and although I was not angry, I was disappointed.

Originally published at http://adriancruce.com on December 22, 2024.