Star Atlas Recovers Lost Funds From FTX

In a public announcement on February 2nd, Star Atlas game developer Automata announced that they had recovered a portion of their lost tokens on FTX.

Star Atlas and FTX

Back in November, the news of FTX’s insolvency shook the world. As previously reported, amongst the affected was the upcoming blockchain space game Star Atlas under development by Automata. At the time, Automata CEO Michael Wagner, CFA

 announced that the company had lost approximately $10 to $15 million dollars in the wake of the FTX fund freeze. Again, at the time, this cut the company’s development efforts in half with an estimated “6 to 9 months of [development] runway left”.

Star Atlas Community Rallies to Support

In the immediate wake of this announcement, the Star Atlas community conducted a survey of which game items they would like to see released by the company in the short term. Dubbed the “Community Rescue Survey”, the results led towards the official Star Atlas Star Sequence Campaign that lasted from Nov 2022 through the end of Jan 2023. The result, nearly $2 million dollars in direct revenue provided to Automata*.

Star Atlas Recovers FTX Funds

At the conclusion of the Start Sequence campaign, Automata hosted a community town hall on February 2nd where Wagner was the keynote speaker. During the hour long town hall, Automata provided an update on the status of the company and its outlook on development timelines. Surprisingly, Wagner revealed that the company had “recovered a portion of their lost funds on FTX through a brokered deal”. Wagner did not reveal any more details regarding the deal nor the specific amount that was recovered. This is likely a condition of the structured deal itself.

Wagner continued on by stating that the company had a conservative development funding estimate through September 2023. Before then, Wagner and Automata intend to release several key products including the in-browser game SAGE with an pre-alpha or test version to launch with a target date of 1st quarter 2023.

The release, playability, and popularity of Star Atlas: SAGE will be key components to Automata’s success in 2023.