Key Takeaways
- Treasure is building a decentralized Nintendo of Web3 by creating a shared ecosystem that connects games through NFTs and $MAGIC tokens.
- An ever-growing Treasure ecosystem is supported by five core pillars: TreasureDAO, Cartridges, $MAGIC, Bridgeworld and Treasure Toolbox, all interconnected to enhance the overall experience.
- Within just two years, Treasure has achieved remarkable milestones, including becoming the #1 gaming and NFT ecosystem on Arbitrum, facilitating over $270M trading volume on Treasure*/Trove and onboarding 94k unique players.
- Interoperability stands out as one of Treasure’s unique selling points as it attracts more game builders to join the ecosystem and increases engagement for gamers as they explore different games.
- Treasure's commitment to growth continues with plans to migrate to an app chain and the development of DarkBright Studios, further strengthening the ecosystem's foundation.
For a quick snapshot of Treasure, please check out this thread!
Interoperability perhaps is one of the most groundbreaking concepts that players and game developers have long anticipated for years. Imagine a scenario in which assets from game A can be seamlessly transferred and utilized in game B, fostering cross-game interactions and a more unified gaming ecosystem filled with endless possibilities.
Treasure has embraced this idea at its very core and pursued a vision to cast magic into an interconnected metaverse of games. By bridging various gaming worlds, Treasure aims to create a truly immersive experience for players across different game universes.
What is Treasure?
Treasure is a decentralized NFT ecosystem that unites various communities and games together by utilizing NFTs and $MAGIC tokens. They function as a game publisher that provides funding, marketing expertise and distribution channel for independent games to help bring them to market. Since migrating to an ETH L2 scaling solution - Arbitrum, they have become a prominent player in the gaming vertical and reached the #1 spot in the gaming and NFT ecosystem rankings in Arbitrum. Any game that plugs into Treasure’s ecosystem can develop their own in-game tokens and, at the same time, utilize MAGIC (Treasure’s native token) as a resource for inventing lore and completing market transactions.
Their ultimate goal is to become a gaming empire on par with Nintendo but with a decentralized approach. Treasure’s thesis is outlined as follows:
"Unite games & players to forge a dynamic meta-ecosystem, unlocking innovative experiences, open economies, and compound network effects."
The Seed of Idea
The idea of Treasure was birthed from the original project called Loot. Loot, founded by the creator of a once-popular Vine social media, was the talk of the town back in late 2021 for its out-of-the-box bottom-up concept. Essentially, it provided plain-text descriptions of in-game items that developers/communities could freely use as a basis to design their own games. As an analogy, the idea is akin to an art class where the teacher asks students to draw a landscape on a blank canvas in their own style. Each painting will have different styles and colours reflecting each student’s personality and creativity. Likewise in Treasure, the project empowers game builders by providing them with resources to build their games and foster growth. The potential for game building within Treasure is only bound by builders’ imagination.
The emergence of Loot sent shockwaves through the NFT market, with secondary market sales skyrocketing to an average of 21 ETH ($84,000 at that time - Blockcrunch). This was higher than most of the blue-chip NFTs today for comparison. Many derivatives were created since then.
Treasure was a derivative project within the Loot’s ecosystem, with the goal of using $MAGIC token as the reserve currency for Loot. However, Loot decided to go a different route and choose $AGLD token (Adventure Gold) instead, which triggered Treasure to embark on their independent journey. In hindsight, this decision turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Treasure has been thriving since its departure and migration to Arbitrum (details), surpassing its counterparts in the Lootverse in terms of market capitalization and user base. Learning from Loot’s early-stage development, Treasure focused on building a strong infrastructure and curating a high-signal community to attract third-party builders into the ecosystem.
Treasure’s Growing Ecosystem
An ever-growing ecosystem of Treasure is supported by five key pillars (suggested by Delphi), each reinforcing the others towards the ultimate goal of a decentralized Nintendo. Below is a comprehensive ecosystem map of Treasure that illustrates the connection of the five pillars.
Pillar 1: TreasureDAO
With a community-first philosophy, Treasure aims to distribute power to the hand of the community and let them decide the future development of the project through Treasure Improvement Proposal (TIP). To achieve this, the project established a DAO that is governed by $MAGIC stakers or those who own $MAGIC-WETH SLP in the Arbitrum (more details). In this regard, staked $MAGIC holders can decide the future of $MAGIC emissions, oversee the DAO’s treasury and allocate/direct resources across games.
“We believe that metaverses are community-written stories, and resources are threads by which the fabric of the metaverse is sewn.”
To date, approximately 94,000 unique players have engaged with the ecosystem, playing across 13 different first-party games. This number is expected to increase when more games are introduced. Also, as the DAO rolls out new products, the value of its treasury is anticipated to grow.
Pillar 2: Cartridges
Any games that plug into the Treasure’s ecosystem are referred to as cartridges, similar to the classic Nintendo 64 cartridges*.* This includes both in-house games (13) and third-party-developed games (12).
Games within Treasure’s ecosystem go beyond simply a shared platform - they are interconnected through the use of the $MAGIC currency and in-game NFT items. On top of the shared foundation, each game still maintains its own unique identity and lore for the use of $MAGIC. Besides the shared $MAGIC token, they also have the option to develop their own in-game tokens like $ELM in Tales of Elleria and utilize both of them.
Top 5 trending games in Treasure
Pillar 3: $MAGIC
$MAGIC is the reserve currency at the heart of Treasure’s expanding ecosystem. Its interconnectivity among the projects within the composable ecosystem is a missing piece that Loot lacked during its early stage. Third-party developers can incorporate $MAGIC into their game’s economy and narrative as they wish. In this sense, $MAGIC serves as the unifying factor that connects diverse metaverses, users, assets and tools within Treasure’s ecosystem as it continues to onboard more games to its portfolio.
As aforementioned, the $MAGIC token is used to vote on community proposals and the future initiatives of the DAO. Staked $MAGIC holders can manage the inflow and outflow of $MAGIC across games and prioritize the community’s attention to where support is most needed.
$MAGIC is also a currency used to buy and sell NFT on the Treasure*/Trove marketplace. It is a gateway to start gaming as partnered games’ tokens and NFTs are paired against $MAGIC. Currently, the total number of unique wallets using $MAGIC reaches ~470,000, a meteoric increase of 510% or a 6x rise compared to April 2022.
Source: Dune (@fritten_eth)
For the scope of this article, details of $MAGIC’s history and tokenomics will be covered in a future post.
Pillar 4: Bridgeworld
Bridgeworld is Treasure’s first flagship game which gamifies the emissions of $MAGIC (a DeFi x GameFi project). In Bridgeworld, players gather resources and create new items to acquire additional resources. Social coordination in the game drives engagement and teamwork, as players can form guilds to compete for optimal yield and compete against others for $MAGIC emissions. There are three interconnected collectibles that players can utilize: $MAGIC (power), Treasures (Resources) and Legions (NFT| Players). Legions can use treasures to mine $MAGIC, which can then be used to support their quests and the crafting of new items with treasures.
As mentioned by Delphi, while Treasure serves as a game console/publisher that nurtures indie games and accelerates their development, Bridgeworld functions as the engine that drives the economy, providing value to token assets. This flagship game can be acknowledged as the central metaverse within Treasure’s ecosystem as it serves as a determinant for the direction of token rewards.
Pillar 5: Treasure Toolbox
Currently, there are three prominent dapps developed within Treasure to enhance users and builders’ experiences.
1. Treasure* (formerly Trove)
Treasure just renamed their NFT marketplace Trove to Treasure (@PlayOnTreasure).
To avoid overlap and confusion, we’ll use Treasure* (with an asterisk) to refer to the NFT marketplace.
As a go-to platform for playing, collecting and exploring new games, Treasure is a place where all gaming roads lead.
Treasure incorporates gaming elements into everything they do. They built their own in-house NFT marketplace, Treasure*, designed to cater to their community gamers’ needs. Treasure* replicates the gaming hub of Steam but for players in the Web3 space.
Since its launch in November 2021, Treasure* has reported enabling over $270M in total trading volume (both in $MAGIC and ETH measures, Dune), making up 95% of the NFT trading volume on Arbitrum. Game projects listing their NFTs on Treasure* are denominated both in $MAGIC and ETH. For more about Treasure*’s origins, check out this.
Treasures NFT (resources in Bridgeworld) are listed on the Treasure* marketplace
Treasure* sets itself apart from other NFT marketplaces by offering customization and gamification features for collectors, gamers and traders. Users can earn points by making trades (more trades more points), allowing them to climb up the leaderboard and gain more EXP and user levels. As they accrue more points, they can unlock advanced features such as analytics and rarity. Additionally, power users can earn badges from partnered games that can be displayed on their Treasure* profiles as a flex.
Treasure* charges a 2.5% transaction fee, similar to OpenSea. The collected fees are directed to the DAO’s treasury which is overseen by staked $MAGIC holders.
2. MagicSwap
Treasure rolled out its own DEX, MagicSwap, which mirrored after SushiSwap's automated market maker (AMM) mechanics. The protocol allows users to swap $MAGIC for a wide range of other games’ tokens. Treasure can collect transaction fees which are then reinvested into the ecosystem to support growth.
The launch of MagicSwap is a crucial development to the ecosystem as it meets the growing demand of token traders and the addition of new games joining Treasure. Especially, with the introduction of MagicSwap v2, it becomes the only AMM in the market enabling traders to seamlessly exchange both fungible and non-fungible tokens (ERC-20s, 721s, 1155s) within a single platform, eliminating the need to switch between multiple platforms. As of writing, only $GFLY (BattleFly) and $VEE (Zeeverse) tokens are listed for swapping and providing liquidity.
3. TreasureTags
TreasureTag is another innovative product of Treasure that aims to make each gamer’s identity unique. By minting a Tag for free as a soulbound NFT, gamers can stand out from the crowd and avoid being just another anonymous and boring 0x1234 wallet address. It's similar to an ENS derivative but tailored specifically to Treasure's ecosystem.
Besides serving as a global player profile, TreasureTags can be used as a “pass” to participate in future product releases. In the future, the Tag can be linked to avatars to enhance players' social identities and earned badges to showcase their greatest achievements.
Why Opt For Treasure As a Builder?
Treasure acts as a base layer/foundation for game developers seeking to bootstrap their games. By joining Treasure, developers receive immediate support and tap into a vibrant and engaged community of crypto-native people which is central to the project’s success. This community-driven approach is proven by the fact that many team members came directly from the Treasure community. Also, with roughly 94,000 unique players already onboarded, partnered games can benefit greatly from a substantial player base that can test and provide feedback loops for game improvement.
It would be a miss if not to mention the unique selling point of interoperability, a defining feature of Treasure and a highly anticipated element in Web3 games. In an interview with Web3 Academy, Karel Vuong, one of the co-founders, highlighted the "1 + 1 = 3" effect that interoperability can bring. This basically means when games and players interact and cooperate with each other, a synergistic effect emerges, creating a network value that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The concept can help increase players’ engagement and retention as they can hop in across games.
Two examples of interoperability have occurred and can possibly happen in Treasure. Scenario 1: players from Smolverse and Beacon joined forces in a shared dungeon to battle the same boss and win prizes. Scenario 2: players in Zeeverse can conduct treasure hunts that span multiple games within Treasure’s “metaverse”.
Interoperability within Treasure can possibly extend beyond mere asset exchange. It can introduce seasonality where winter in one game can have a ripple effect on other games. While Interoperability at Treasure right now is in a lighter version, it remains an ongoing development that will mature over time if there won’t any unsolvable issues.
As an early adopter of Arbitrum, Treasure was a DAO on Arbitrum that received the highest allocation of $ARB airdrop, amounting to 8 million $ARB tokens. In line with their commitment to supporting the ecosystem, Treasure has dedicated 2 million $ARB tokens (25%), with 500k allocated to early game builders in the 21/22 period, and the remaining tokens reserved for future games as part of the Game Builders Program. Needless to say, sizable awards are awaiting game builders looking to hop in Treasure.
However, there is an inherent risk as games are interlinked to $MAGIC which may result in price destabilization in the event of exploits and mismanagement. This can lead to a loss of interest from players in both games and tokens, consequently impacting the overall ecosystem. From a different perspective, new games integrating with Treasure can leverage the stability and experience gained from more mature cartridges that came before (BlockCrunch).
What to Look For?
In a talk at BlockCrunch, the founders revealed that Treasure is planning to migrate to its own app chain powered by Arbitrum AnyTrust. This move aims to address the challenges of high transaction fees and block space war. By embracing a mild trust assumption, the chain will operate with a committee of self-selected nodes. The advantages offered by app chain are a key consideration for Web3 game builders.
Treasure sees the need for a dedicated game studio to provide robust support for its first-party games, leading to the recent establishment of DarkBright Studios as an in-house development team. This initiative aims to assemble a group of talented individuals with various skills, allowing them to shape the direction of games and, critically, create compelling and immersive narratives for great titles. Smolville (Smolverse’s first game title) is the first game to receive guidance from the ground up (it’s just a bEEEEginning!). Expect more games to follow suit in the future.
“Darkbright stands for the treasure-hunting journey. We dig through the dark until we find the magic. We don’t have bright ideas – we have Darkbright ideas ;)”
Closing Thoughts
Treasure has a bold vision to become a decentralized Nintendo of Web3, and they are backing their claims with concrete actions. Since their inception, they have emerged as the dominant force in the gaming and NFT sector on Arbitrum. With offerings like Treasure*, MagicSwap and DarkBright, they aim to provide a one-stop shop and an immersive experience for both builders and gamers. While we have not yet seen a mature metaverse, and the interoperability seems like a sci-fi concept, Treasure is putting early efforts to bring it to reality. They are building a shared ecosystem that connects games through $MAGIC and NFTs, paving the way for cross-pollination and an exciting future for gaming. And until mature interoperability happens, do you believe in $MAGIC?
RELATED ARTICLES
