Decoding Treasure DAO: The "Nintendo" of the Crypto World
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Decoding Treasure DAO: The "Nintendo" of the Crypto World
TreasureDAO has been able to stand out due to its excellent token economics design, community operations, and precise understanding of market demand.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Hotairballoon
I. What is Treasure?
Treasure DAO (short for Treasure) is a native metaverse gaming ecosystem on Arbitrum, aiming to bring together games and players through its ecosystem token MAGIC. Treasure initially began as an NFT project within the Loot ecosystem before evolving into an independent decentralized gaming ecosystem with shared resources, community, and infrastructure.
The platform integrates applications from NFTs, DeFi, and GameFi, aiming to support NFT and metaverse projects in building their ecosystems on this platform while enabling interoperability between projects.
We can understand Treasure from two perspectives. First, TreasureDAO is a decentralized game publishing platform that provides developers with tools and resources to build, launch, and tokenize Web3.0-style games.
Second, as a foundational economic control layer for other games, external projects may outsource their token management operations to TreasureDAO.
II. Team and Funding
1. Team
The majority of Treasure's team members come directly from the community. Treasure is composed of a global team of developers, product managers, artists, brand builders, marketers, economists, and gamers, all supported by a close-knit and vibrant network of DAO contributors and enthusiastic community members.
TreasureDAO has established a framework where the community can co-build alongside the core team, receiving rewards in MAGIC tokens for developing key parts of the ecosystem. These incentives help expand the broader ecosystem and encourage other communities to build on the Treasure platform.
According to the official website (https://treasure.lol/team), the co-founders of Treasure are John Patten and Karel Vuong. John Patten serves as Co-Founder and CEO and was previously Head of Growth at Osmosis.
2. Funding
On September 16, 2022, Treasure DAO proposed selling $3.5 million worth of its ecosystem token MAGIC. This token sale was led by Digital Strategies Guild, with participation from 1kx, Neon DAO, ID Theory, and new investors including Arbitrum, Skycatcher Crypto, IOSG, Alchemy Ventures, IndiGG, StreamingFast, and other strategic partners.
III. Origins of TreasureDAO
Let’s trace the origin and development of the TreasureDAO project to better understand its founding vision.
September 2021: Launched with a mission to serve the gaming ecosystem and prioritize community
Loot, initiated by Don Hoffman in August 2021, adopted a bottom-up approach by offering free NFT mints. Treasure was one of the projects influenced by this model, launched by John Patten in September 2021, with the core principle of community-first.
Treasure offered free minting of its Genesis NFTs called Treasure Cards and distributed some to the Loot community. Within a month of launch, Treasure created its first yield protocol—“Magic Farm.”
From the start, Treasure iterated faster than any other Loot-related project and set a long-term goal of creating a loyal community hub where game developers could build upon it.
John Patten even introduced a new concept: “Proof of Imagination: Joy as a Form of Collateral,” which became a core principle during the early stages of building the Treasure ecosystem.
November 2021: Transitioned to Arbitrum and launched the first NFT marketplace
Treasure initially operated on Ethereum Layer 1. However, after a month, the team realized that staying solely on Ethereum Layer 1 wouldn’t be sufficient to impact gaming communities using their unique bottom-up method. As a result, Treasure officially migrated to Arbitrum in October 2021 and launched Treasure Marketplace—the first NFT marketplace on Arbitrum—in November 2021.
February 2022: Launch of the flagship game Bridgeworld
Bridgeworld is a strategy game centered around mining, farming, summoning, exploration, and gamified DeFi mechanics.
Atlas Mine is the staking protocol within Bridgeworld that rewards users with MAGIC based on quantity, time, and NFT boosts (such as Legions and Treasures). It establishes an interconnected economy built atop MAGIC, Legion NFTs, and Treasure NFTs, designed to bootstrap the entire Treasure ecosystem.
April 2022: Key improvement introducing external partners instead of relying solely on core contributors
To fulfill its vision of becoming a decentralized gaming hub, the Treasure team recognized that building only a finance-centric ecosystem wasn't enough. They began shifting focus toward creating actual games and bringing in experienced game developers.
In April 2022, Treasure announced a partnership with Strider—a team of seasoned gaming industry veterans—to develop games within the Treasureverse. At this point, Treasure decided to expand its system to include collaborative projects rather than relying exclusively on core contributors.
June 2022: Rebranding and ambitious vision for TreasureDAO
Treasure defined three key layers: Armory (games and metaverses), Community (sub-communities and connections within Treasure), and Infrastructure (shared economic engine, tools, and resources empowering builders).
This demonstrated Treasure’s confidence in building the first decentralized gaming platform to reshape next-generation gaming. For example, Treasure originally planned to operate two separate markets: Trove for all Arbitrum NFT trading priced in ETH, and Treasureverse as a MAGIC-only market for Treasure ecosystem assets. However, later the team gained more confidence in positioning Trove as the central marketplace across Arbitrum and L2s, deciding to merge them into one unified experience without distinguishing between internal and external ecosystems.
IV. Main Products
TreasureDAO currently offers key products such as Trove Marketplace, Bridgeworld, and MagicSwap, which have become foundational infrastructure within the Treasure ecosystem.
1. Trove Marketplace
TroveMarket provides NFT trading services for various games and metaverse projects within the Treasure ecosystem.
Launched in June 2022, Trove Marketplace evolved from the original Treasure Marketplace introduced in November 2021. The initial idea was to create an NFT marketplace specifically for projects built on Treasure, and it has since grown into one of the leading NFT marketplaces on Arbitrum.
To date, the marketplace has recorded over $270 million in total trading volume.
2. Bridgeworld
A game launched by TreasureDAO centered around distributing the MAGIC token.
Bridgeworld is a strategic commerce, trade, and domination game upgraded from the original blockchain game Legions, and serves as the flagship title developed by the Treasure DAO team.
Bridgeworld combines multiple gameplay elements. Players can complete missions using purchased Legions to earn various NFT rewards. These NFTs can either be sold for the native MAGIC token or combined into more complex NFTs for mining purposes.
3. MagicSwap
MagicSwap is a DEX providing liquidity for gaming assets within the Treasure ecosystem.
MagicSwap aims to create a more balanced and dynamic financial system, offering frictionless NFT trading experiences. It uses MAGIC as both governance and fee token, charging a 0.5% fee on transactions executed through MagicSwap pools.
V. Governance
Treasure DAO is currently one of the relatively mature examples of decentralized governance among NFT projects. Treasure DAO consists of two components: the Forum for discussing proposals and Snapshot for voting on them.
Any community member has the right to submit proposals or improvement suggestions regarding Treasure governance. Proposals must be publicly posted on the Forum for at least one day to gather feedback and discussion before moving to Snapshot for voting.
Community members holding governance tokens review and vote on proposals. A proposal passes if it receives over 66% approval. Voting power is proportional to the amount of governance tokens held—the more tokens, the greater the voting weight—and longer staking durations further increase voting influence.
Through decentralized governance, the Treasure community collectively decides critical matters such as project direction, organizational growth, and updates. Thus, Treasure DAO stands as a significant example of decentralized governance in practice.
VI. Tokenomics
The total supply of MAGIC tokens is 347,714,007, with a current circulating supply of 222,275,433, representing approximately 63.92% of the total MAGIC supply.
The MAGIC token distribution is as follows:
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Treasure Farm: 33%;
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Mining: 25%;
-
Staking: 17%;
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Ecosystem Development Fund: 15%;
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Team: 10% (this portion will be gradually released over 12 years)
MAGIC employs a release mechanism of high initial circulation followed by annual halving of subsequent emissions.
As the native token of the Treasure platform, MAGIC serves several primary functions:
1) Staking to earn MAGIC;
2) Summoning Legions and synthesizing NFTs in Bridgeworld;
3) Serving as the settlement currency on TroveMarket;
4) Used in other in-game scenarios, such as battle staking currency in BattleFly;
5) Participating in project governance, such as allocating ecosystem funds or treasury revenues.
As the ecosystem continues to grow, the use cases for MAGIC tokens will continue to expand.
VII. Operational Data
1. Active Users
According to data from Dune Analytics, the weekly active user count is 1,474.
From the chart above, we can observe:
1) In the first half of 2022, active users were high due to the launch of new products such as Bridgeworld, Smolverse gaming system, and NFT trading platforms, marking Treasure’s ecosystem entering a stable growth phase.
2) Another peak occurred from November to December 2022, driven by The Beacon—a pixel-style Free-to-Play action RPG—which reignited enthusiasm in the Treasure ecosystem. The game features simple mechanics involving level completion, quizzes, and item trading.
3) In January this year, Treasure DAO launched its Arbitrum-supported Game Creator Program. Additionally, anticipation around the Arbitrum airdrop brought another small surge in on-chain user activity.
Overall, Treasure’s current ecosystem shows declining active user numbers, consistent with the broader downturn in the GameFi sector.
TroveMarket, as the NFT trading service within Treasure, along with the Bridgeworld gaming ecosystem, remain the core hubs for user engagement and thus attract relatively higher levels of activity.
In contrast, MagicSwap sees relatively fewer active users.
2. NFT Trading Volume
According to data from Dune Analytics, Trove’s current monthly NFT trading volume on Arbitrum is around 1.08 million MAGIC (approximately $800,000). In January 2022, trading volume exceeded 42 million MAGIC, reaching an all-time high. Since then, monthly NFT trading volume has steadily declined and currently stands at about 2% of its peak value. This decline is largely attributable to the overall downturn in the NFT market.
From the chart above, Legions accounts for the largest share of NFT trading volume at 33.8%, followed by Smol Brains at 21.9%, and Treasures at 11.9%.
Now let’s examine the past 90 days.
Over the past 90 days, Consumables had the highest trading volume at 800,000 MAGIC, followed by Treasures at 570,000 MAGIC, and Smol Brains ranked third with 410,000 MAGIC.
3. Social Media
Looking at social media performance, as of August 13, 2023, Treasure DAO’s official Twitter account has 144,000 followers, and its Discord server has 32,004 members.
4. Incubated Games
According to data from the official website (https://treasure.lol/games), TreasureDAO has incubated 11 games so far, including The Beacon, Tales of Elleria, Kuroro, Knights of the Ether, Realm, and others.
5. MAGIC Token Performance
Currently, the MAGIC token is listed on major exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Bitget, Huobi, and Gate. The MAGIC market cap stands at $130 million. According to CoinMarketCap, it ranks #168 globally, with a fully diluted valuation of $206 million.
The historical low price of the MAGIC token was 0.1837 USDT, while its all-time high reached 6.32 USDT. The current price has dropped 90.6% from its peak and is now slightly over three times its historical low.
VIII. Conclusion
In summary, TreasureDAO has managed to stand out among numerous GameFi projects thanks to its strong tokenomic design, effective community management, and precise understanding of market needs.
TreasureDAO provides Web3 gamers with an aggregated gaming platform while offering essential infrastructure for game developers and publishers. Ultimately, TreasureDAO acts as a bridge between players and Web3 games.
TreasureDAO has cultivated an active and loyal community where participants can play games, engage in ecosystem governance, stake tokens, and more. It has evolved into a decentralized gaming ecosystem driven by passionate players and builders, deepening the bond between users and the platform—this is one of the key factors behind TreasureDAO’s success.
As the utility token fueling the TreasureDAO ecosystem, MAGIC lies at the heart of Treasure’s construction efforts, continuously gaining new utilities and integrations.
Each community within the Treasure ecosystem builds its own narrative around the MAGIC token, linking storytelling with economic models. Through this approach, MAGIC functions as a reserve currency connecting the entire Treasure ecosystem.
Of course, TreasureDAO’s daily active users and trading volumes have declined recently, reflecting the broader bearish sentiment in the crypto market. However, as market conditions improve and more users enter the Web3 space, TreasureDAO’s advantages are expected to become increasingly evident.
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