Summary
This proposal implements the following:
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Discontinuing the Bridgeworld project and Canopy 2.0 game
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Legions holders would receive an airdrop of their original NFTs onto ArbitrumOne (details TBD)
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MAGIC emissions currently allocated to Bridgeworld would be redirected to a marketing fund focused on engaging AI influencers and thought leaders to promote Treasure
Rationale
Resource Allocation
Treasure’s operational burn (excluding Bridgeworld): $2.2 million annually*
Bridgeworld’s annual burn: approximately $660,000
Historical investment in Bridgeworld: ~200 million MAGIC tokens
The original Bridgeworld 2.0 plan would represent a significant percentage of annual expenditure relative to current treasury size. Resource optimization requires periodic evaluation of program effectiveness and return on investment. The Bridgeworld 2.0 plan would not have been approved given the current treasury size and the percentage of annual burn it represents (~25%).
Web3 Gaming Reality
The DAO previously voted to move away from gaming due to limited traction in the web3 space. Major projects like Treeverse have launched with high-quality products but experienced underwhelming token generation events due to insufficient market demand. Canopy operates with nearly depleted MAGIC emissions, providing minimal incentive mechanisms for engagement. MMO-style games require widespread participation to succeed, and current active holder numbers do not support this requirement.
Failed Growth Engine
Bridgeworld represents Treasure’s largest historical investment at approximately 200 million MAGIC tokens. This scale of investment warrants the highest standards of viability assessment.
The original community incentive program distributed MAGIC to encourage ecosystem promotion, but onchain analysis seems to show that most beneficiaries liquidated their holdings and are no longer active participants. Current Bridgeworld holders seem to represent a very small percentage of total MAGIC stakeholders.
No one is owed MAGIC emissions. The DAO chooses to invest in people and programs that are likely to grow adoption of the token.
We understand that some individuals may have purchased at high prices after a free mint distribution that originally occurred as part of a liquidity pool raffle when MAGIC’s market cap was under $1 million. At the time, no one imagined Legions hitting 30 ETH. They were simply meant as a fun keepsake to spark liquidity. Over time, the market drove the Legions’ value, and buyers acted on their own expectations and decisions. The team has spent years earnestly seeking fixes. There is not a viable solution. Punishing today’s DAO and community for decisions made in the earliest days is unfair.
Strategic Timing
Canopy is approximately two weeks from Season 1 completion, but launching would establish ongoing maintenance obligations and community expectations for continued development. Historical precedent demonstrates that sunsetting games with active financial stakeholder involvement becomes increasingly difficult after launch. Proceeding would commit resources to long-term support during a period when the organization is prioritizing other growth initiatives.
Market Evolution
The team has encouraged the Bridgeworld community to transition Legions’ narrative toward collectible status (a status symbol in the MAGIC community) while the DAO focuses on high-growth, revenue-generating markets. The core challenge facing Treasure since 2021 has been expanding beyond existing community boundaries. Redirecting Bridgeworld emissions toward marketing initiatives targeting AI influencers and thought leaders addresses this fundamental growth constraint more directly than continued gaming development.
Team Morale
Recruitment for Bridgeworld-specific roles has become increasingly challenging due to community dynamics. Contributors have departed since the Harvester Wars period due to difficulties with Bridgeworld community interaction. This has resulted in talent acquisition challenges and the loss of high-performing team members. Treasure has lost employees capable of producing billion-dollar ideas whose reason for leaving was simply being unable to talk to or be around the Bridgeworld community any longer, despite positive relationships with all other aspects of the organization including the team, vision, game partners, L2 BD teams, and so on. Nearly half a dozen professionals have independently reached similar conclusions since 2021, indicating a systemic community failure. Treasure contributors have reached a point where recruiting for these roles raises ethical concerns, given the consistently negative impact on employee mental health and professional development. We don’t feel comfortable bringing new people into this situation or risking our personal reputations describing it differently than it is.
The governance structure creates an untenable working environment where contributors’ employment depends on DAO funding while community members backlash at efforts by contributors to create a healthy, non-toxic work environment by banning or muting disruptive participants. Bridgeworld employees take a modest salary aiming to produce 100x potential for the holders with the uncomfortable understanding that in a DAO, contributors can be capriciously fired by the holders but not the other way around. It is a fundamentally broken incentive structure: contributors are expected to develop technology that distributes rewards to individuals who face no accountability for undermining the project through extraction, public criticism, and overwhelmingly negative discourse, directly harming both MAGIC’s reputation and contributors’ individual standing in crypto, and yet only the holders enjoy the upside potential of the Bridgeworld game team’s efforts.
Bridgeworld emissions represent investments in community members to serve as project ambassadors, not unconditional entitlements. Resources would be more effectively allocated toward engaging new voices and leaders capable of representing Treasure professionally in broader crypto and mainstream markets.
*Annual burn will be reduced to $2.2 million excluding Bridgeworld by October 2025. Additional cuts to infrastructure and staffing have been put in place that will fully take effect at this time. If this proposal passes, Treasure’s burn will be ~20% of the rate in Q4 2024.