Pirate Nation TGE: What You Need to Know
PIRATE Tokenomics, Proof of Play, & More
While it was a week of red, this past week saw several interesting token launches, including IO on the AI side, as well as Aethir’s ATH, the native token of the Decentralized Cloud Infrastructure (DCI) protocol. Another token in the mix is PIRATE over on the Web3 gaming side of things. It’s been a little while since we covered Web3 gaming, as the interest, especially from crypto-natives more focused on the DeFi side of things, just hasn’t been there. Recently even KOLs and investors specifically focused on the gaming space have been more pessimistic, with some even saying that the Web3 gaming space is ‘dead’.
In today’s edition, we’ll be focusing on Pirate Nation, an onchain pirate-themed RPG game. The game’s native PIRATE token was listed on Coinbase shortly following TGE, shooting up from ~$0.12 to all the way as high as ~$0.38. In a sea of red, PIRATE stands out and is the best-performing gaming token launch in recent times. We’ll be going over what the Pirate Nation game is, how its tokenomics work, and more. After all, it’s informative to have an eye trained on all areas of the market, to determine if a specific sector is worth investing more time into searching for a deeper edge. NFTs first emerged in 2017/2018; those who stayed somewhat in the loop may have been quick to notice the non-fungible resurgence years later which brought lots of opportunities with it.
Background on Pirate Nation
Pirate Nation is built by Proof of Play. Proof of Play is a studio building out decentralized games, as well as infrastructure for said games. The team raised a notable $33M in a round led by a16z and Greenoaks. The team is currently focused on Pirate Nation as their first and foremost consumer-facing product. The team made the game free-to-play to encourage more users to sign up and ideally create a sort of sandbox environment, to test what works and what doesn’t, enabling helpful lessons to be imported into future ventures. Designing Web3 gaming economies can be a fickle process, and teams like Sky Mavis which have been able to learn from their previous mistakes and successes while still retaining large user bases have an advantage. Proof of Play’s Co-founding team also co-founded the engine behind Farmville, which kickstarted a genre of simplistic but socially interactive games on Facebook.
Pirate Nation describes itself as a fully onchain game, using Arbitrum Orbit as well as Arbitrum Nova. However, transactions are gasless, though transaction histories are still transparent and auditable, publicly. The primary gameplay consists of turn-based combat, sort of similar to something like Pokemon. Users can access more battles, missions, events etc. by using the game’s map. The game has an energy system to limit ‘earning’ potential per day, which can of course be bypassed by paying for more.
The ingame items can be earned or created through gameplay, resulting in a robust secondary market developing. This is the primary method of earning, collecting or crafting various items with the intent of selling these to other users, who will probably make these purchases with the intent to also earn more items, and so the cycle continues.
To actually start playing users need to either enter an access code or purchase a pirate NFT on the proof of play official marketplace to begin. The floor for a Founder’s Pirate currently sits at ~0.90 ETH. Holders of certain NFT collections are eligible to mint a free NFT and begin playing. The game can actually get quite complex when it comes to fully understanding how the economy works; in the interests of time we’ll focus more on the investable PIRATE token.
PIRATE Tokenomics
The PIRATE token is a large part of why people are talking about this Web3 game, so we’ll get right to it. To understand the tokenomics it’s important to understand the business model of the game. Pirate Nation earns revenue from 10% marketplace royalties for NFTs traded, as well as royalties on other marketplaces as well when applicable.
Another aspect related to the tokenomics is the games points program, dubbed ‘BOOTY Points’, which kicked off in April. Various social initiatives and other tasks can be completed to earn points. Season 1 has ended, culminating in the PIRATE TGE, with the subsequent second season now having started.
The PIRATE token’s claim went live on June 13th. This game-specific token can actually be staked to earn Proof of Play points; perhaps the organization behind Pirate Nation will have its own token launch in the future. This may be attractive to the team considering that they have offerings beyond Pirate Nation, including mirrored tokens, which make it possible to play Web3 games on L2s but still have the assets present on Ethereum Mainnet. This is what allows the native PIRATE token to live on the ETH L1 but still be staked and used in other areas of the game’s economy.
PIRATE holders can also use their tokens whether staked or unstaked to buy gems in the Pirate Nation web shop. Simply spending in staked PIRATE earns a 10% discount on gem purchases. Upon TGE, 15% of the maximum PIRATE supply is claimable by the community, out of the 47% allocated to these users.
Important Links
Become a Premium member to unlock all our research & reports including access to our members-only discord server
Join thousands of sharp crypto investors & traders by becoming a Premium Member & gain an edge in the markets. For just $116.58/month you’ll get:
Premium access to the entire Revelo Intel platform
Members Only Discord server
Market Intel - actionable trade ideas
Industry Intel - important trend & narrative overviews
Project Breakdowns & Timelines - Deep dive 50+ page protocol-specific reports
Notes - Summaries of your favorite podcasts & AMAs