Das 🏴‍☠️⚓🌊

why is @playcambria launching a token? sharing a few deep dive thoughts on the topic from my POV 🧵 Q: to start, what is cambria building? albion/RS-like persistent world w/ hyperfinancialized economy of onchain stakes (NFTs, tokens, vol). axie infinity-style eco flywheels on top of a few core risk gameplay loops we've designed around real stakes (artifact farming pvm, raids, ruined dungeons). at a high level, there's only 2 assets at the top that matter: the token (RSGP, think AXS) and charter NFT (think Axies - founding set, then controlled emission of more charters). we don't have a SLP-equivalent floating currency ingame, instead using Silver (1:1 ingame currency pegged to USDC deposited). key starting observation: the token has ultimate primacy. it directly owns the economy and the treasury. if we were ever to end the game, everything folds back into the token first before discontinuation. utility #1 with the token is an algorithmic % allocation of incoming rev from game loops going out to buybacks / bribes (think rng airdrops to holders). this is a clean, modelallable base layer that represents the first step of the flywheel. now we layer in charters, which represents the asset speculation layer of the digital economy being created by this protocol. here, players buy charters / issue new charters / stake charters to various yield venues / sell charters to actively compete in the core gameplay loop. charters is something you pick up after acquiring RSGP if you want to directly engage with the game. there's more further down: energy ($ burned in real time to earn Gold, Silver, Royal Favor, net revenue generating), game NFTs (islands, legendaries, heirlooms) that serve as early juice to reward the core energy loop, royal favor -> locked token emissions, etc. but all you really need to know is that the game takes a revenue cut from these loops into the treasury. zooming back out, the core flywheel is simple - revenue generating loop that's (unsustainably) incentivized early for big green candles / FOMO -> treasury expansion from stables -> backing for asset speculation and token -> bigger incentives budget. utility #2, #3, etc. of token all becomes downstream of this. vote-escrowed governance / proof of stake to control incentive gauges. token required to do x, y, z in the ecosystem. as the "onchain nation state" of cambria grows, it accumulates TVL, assets, network effects with players, etc. which are owned by RSGP. Q: why not launch token earlier? tbh we just haven't really needed a token, until now. it didn't make sense as a design lever for the risk-to-earn minigames we've launched before this. durable, non-incentivized onchain fee rev from these minigames has proven elusive, so the clean revenue token model of e.g. Hyperliquid isn't quite there. we're getting close w/ Dungeon Fishing, but its at like $1m of annualized rev post-airdrop incentives. a full MMO that's 24/7 online and has deep, sustainable economics is something we've been iterating on since we started Cambria. as you can imagine, its a massive endeavor. 3 playtest seasons later, we're finally reasonably confident enough to take it to mainnet. Genesis is the first thing we'll ship that actually does need a token w/ deeper liquidity than genesis nfts for the flywheel to work. it does kind of suck that the macro environment (which is also a key tailwind for the eco flywheel) is significantly degraded now vs even 2 years ago. but this is out of our control. there's been gamefi launches in the past 2 years that have achieved wins for holders (at least immediately on TGE) just because of the macro (market good, lots of people win) before the reality of product fit hit, we started building later in the cycle and never had this a slam dunk option. BUT - I do think though there's also pros to launching low in these environments. part of the reflexivity needs the massive upside NOT to be baked in at the beginning. if everyone is early to a "ponzinomics" loop, no one is, the bar to get things going gets so much higher. and at least personal motivation wise, i much prefer an outcome where we actually win here and reinvent the industry / bring a new type of "game" to the market. Q: why 25% float day 1, fully unlocked, no CEX? we have a lot of airdrop overhang from 2 years of points programs, most of which were earned in better market conditions. we explored the usual low float, "engineered" TGE with day1 speculation model, but this at the end of the day, this involved vesting/lockups that would have just been almost insurmountable sell pressure later on. given we have a probably the best shot (from a core product standpoint) of making wide scale crypto gaming work out of anyone, we're looking to play to our strengths here. if the flywheel takes off, we plan to ladder up into broader, "earned" retail CEX distribution instead of blowing all of our stables on day 1 in a market where retail day1 speculation is close to ATL. honestly, i also really just want us to be as close as possible to what our real market FDV is before we launch. as we release more info / get closer to mainnet, people can naturally speculate and gradually enter as the r/r of the trade fluctuates and we get closer to obvious PMF. I think this is natural and fun. after TGE, our new holder base will naturally evolve. Q: what's the bull case? axie infinity but without the crash. we have a sustainable, net revenue generating core loop. the speculative assets (mostly nfts) on top can 100x or -90% like macau real estate, but there's a floor of players that will always come to the casino. cambria becomes THE MMO of ethereum, with billion-dollar asset / guild treasury TVLs, war games with massive stakes, all onchain and governed by a protocol made up of its biggest players and guilds. a game where value alignment between the game as its players is enforced in code and tokenomics. stories and stakes that people actually care about, with an economy bigger than most countries. Q: what's the bear case? flywheel sputters out, macro continues to deteriorate. execution issues - hacks/security, industrial farming / edge exploitation that can't be designed around, UA doesn't scale / conversion of gamers into risk takers fails. incentives cost more than revenue brought in. high-effort gaming continues to lose to passive entertainment. crypto adoption continues to slow. Q: why an actual game? instead of a gamefi "game" thats just a web UI / idle defi wrapper #1 because I think its more interesting to build. #2 is because its a billions-or-zero bet. only an actual game can be fully immersive. actual games are also imo the only way something like this actually massively breaks out into the mainstream - you get viral footage, real interactive stories, emergent content from MMO sandbox / pvp that scales. our biggest growth inflection point will be winning over Albion Online, Runescape, WoW players who want to play actual games and enjoy the hyperfinancialized RMT-leaning edge of oldschool degen runescape or the current grey market RMT of current MMOs. imagine all of that with digital, instant money that you can layer prediction markets, perps, etc. on top. "your loot is real" / "earn massive $ by mastering the meta of this game" Q: how can I get involved? buy RSGP or put us on your watchlist. i'll share the journey / PMF signals as we go. if you want to play - get a charter NFT, join our upcoming testnet. LPing into the @aeroxyz RSGP / USDC pool early is another cool way to potentially get in w/ early incentives.