Alpha Leak | The Bull Case for TreasureDAO

Welcome, Bankless Nation, to this edition of Alpha Leak. Today on Alpha Leak, we are covering the Treasure DAO ecosystem along with the Matic token. The Treasure DAO community is extremely vibrant. So shout out to all the Treasure DAO community members in the YouTube chat right now. We've never had such a strong community show up so fast, so quickly to a live stream. So cheers. Thank you guys for being here. In these Alpha League episodes, here's what it goes down. We get on a team, an assembly of people from various communities and various projects around the from the crypto ecosystem, just to give the pitch as the bull case for that project, the bull case for that community. Why should we be bullish on the magic token? Am I sleeping on magic? Should it be a part of my portfolio? We are going to go and do a deep dive into the magic ecosystem, the treasure DAO ecosystem, to really get a full grasp for what is going on there. And I was trying to do my due diligence on Treasure just to be informed about this interview because we got the three, two of the co-founders and plus one on the show to talk about treasure. But going down the rabbit hole, it was so much deeper than I thought it was. But from the gist that I've got, uh it's a very ambitious project. It spawned out of the OG loot phenomenon, but morphed into something much more grand and much, much different. It's in an ecosystem with some insane ambitions. It's both a gaming ecosystem for Web3 that and also is helping developers look for distribution, but also could eventually unfold into an OpenSea competitor. And so once again, we are going to answer the question: what is the bull case for Treasure DAO? And am I sleeping on magic? And should I have it as a part of my portfolio? So these are going to be the things that we answer in today's show. If you are a member of a community that is different from Treasure DAO, and you think that the bull case for your community should be told, here's what you need to do. You need to assemble a team. Maybe it's the co-founders, maybe it's the co-founder, the founder, maybe it's a bunch of community members. But you need to assemble a team, you need to put an agenda together to help me do my due diligence so I can host a good show. And you need to send it to me and let me know that you've assembled a team, you've got the notes down, and you're ready to tell the bull case for your particular project, your particular community. Uh and that is what we do every uh we're gonna do these mostly every Friday, but today's Thursday, uh just because of a special case. Uh but towards the end of the week is with the Alpha League time to talk about the bull case for your particular community. And this week it is, of course, Treasure Dow's turn. Uh the second we've ever done on one of these things, the first being the Maker Dow show we did last week. We're gonna go ahead and get right into the show and talk about the bull case for treasure, right after we talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible. Uh thanks for coming on to Bankless. I'm really excited to dive into treasure and hear about the bull case for for treasure. Um, Garp, uh, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, great to be here.

And Pita as well, thanks for coming on.

Hey, likewise. Thanks for having us.

And uh John as well, thank you for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Uh all right, cheers guys. First uh uh I wanna just dive into a little bit of your guys' backgrounds. Uh so I'll start in the same order that I rattled off some names. Garp, uh give us a little bit more of a detail about who you are and and and how you came to be at Treasure.

Yeah, sure. So

kind of like similar to a lot of people, had a friend who kind of uh introduced me to kind of ETH back in the day, 2016, was too busy at work,

um, kind of forgot about it, you know, went over my head, um, was just too kind of wrapped up in things and then um regretted that for a long time. Um 2017, I guess kind of mid to the early 2017, I kind of fell down the rabbit hole like a lot of people did.

Um I actually left my job, like a lot of people, was the top signal. Um, at the end of 2017, into 2018, actually tried to do a couple of things in crypto with a couple of friends, was loads of fun. Um, had my first child though. Wife told me you need to come back home.

Could no longer travel, um, which is fine. And then, you know, I've been in kind of crypto ever since, but

um

kind of joined Treasure within the first week um again, um, loved buying the top. So literally became a community member, joined the Discord, um, was really kind of vibing what was going on there, saw some great stuff from the community early on community um with John and the founders. Um, we just had like kind of vibed a couple uh a couple of times and then we got on a call and kind of the rest is history, and now I kind of look after after growth. It's been a wild ride, but loads of fun.

Uh Peter, let's turn to you. Tell us a little bit about your history and how you came to be at Treasure.

Oh, yeah. So I kind of stumbled across like Ethereum and crypto in general, like in uh 20 end of 2016, with uh some of the Ethereum meetups and so forth that were hosted by Consensus.

Uh, you know, started learning about things like Aragon and like the crazy stuff they were building, with like building

essentially like

uh their own governance and their own states and virtually.

Um at the time I was working uh like doing like game theory research in academia, so studying things like.

Option mechanisms and how speculation happens in financial markets.

Got out of that and eventually was introduced to

the guys building Open Bazaar and helping build some software there, like mobile apps and stuff like that.

And uh, you know, like got really wrapped up into like the whole 2017, 2018 kind of like

ICO boom, started uh working out funds there. And then, you know, eventually,

um, you know, it wasn't,

you know, all

no peaches and roaches there. So there was some

um a lot of.

That volatility there. But eventually um I stuck in the space,

went through like DeFi summer and so forth, and um gradually opened my eyes to like NFTs and especially what the guys at Treasure Dow was doing.

So I joined the team a little bit later, but mostly because uh I just saw a lot of

potential with um like the the the the interplay between DeFi and NFTs.

So yeah, that's my journey.

Awesome. And of course, uh John, last but not least, give us your give us your background. How'd you come to be at Treasurer and what's your track uh track record throughout crypto?

Um, so I got into crypto in 2018. Um, I had heard about it in 2011. My roommate

uh was raving about Bitcoin. I told him it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. And I didn't hear about Bitcoin again until 2017

when it was $20,000. So I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Um, and then

I got really into DeFi in 2018 and 2019,

and then um slowly started getting more involved in the space as it was um eating up

my time. I was a statistical analyst before that.

Um, I started writing articles in DeFi, and then I got a really lucky break last summer when um Sonny Agriwal um offered

um uh position in growth at Osmosis, which was about to launch, um, and then uh co-founded um Treasure last September.

Awesome, awesome. Okay, thank you guys for uh and actually I I want to get into treasure, of course, because that's what this episode is gonna be about. But first, um two of you guys are are anons. John, you're not an anon, but two of you guys are. Uh why why anon? Uh Garp, let's start with you.

Yeah, I think like the original um kind of reason for that was because um I was working at my um old job at the time. Uh and so you know I was kind of doing two two things at once, I guess. Uh working from home kind of facilitated that.

Um I was working in, you know, uh kind of corporate strategy um within like a big kind of company. Probably uh not advisable for me to also be kind of aping in and doing all things kind of crypto at the same time. Um I was making it work, I was working probably like ridiculous hours. Um, but yeah, that's I guess it's kind of been a continuation from that. I suspect over time, you know, I will um.

Become docs, which you know, I'm sure it will like progressively progressively happen anyway. But that that's just kind of the genesis, genesis of it.

Yeah, gotta keep the shenanigans away from the employers while you were wearing a suit and tie, yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, uh PETA, uh why why Anon?

Oh um like I'm semi docs, so like if you dig um like deeply enough, you'll find out who I am. But mainly like uh I just want to keep the focus on like the team and like the the things that they're building and stay focused on.

Um, you know, like building what we're building instead of

you know getting into fights on Twitter and so forth. So

yeah, that's the main reason.

Yeah, sometimes I definitely envy you guys for sure. Um

All right, so let's go into it. And for for people that have never heard about treasure before, or even the community experts on on treasure, who you know, we can all refine our mental models and our understandings uh a little bit. When you zoom all the way out, what is the most concise and easy way to explain the product and vision for treasure? John, I'll throw this one to you.

Yeah, so the idea behind Treasure is that the metaverse is an economic layer more so than a visual one.

Um so we're all from DeFi backgrounds, um, as we mentioned. And then

we when we got into NFTs, we noticed a lot of people were talking about the metaverse as.

Um, you know, a 3D thing or VR or AR, but to us it's more just a digital economy. It's the basic infrastructure. So, you know, you have resources that