The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2023–2026
Proof of Play's fully on-chain game bet: $33M, Pirate Nation, then a 2026 shutdown
FarmVille co-creator Amitt Mahajan raised $33M from a16z to make timeless on-chain games; Pirate Nation peaked in 2024, studio ceased operations Aug 2026.
Proof of Play
What the business is
A blockchain gaming studio that built Pirate Nation, a fully on-chain social RPG whose battles, crafting and quests run on smart contracts, plus its own Apex and Boss rollup infrastructure to keep on-chain gameplay affordable.
Starting capital：A $33M seed announced 2023-09-21, co-led by a16z crypto and Greenoaks, with Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Twitch founders Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, Mercury, Firebase, Zynga and Alchemy also participating.
How it started
Proof of Play was co-founded by Amitt Mahajan, the FarmVille co-creator and former Zynga executive who had earlier founded Toro (acquired by Google), and staffed with veterans of Epic, Zynga, EA, Riot, Activision, Google, Facebook, Disney and Warner Brothers. The company announced a $33M seed on 21 September 2023 and released Pirate Nation, a social role-playing game, in beta that December.
What happened
Pirate Nation grew into one of the most prominent fully on-chain games, launching its PIRATE token in 2024 (the token peaked at $0.4757 on 18 July 2024) and running on Proof of Play's own Apex and Boss rollups, which at their peak were the two largest gas consumers across Ethereum's rollup ecosystem. By August 2025 the studio had ended gameplay, and it spent the following year winding down.
How it ended up
On 4 August 2026 Proof of Play announced it was ceasing operations, saying it couldn't build a product and sustainable business that proved its thesis at scale. It open-sourced Pirate Nation's client, smart contracts and artwork (MIT and CC0 licences), released its internal AI-agent tool PopBot, sold mobile game Shiba Story Go to an undisclosed third party, and left the independent Pirate Nation Foundation to continue supporting the PIRATE token.
Background
Proof of Play was a blockchain gaming studio led by Amitt Mahajan, co-creator of FarmVille and a former Zynga executive. Its bet was that games built entirely on blockchain, with assets and game state players own, could become fun at mass-market scale and outlive their developers, a reaction to FarmVille's 2020 shutdown wiping out more than a billion hours of player-created content.
The studio announced a $33M seed in September 2023, co-led by a16z crypto and Greenoaks with participants including Naval Ravikant, Twitch founders Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, Zynga and Alchemy. Its first title, Pirate Nation, entered beta in December 2023 and launched its PIRATE token in 2024; the token peaked at $0.4757 in July 2024 before falling more than 99%.
Proof of Play also built its own rollup infrastructure, Apex and Boss, to make on-chain gameplay affordable; Cointelegraph reported the two networks were at their peak the largest gas consumers across Ethereum's rollup ecosystem. The infrastructure made the games work, but it did not make the business sustainable, and by August 2025 the studio had ended Pirate Nation's live gameplay.
On 4 August 2026 Proof of Play said it was ceasing operations because it could not build a product and sustainable business that proved its blockchain-gaming thesis at scale. It open-sourced Pirate Nation code and artwork under MIT and CC0 licences, released its internal AI-agent tooling, and left the independent Pirate Nation Foundation to keep supporting the PIRATE token.
What has to be true
- The permanence thesis was emotionally true but unproven commercially: ownership pleased players, but the studio never showed an on-chain free-to-play game could cover its costs.
- Fully on-chain execution capped the audience: running battles and quests on rollups kept the game niche and technical, far from the mass market FarmVille reached.
- Investor enthusiasm peaked early, at the 2023 seed, before the token market cooled; the studio's $33M war chest funded years of building but not a path to profitability.
- Web3 gaming's broader downturn made an exit or rescue unlikely, leaving open-sourcing the assets as the graceful end of a thesis the company itself conceded failed at scale.
What can be applied
A thesis that is technically bold can still be commercially circular: Proof of Play spent $33M proving on-chain games could exist, but never that enough players would pay to keep one alive.
Aftermath
As of early September 2026 Proof of Play is gone: it announced on 4 August 2026 that it was ceasing operations, and no closure date, employee count or remaining financial position was disclosed. Its public GitHub repositories preserve Pirate Nation's Unity client, smart contracts and artwork, and the internal PopBot agent tool remains available as a reference. Shiba Story Go continues under an unnamed third party, while the independent Pirate Nation Foundation keeps the PIRATE token and staking site operational. The studio said its internal reward points were not redeemable for anything.
Sources
- FarmVille co-creator's startup raises $33 million from a16z crypto and others
- Pirate Nation Studio Proof of Play Shuts Down, Open-Sources Code and Art
- Proof of Play shuts down despite a16z backing
- Proof of Play to shut down after blockchain gaming thesis falls short
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