Pirate Nation

Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.

A missed promise is a missed promise. It is not evidence of fraud, and this page does not treat it as any.

1. 3 May 2022

   Pirate Nation describes the game it intends to build

   The account, posting since mid-April, describes a fully onchain game coming to Ethereum and Polygon, made by veterans of FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Command & Conquer. This is more than a year before the public introduction the rest of this record dates the project from, and neither named chain is where the game was eventually run.

   Ahoy! Pirate Nation is a fully on-chain game coming to Ethereum and Polygon Led by industry vets behind franchises like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Command & Conquer We aim to deliver best in class code, top tier art, innovative thinking and a great game https://t.co/HJPzPKTtl8 https://t.co/LTAXsOCzql

2. 5 July 2023

   Pirate Nation publicly introduced

   Proof of Play introduced Pirate Nation, an onchain RPG, in a public Twitter thread from the @PirateNationNFT account; the game launched on Polygon before moving to Arbitrum Nova. Proof of Play announced a $33 million seed round (led by a16z and Greenoaks) on September 21, 2023.

3. 21 September 2023

   Proof of Play introduces the studio

   Proof of Play introduces itself and its investors in the same post. Its original announcement is preserved below.

   Introducing Proof of Play, an onchain game studio & technology company. We are delighted to announce our $33m seed round led by @a16z and Greenoaks, with participation from incredible angels & founders incl. @naval @balajis @justinkan @jtwald @immad @nikil @gabusch & many more. https://t.co/c2BPShTdik

4. 22 February 2024

   Proof of Play announces its Multichain

   A set of chains built for its own games, announced a week before the first of them carried Pirate Nation.

   Introducing: Proof of Play's Multichain An ultra fast constellation of blockchains built on Arbitrum Orbit and paired with our proprietary onchain game engine. The Multichain is optimized to serve real-time, fully onchain gameplay and internet-scale decentralized applications. https://t.co/1jx15MO45M

5. 29 February 2024

   Apex chain goes live with Pirate Nation

   First fully onchain game on its own dedicated mainnet chain, per Proof of Play's own announcement.

6. 29 February 2024

   The Proof of Play Apex chain is now live w/ Pirate Nation! Pirate Nation is now the first fully onchain game deployed to its own Mainnet chain. This is the start of the Multichain: an infinitely scalable constellation of chains that allows us deliver onchain gaming to millions. https://t.co/tlVFPWlAeS

7. 19 June 2024

   Something wonky is happening with the @PirateNation account. We're attempting to escalate with X leadership DO NOT ENGAGE in case anything sus gets tweeted out. Please spread the word until sorted. And before you ask... Yes, 2FA enabled, yes no SMS, yes strong password.

8. 28 August 2024

   Boss chain launch announced

   Second Arbitrum L3 chain, added after Apex hit reported maximum transaction capacity.

9. 14 November 2024

   Pirate Nation Season 3 launches

10. April 2025

    Proof of Play introduces 180-day PIRATE vesting and burns ~10M ineligible-participant tokens

    In conjunction with Season 3 rewards claiming, Proof of Play introduced a 180-day vesting schedule (early claim = 10% of tokens, remainder vesting or burned) and burned roughly 10 million PIRATE (~1% of total supply) allocated to participants without a VIP Pass or Founder's Pirate. Reported by BlockchainGamer.biz; date is the article's publication date, not a confirmed on-chain burn timestamp.

11. 31 July 2025

    *taps mic* Is this thing on?? Proof of Play Arcade - Infinite Tides is now LIVE on Abstract on desktop and mobile! Here's what you need to know 🧵👇 https://t.co/Kqz0QBzGkJ

12. 18 August 2025

    Original onchain shutdown and Apex/Boss wind-down announced

    Reported DAU decline (100,000-plus to ~10,000) and Proof of Play Arcade cited as the ongoing product.

13. 18 August 2025

    Read the full post

    Pirate Nation: The Next Chapter It’s been an extraordinarily busy time here at Proof of Play. For the last few years we’ve shipped hundreds of weekly updates and proved our tech in Pirate Nation. Our team has grown and evolved, added an entirely new line of business with vRNG and expanded to new chains. While diehard community supporters have been with us every step of the way, the game has not attracted enough of an audience to justify continued investment and operation. Given that, we are sunsetting the fully onchain Pirate Nation game along with the Apex and Boss chains at earliest 30 days from today. The reality is that running two chains no longer makes sense from a dollars and cents business perspective. We love Pirate Nation and believe we developed great onchain tech that was proved out through the game. We also believe that successful businesses will be ones that prioritize positive cashflow verticals. The demand for the fully onchain version of Pirate Nation simply isn’t there to sustain operation indefinitely - as such, the best parts of the game will live on via the Proof of Play Arcade on Abstract. The arcade format allows us to bring over different parts of the game over time and even to other chains in the future. We’re streamlining the Proof of Play ecosystem and turning a laser focus on revenue streams for the company. We want our products to be fun, profitable, and so broadly accessible that the end user would never know they’re interacting with crypto if the application didn’t say “Powered by Proof of Play.” Additionally, we’re hosting one final two week event where players can burn all items acquired within Pirate Nation. Burned items will provide Plunder Certificates that will be eligible for future rewards. When we started the onchain gaming journey years ago, the factory-style, rewards-in-perpetuity model for NFTs was the industry standard and seen as the only acceptable route. We minted Founder’s Pirates for free and provided multiple token allocations and in-game benefits for holders. We greatly value the support and community built up around these assets. Given the shutdown of Pirate Nation, going forward our time and resources will be much more successful in supporting a single token ecosystem. Regarding Founder’s Pirates, there will be a final $PIRATE allocation for Founder’s Pirates and afterwards they will transition to a community identity NFT with no further token claims. This will drastically simplify the Proof of Play ecosystem and clear up a lot of space for the upcoming evolution of the $PIRATE token. We’ve expressed publicly that we value $PIRATE, and these changes help solidify our messaging that the best way to align with the Proof of Play ecosystem is by holding $PIRATE. Thank you to everyone who sailed with us. The ticker is $PIRATE.

14. 19 August 2025

    Read the full post

    Tough day. Shutting down Pirate Nation was one of the hardest decisions we've had to make. We started Proof of Play to explore what fully onchain games could look like—games with permanence, community ownership, and new types of player experiences. Pirate Nation was our first big step in that direction, and we poured years of work into it. We fell in love with our universe, the Pirates, and the technology that powered it. While the business reasons for moving on may be sound, it doesn’t make the loss any easier for those who played, contributed, and believed in the project. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who gave Pirate Nation their time, creativity, and trust. I’ve been reading through your messages and feedback all day and will be answering questions and talking about what comes next tomorrow during a town hall on Discord—2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT.

15. 18 September 2025

    Pirate Nation goes offline

    A co-founder marks the moment the original game stopped running, about a month after the shutdown was announced.

    After 3 years, Pirate Nation Classic is officially offline. It's emotional to sunset something you poured so much of yourself into, not just time but LOVE, something impossible to measure. As a 0-1 PM, I have shut down many things, but this one hit the hardest.💔🏴☠️ Onwards! https://t.co/yNirWsBYkg

16. 15 October 2025

    Proof of Play Arcade joins YGG Play Launchpad

17. 26 October 2025

    Read the full post

    interesting interesting. our initial thesis for PoP was that we were going to be early to a growing market (crypto gaming) but it turned out we were just on time to a shrinking sector. thankfully, mobile gaming shows no signs of slowing down. im no expert but im pretty sure its good to be in the tailwinds of industry growth. if you aren't in the shiba story go beta and want to be, pls drop me a line and I'll add you.

18. 3 February 2026

    Adam Fern starts at Robinhood

    The co-founder says he is joining Robinhood as Head of Product, Onchain and DeFi, overseeing its blockchain, wallet and tokenization work.

    Read the full post

    After some time off, I'm excited to share that I'm starting a new position as Head of Product, Onchain & Defi at Robinhood! In my new role, I'll be overseeing the HOOD blockchain, Robinhood Wallet, and our tokenization efforts. I could not be more excited to join a company that has been on the cutting edge of fintech for the past decade, regularly seeing around corners and creating new and exciting products to meet customer needs. As somebody who has been in fintech since 2011, I've long seen the value that blockchains can provide to make finance cheaper, faster, and more accessible to the masses. It took some regulatory changes, an administration change, and for us to get beyond the Toy Phase of this new technology and it's now full steam ahead. If you are excited about ushering in the next phase of global finance, please hit me up! Robinhood is hiring engineering, designers, and PMs Onwards!

19. 4 August 2026

    At closure: Proof of Play Points ruled non-redeemable; Shiba Story Go! sold

    Alongside its cessation-of-operations announcement, Proof of Play stated its internal Proof of Play Points carried no redemption value and confirmed its other game, Shiba Story Go!, had been sold to an undisclosed third party and would continue operating independently.

20. 4 August 2026

    Proof of Play ceases operations; Pirate Nation open-sourced

    Proof of Play announced it was ceasing all operations and open-sourcing Pirate Nation's Unity client, smart contracts and artwork under a CC0 license. This followed the August-September 2025 shutdown of the original game and its dedicated Apex/Boss blockchains. The independent Pirate Nation Foundation said it would continue supporting the PIRATE token and the project website.

21. 4 August 2026

    Read the full post

    Proof of Play will be ceasing operations. When we started out, we believed games using blockchain tech had the potential to usher in a new, decentralized internet. Ultimately, we couldn't build a product and sustainable business that proved out this thesis at scale. We are open-sourcing as much of our code and art as possible so it can be helpful to future builders & agents. Pirate Nation Unity app: https://t.co/PoRxFlWwjC Pirate Nation Smart Contracts: https://t.co/XI6FIr70c1 The Founder Pirates NFTs and the Pirate Nation artwork/IP/logos have been made available under a CC0 license. Available here: https://t.co/oYYJ28tbqS Our internal agent workflow tool for rapidly building software products with small teams: https://t.co/aNYr1Nfq4E The Pirate Nation Foundation is independent from Proof of Play and will continue supporting the $PIRATE token. The Foundation website will remain operational. Proof of Play points will not be redeemable for anything. Shiba Story Go! has been acquired by a 3rd party and will continue to operate independently. Thanks for playing and building with us all of these years. We truly gave it our best effort and are grateful for everyone who passed through and spent time in our community.

Ran out of money

Proof of Play ceased all operations in August 2026 and open-sourced the game's client, contracts and artwork. The onchain game and its two chains had been shut down a year earlier, after the studio said player numbers no longer justified the cost of running them.

62 sources behind this page.

1. 1Investing in Proof of Play · a16z crypto · Sep 2023
2. 2Building the Future of Gaming: How Proof of Play Scaled Pirate Nation with Arbitrum · Arbitrum (Offchain Labs / Arbitrum Foundation blog) · Feb 2025
3. 3How Proof of Play is taking fully onchain games like Pirate Nation to "internet-scale" · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Oct 2024
4. 4Pirate Nation burns 10 million PIRATE tokens and introduces new vesting schedule · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Apr 2025
5. 5Pirate Nation developer Proof of Play shuts down · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Aug 2026
6. 6Pirate Nation shuts down on 18th September · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Sep 2025
7. 7Pirate Nation's launching Season 3 on 14th November · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Nov 2024
8. 8Proof of Play kills Pirate Nation, doubles down on PIRATE token · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Aug 2025
9. 9Proof of Play launches Pirate Nation onto Boss Chain as part of its multichain vision · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Sep 2024
10. 10Proof of Play raises $33 million for onchain game Pirate Nation · BlockchainGamer.biz (Steel Media) · Sep 2023

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