Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author | Dingdang ( @XiaMiPP )
The crypto market seems to be experiencing a deep winter. Just half a year ago, we were still immersed in the illusion that the bull market was coming. Now, perhaps only Bitcoin can still be believed in, and the copycats have already damaged the foundation.
Recently, many copycat projects have announced their closure due to funding shortages, user loss, and operational pressure. From the blockchain game ecosystem Treasure DAO to the Web3 social application Phaver, to the crypto shooting game Shrapnel, these projects were once regarded as pioneers of innovation, but now have left the market in disgrace. Their failure not only exposes the sharp deterioration of the market environment, but also reveals the deep fragility of crypto projects in technology and business models.
TreasureDAO: The sad farewell of a blockchain gaming star
Treasure DAO was once a shining star in the blockchain game field. Its NFT and MAGIC token ecosystem was all the rage from 2023 to early 2024. It was regarded as the Nintendo narrative of the GameFi track, attracting the keen attention of a large number of users and investors. At that time, it was very popular in the blockchain game market, and its popularity was comparable to that of Axie Infinity at the time.
However, on April 3, its chief contributor John issued an announcement, announcing that the operation of the game and Treasure Chain would be terminated due to deteriorating financial conditions. The announcement showed that Treasure DAOs current annual operating expenses are about 8.3 million US dollars, and there are only 2.4 million US dollars left in the treasury. It is expected that the funds can only last until July 2025. If the idle funds of 785,000 US dollars can be withdrawn from the market maker Flowdesk, the operation time may be extended to February 2026. In addition, the ecological fund still holds 22.3 million MAGIC, with a current market value of about 2.3 million US dollars, but if MAGIC depreciates significantly, DAO may fall into financial difficulties as early as December 2024 to February 2025.
The main problem of Treasure DAO is the broken capital chain . The high operating costs and limited treasury form a huge gap. The depreciation risk of the core asset MAGIC and the markets indifference to blockchain games have left the project with no way out.
According to Dune data, the monthly active users of the Treasure ecosystem in March were less than 1,000, only 1.5% of the peak period. The trading market has long been relatively light.
Shrapnel: The Shooters Financial Nightmare
Shrapnel, developed by Neon Machine, is a crypto shooting game that gained market attention in early 2024 due to the blockchain game boom. In terms of financing, Shrapnel has performed quite well, with a total financing amount of up to US$37.5 million. The investment team is luxurious, including Polychain Capital, IOSG Ventures, Dragonfly and other well-known institutions. However, ironically, despite such successful financing, Shrapnels token SHARP has never set foot on any major exchange, and even a ticket has not been purchased.
On April 6, Blockworks reported that Neon Machine is facing serious financial difficulties. The company has consumed nearly $86.9 million in operating funds (not financing). Although it has $21.7 million in revenue in 2024, it will suffer a net loss of $11.4 million due to operating costs of $33 million. Currently, it is burning $2-3.5 million per month, its cash has dried up, and it owes millions of dollars in debt to external suppliers. After at least three rounds of layoffs, the companys employees have dropped sharply from nearly 100 to more than a dozen, and its Seattle headquarters was closed at the end of March.
According to the revelations, Shrapnels failure was due to huge losses and high operating costs, which led to a widening of net losses and the depletion of cash flow. The new round of financing planned for early 2025 failed to materialize, and the market funding crunch completely extinguished this shooting star.
Despite the dire financial situation, Neon Machine still announced that it will launch Shrapnel globally by the end of 2025. At the same time, the Spirit Realm Peoples Game Lab and the Shrapnel creative team have reached a preliminary cooperation intention on issues such as the casting and distribution of game digital assets in the Chinese market. Hopefully, it is not a self-deceiving rhetoric.
Phaver: A flash in the pan for Web3 social
Phaver was once the largest mobile social application on Lens and gained a certain amount of attention in the Web3 social field. It completed a $7 million seed round of financing in October 2023 and entered the market through TGE in September 2024. Unfortunately, after the token was launched, it almost broke the issue price.
According to DeFi researcher Ignas, Phaver has ceased operations. The team admitted that Phavers suspension was due to multiple problems: technical failures in TGE and airdrops prevented users from receiving their tokens in time, which led to a crisis of trust. Low market sentiment made Web3 social applications unattractive, resulting in high CEX listing fees (over $1 million) without returns. In addition, the team did not sell tokens during the TGE, resulting in insufficient operating funds. In addition, as a Finnish company, Phaver had to pay 1 to 2 months of employee severance pay. Under multiple pressures, the project eventually ran out of funds and was unable to recover.
Currently, some former team members are developing SocialDAO, trying to find new uses for Phavers native token SOCIAL, but the prospects are unclear.
Rollup.Finance: The Death of Layer 2
Rollup.Finance was once an ambitious Layer 2 expansion solution. In December 2023, it announced the acquisition of the automated market-making protocol CherrySwap, attempting to expand its market presence by integrating resources. However, who would have thought that this gamble would end in a dismal failure. In July 2024, the project team reluctantly announced the cessation of operations. Although they have struggled hard in the bear market over the past 16 months and achieved growth in trading volume, the lack of support from the zkSync ecosystem and product-market fit has brought all efforts to naught.
Users were given a final month to close their positions and withdraw their funds, with the platform shutting down completely on September 21, 2024. Orders that were still open at expiration will be automatically liquidated, and affected users will have an additional month to withdraw their funds. Since then, Rollup.Finances email, official Twitter account, and Discord support channel have been deactivated, and the once ambitious platform has been reduced to silence.
Conic Finance: The DeFi ecosystem’s broken chain
Conic Finance is the Omnipools protocol in the Curve Finance ecosystem. It attracted attention during the DeFi craze in early 2024. Financing information shows that it completed US$1 million in financing in July 2023, and the investor was Curve founder Michael Egorov.
In July 2023, Conic Finance suffered a flash loan attack and lost about $220,000. On March 9, 2025, Conic Finance finally announced that it would cease operations, and all liquidity providers (LPs) were required to withdraw funds from Omnipools, and the Conic Treasury returned the remainder of Michael Egorovs investment in July 2023 to him. The project will also stop all Votium bribes and incentives for the CNC/ETH Curve pool.
Conic Finances failure stems from technical issues, team turmoil, and a deteriorating market environment. The core team had been developing a new version for Conic. However, despite working with auditors, the team failed to come up with adequate fixes for several issues with the new version. Ultimately, this left the team without complete confidence in releasing a new audited version. During this period, after some core members announced their resignation, the remaining team ultimately decided to liquidate assets after assessing that there was no continued value.
The current Conic deployment is running fine and has not experienced any security-related issues. The Conic contracts will remain open source on Github, including the latest changes audited by ChainSecurity.
The failure of these projects is not an isolated incident, but a microcosm of the market winter and the bursting of the industry bubble. From Treasure to Shrapnel, the collective demise of copycat projects is regrettable, but it has sounded the alarm for the industry. In this severe winter, survival is the first priority.
Reducing operating costs, optimizing resource utilization, and ensuring the development of core functions are urgent tasks. Whether struggling on the brink of funding exhaustion or being unable to move forward in front of technical bottlenecks, copycat projects must learn to find a way out in adversity: strengthen community support, embrace transparent governance, cooperate with mature ecosystems, and even bravely redefine their own value.
Although winter is cold, it is also a furnace for tempering.
