Treasure (TreasureDAO)
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anchored·3utFbi…YJDaSummary
TreasureDAO is an Arbitrum-based NFT gaming ecosystem and marketplace powered by the MAGIC token. In March 2022 its marketplace suffered a critical smart contract exploit that allowed attackers to acquire NFTs for free, resulting in approximately $1.4 million in losses across 153 NFTs. Separately, blockchain investigator ZachXBT raised concerns in February 2022 about a core team engineer's alleged prior involvement in failed NFT projects. The project has since experienced severe financial distress, shut down its Treasure Chain layer-2 network in May 2025 after five months of operation, and executed major layoffs in a pivot to AI-agent products.
Connected Entities
6 entities · 60 linked investigations- ZachXBT→mentioned with→Binance(60%)
- Treasure (TreasureDAO)→mentioned with→Arbitrum(70%)
- Treasure (TreasureDAO)→mentioned with→Coinbase(60%)
- Treasure (TreasureDAO)→mentioned with→ZachXBT(70%)
- Treasure (TreasureDAO)→mentioned with→Binance(60%)
- Coinbase→mentioned with→ZachXBT(70%)
- Arbitrum→mentioned with→Binance(65%)
- Arbitrum→mentioned with→Coinbase(65%)
Timeline(11 events)
November 2021
TreasureDAO launches on Arbitrum as an NFT gaming ecosystem powered by the MAGIC token.
February 2022
ZachXBT publishes a Twitter thread alleging TreasureDAO front-end engineer 'Just Cheese' (JC) had prior involvement in several failed or abandoned NFT projects, tracing 134.66 ETH of inflows to his wallet from projects including Mutant Cats and ZombieToadz. TreasureDAO disputes the characterization.
3 March 2022
TreasureDAO's Arbitrum NFT marketplace is exploited via a zero-quantity bug in the buyItem() smart contract function. Attackers acquire 153 NFTs — including 112 Smol Brains and 41 Legions — for zero MAGIC. Losses estimated at approximately $1.4 million. MAGIC token drops over 40%.
3 March 2022
TreasureDAO co-founder John Patten confirms exploit, urges all users to delist NFTs. Marketplace is frozen.
3 March 2022
Within hours of the exploit, attackers return 114 of 153 stolen NFTs to original owners.
4 March 2022
TreasureDAO announces it will propose community-voted remediation for users who did not receive NFTs back. CertiK publishes exploit post-mortem.
December 2024
TreasureDAO launches Treasure Chain, a zkSync-based layer-2 gaming network.
April 2025
Co-founder John Patten publicly discloses severe financial distress: over $11.3 million in Q4 2024 expenses, only $2.4 million in stablecoins remaining in treasury. Announces pivot to AI agents and plan to shut down Treasure Chain.
April 2025
TreasureDAO announces layoffs of approximately 15 employees. Co-founder Karel Vuong departs.
6 May 2025
TIP-52 passed; grants core team emergency powers to shut down Treasure Chain without further community votes. Users urged to bridge all assets out before May 30, 2025.
30 May 2025
Treasure Chain mainnet shut down, five months after launch. MAGIC token falls 18% on the announcement.
Decision Log
- hash: Cw2ZNCcwV6n6PSuEphUTeqVo1dTDP7sdFiGVixMeE7JC
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 13 of 19 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:51 AM
last updated: 9/1/2026, 4:16:56 AM
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