The Ecosystem Fund fulfills a Web3 vision of inclusivity, diversity, and giving power back to the consumer - allowing anyone to be a part of the blockchain. As gaming becomes more representative of diverse populations around the world, PLAY’s vision is that the Ecosystem Fund helps empower and support underserved developers and creators that, for example, identify as women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+.
The Ecosystem Fund is designed to receive ongoing revenues from marketplace fees. As the marketplace GDP grows, along with the value of an PLAY token, the Ecosystem Fund becomes a self-sustaining investment arm of the ecosystem. In the first phases of governance decentralization, the allocation of funds from the Ecosystem Fund is governed by PLAY. The Ecosystem Fund is based on these principles:
At start, 25% of the PLAY token issuance is earmarked for the Ecosystem Fund.
In Q3 2025, the first votes are presented to the community to advise on the distribution of tokens from the Ecosystem Fund, under the rubric of “dev to earn” and “create to earn” - targeting high-value dev teams and creators who bring material benefits to the growth of the ecosystem.
A portion of community token distribution must serve towards investing in the developer and creator ecosystem by empowering underserved communities, such as women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ developers and creators.
The Ecosystem Fund also generates the yield for the Staking Vault. See “Market Making Mechanisms” below for more details on ways the Ecosystem Fund can manage and distribute rewards.
In proceeding with a blockchain solution, PLAY identified the necessity of issuing a utility token with governance rights, for the purpose of enabling a truly distributed, community-owned gaming ecosystem. To proceed without a token would preclude the ability to generate distributed community governance, and would remove an important mechanism for rewarding the “early adopters” - be they devs, creators, or players- whose collective effort in building the ecosystem is central. A token with the correct design would solve these issues.
The proposed token has the following characteristics:
Community Treasury: A token reserve distributed as advances against future financial needs or funding rounds, to fund ecosystem development.
Ecosystem Fund: Enables incentive programs for early adopters to think long-term and work collaboratively towards the development of the ecosystem.
Staking Mechanism: To enable distributed governance, the PLAY token is designed with a staking system that, over time, vests control to the community regarding ecosystem decisions, such as the technical roadmap.
Holders of $PLAY tokens can stake them by placing them into a staking vault.
Tokens in the vault are not available for other use- they are effectively taken out of active circulation.
Staked tokens receive the equivalent of ecosystem rewards, on a weekly basis, in the form of additional PLAY tokens (or fractions thereof).
The distribution of staking payments comes out of the Ecosystem Fund.
The distribution amount is initially set by PLAY, and over time will transfer to a DAO.
These revenues are distributed pro-rata to the stakeholders in the vault.
To qualify on upcoming votes, stakeholders voting power correlates to the staked amount over a set period of time prior to the vote.
The Treasury is designed as a financing option for the future growth of the ecosystem:
5% of the tokens are allocated to the Treasury.
The Treasury provides the option of additional private pre-sales, and an eventual public sale of $PLAY.