[Treasury] Metaplex Vantage Trading Rewards Campaign, Season 1

[MetaplexFoundation]

Submission details

Submitter: smkly
Submitter wallet: rHQpDixvxBBURqeZpSBZggfpnNUDtJDCDheRYVmMquQ
Beneficiary wallet: 2GmeU5pnbusg7vhqPyXwwdhmUTv2nogymeUyLCBnj5Tz

Budget: This proposal does not ask the DAO for any additional MPLX from its treasury. Torque proposes to use 3,520,000 MPLX of the remaining 4,660,141 MPLX leftover from MTP-005.

Assuming this proposal passes, Torque will return 1,140,141 MPLX instead of the amount leftover from MTP-005. Of the 3,520,000 MPLX, approximately 3,000,000 MPLX is delivered to traders as rewards. The remainder covers program operating costs.

Any rewards left unclaimed at the end of Vantage S1 will be returned to the DAO treasury.

Team

Torque is led by Sheldon Smickley and Chris Abiaad and ran MTP-005, the Metaplex Genesis Rewards Campaign Season 1. Since then Torque has run the Frontier Traders program for the Solana Foundation and six tokenized-stock launch campaigns on Solana. Stocks that launched with a Torque campaign held 2.8 times the holders of comparable listings 59 days after listing. Accounts from earlier Frontier campaigns returned and traded about half of the volume in the next one.

Abstract

This proposal asks the DAO to let Torque use 3,520,000 MPLX of the balance left over from MTP-005 to run Metaplex Vantage Trading Rewards, Season 1. The MPLX covers trader rewards and the program's operating costs. Approximately 3,000,000 MPLX will be delivered to traders over the season.

The rewards pool goes to traders using Vantage, with additional rewards for trading tokens launched using Metaplex Genesis. This will lead to additional Metaplex protocol fees that will be used to support the Metaplex ecosystem. The campaign runs 4 weekly epochs from the day Vantage leaves beta, on the same Torque infrastructure, with KYC on every claim and onchain escrow.

Motivation

Bring traders to Genesis launches when they happen. Vantage is where Metaplex users trade tokens launched on Genesis. A rewards season timed the public release of Vantage couples with any Genesis spotlight launches in November and around Breakpoint (Nov 15 to 17) puts incentives where new markets need early depth.

Reuse capital the DAO already approved. Rolling the MTP-005 balance into Vantage S1 avoids a return and re-request cycle, keeps the funds with the operator that already holds them, and stays within what the DAO approved for rewards in the first place.

Build lasting traders, not one-week spikes. Weekly boards bring traders back; a season board and milestone crates keep them. The goal is repeat, real trading on Vantage, measured in engaged traders, not just raw volume.

Description

Rewards mechanics
Leaderboards: volume and PnL boards side by side, so skilled traders with smaller books can win too.
Crates and milestones: an account earns one crate per epoch when it trades 25 USD or more on 3 or more days of the epoch week; the crate pays a random MPLX amount from a published odds table. New-trader milestones pay a fixed amount for a first trade after a Spotlight claim and for a first active week.

Cadence: weekly epochs plus a season board. 4 weekly epochs.

Boosted tokens: a boosted list of Genesis launched tokens, locked at the start of each epoch. Buys of Spotlight tokens earn 2x points and featured tokens 1.5x. The Spotlight list comes from onchain Genesis data and the featured list from the public Vantage endpoint. Both lock the Monday before each epoch.

Contingency: about 10% of the trader pool is held for new-trader milestones and contingency.
Contingency can extend milestone payouts or top up an epoch with Metaplex Foundation approval. Unused contingency returns to the DAO treasury.

Integrity and payouts
Wash and quick-flip filters applied to all scored volume; same-wallet round trips excluded.
72-hour review of the top 10 wallets each epoch, with funding-source checks and slashes under a published policy.

KYC and sanctions screening on every claim.

Rewards held in onchain escrow and claimed directly by winners, so every payout can be audited.

Rule changes during the season
Torque can adjust rewards weights from the next epoch, inside the trader pool approved here, and will post any change publicly before it takes effect.

Program operating costs
Program operating costs (reward distribution, KYC and sanctions screening, the 72-hour integrity review, trader support and reporting) are covered from the 3,520,000 MPLX above under Torque's agreement with the Metaplex Foundation. No other amount is charged to the DAO for Season 1.

MTP-005 Results and Token Accounting
Genesis Rewards Season 1 ran 17 weekly epochs from March 15 to May 28, 2026. 774 wallets earned rewards and at least 284 wallets claimed 2,934,023 MPLX onchain. Genesis bonding-curve trading reached 1.35 million USD from 25,502 wallets during the season. Winners from the final epoch were still active on Genesis 30 days later at 16.5%, against 1.9% for comparable wallets that did not win.

Timeline

Duration: 4 weeks, 4 weekly epochs, starting the day Vantage leaves beta. Estimated date of 11/9/2026. Points accrue from day one; rewards pay retroactively once this proposal passes.
Cadence: weekly syncs and reviews with the Metaplex Foundation, a weekly public leaderboard, and a public end-of-season report within 15 days of close.
Claims window: 14 days after each epoch; unclaimed MPLX returns to the DAO treasury as above.

Drawbacks

Off-chain scoring: points are computed off-chain by Torque. Payouts are onchain and auditable, but the scoring itself depends on Torque's systems.
Rules can change mid-season: weekly tuning makes the program more effective, but traders face rules that can move between epochs.

Success Metrics

Engaged traders: unique KYC-verified wallets trading on Vantage each week, and how many trade in 2 or more epochs.
Volume: wash-filtered trading volume on Vantage, and volume in boosted Genesis tokens.
Cost per engaged trader: MPLX paid out divided by engaged traders.
Integrity: share of volume flagged or slashed.
Claim rate: share of allocated rewards actually claimed.
Platform revenue: Assuming Metaplex introduces fees on Vantage, fees generated from campaign participants will be the primary measure of success.

[MetaplexFoundation]

This Treasury Initiative Proposals is now open for community feedback.