Titans

Overview

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Titans is an NFT and DePin aggregation ecosystem built on the Cardano blockchain. To date, Titans has released three interconnected products:

  • Titans (PFP Collection): A 20-House profile-picture NFT series where players swear allegiance to a House, gaining unique bonuses and private community access. Holders can send Titans on Missions to earn resources and climb community leaderboards.

  • Strongholds (Utility NFTs): Revenue-generating assets varying in size, theme, and site type. Each site produces Reward Points tied to different revenue streams. At the end of every four-week Age, holders earn ADA proportional to their accumulated Reward Points.

  • $TITAN Token: A DePin aggregator token that invests in high-potential DePin projects across Cardano and beyond. Profits are reinvested to grow the ecosystem and reward token holders.

While each product stands independently, they share synergistic features that reward deeper engagement and strengthen the Titans ecosystem.

Metadata as a Mechanic

NFT metadata played a central role in the design of Titans’ gamification platform. While early concepts explored mechanical functionality for every trait, I streamlined the system to focus on the most impactful metadata elements — Class and Species — balancing accessibility for collectors and investors with depth for engaged players.

  • Class System: Six escalating rarity tiers — Peasant, Townsfolk, Military, Mystic, Royal, and the ultra-rare Titan (1/1). Only 20 Titan-class NFTs exist, each serving as the head of its House. Titans and Royals gain governance abilities, enabling them to direct House members on missions.

  • Species & Mission Benefits: Each class carries unique perks tied to mission types. For example, Peasants excel at food gathering, while Military NFTs specialize in raid missions. This system links rarity to functional advantages, reinforcing both collectible value and gameplay utility.

By focusing mechanics on a few prominent metadata traits, I ensured the system remained intuitive, rewarding, and scalable, delivering value to casual collectors while still providing meaningful depth for active participants.

Stronghold NFT Collection

Following the Titan PFP release, we launched the Stronghold NFT collection — 5,000 NFTs designed as passive income assets. Each Stronghold generates Reward Points that correspond to different revenue streams:

  • Mining Points

  • Whiskey Points

  • Staking Points

  • Royalty Points

  • IAG Points

Rewards are distributed proportionally to holders’ Reward Points, ensuring a transparent and equitable payout system, which was also applied in the $TITAN token release.

Metadata-Driven Mechanics: Each Stronghold leverages metadata traits to determine functionality:

  • Class (Garrison, Fortress, Citadel): Determines Stronghold size, number of sites, and applies a minor Reward Point multiplier.

  • Realm: Provides visual aesthetics and applies an additional Reward Point multiplier.

  • Sites (7 types): Each site has unique functionality and can be upgraded to enhance rewards. Certain sites, like the Barracks, enable Stronghold Raids, allowing users to pilfer Reward Points from others.

By combining passive revenue, metadata-driven mechanics, and light gamification, the Stronghold collection rewards engagement, fosters strategic planning, and integrates seamlessly with the broader Titans ecosystem.

My Role

I have been a core contributor to Titans since its inception. Starting as a Game Designer, my responsibilities quickly expanded across multiple disciplines, including marketing, economy design, backend development, UI/UX design, Discord bot programming, community management, and consulting. Following the successful pre-sale of the $TITAN token, I formally assumed the role of Product Manager, overseeing the development and release of Titans’ ecosystem of products.

Across each release, I have taken ownership of key responsibilities — from concept and design documentation to implementation and community engagement — ensuring products reached launch with both technical polish and player appeal. Below are specific highlights of my work on each product.

Titan PFP NFT Collection

The Titan PFPs were the first product released in the Titans ecosystem: a collection of 6,500 unique profile-picture NFTs combining both visual variety and mechanical utility.

  • Houses & Perks: Each Titan can pledge allegiance to one of 20 Houses, unlocking unique perks and access to community-driven gameplay.

  • Missions System: Holders send Titans on missions to gather resources or raid rival Houses. Missions operate on idle-game mechanics — players assign PFPs, wait a set duration, and then receive rewards.

  • Resource Economy:

    • Food → Common resource; often used as the cost for starting missions.

    • Gems → Multipurpose premium currency; occasionally required for special missions.

    • Eyeballs → Rare resource; grants significant boosts to a House’s leaderboard ranking.

By combining collectibility with lightweight gameplay loops, the Titan PFP collection introduced the foundation of the ecosystem: community identity, resource competition, and progression systems that reward long-term engagement.

Key Takeaways: Titan PFPs

Imbalance as Balance:
In NFT ecosystems, rarity carries intrinsic value. Holders of rare PFPs expect meaningful advantages. While asymmetrical balance can feel counterintuitive, it proved essential for satisfying major investors and reinforcing the value of high-tier assets.

Time as a Cost:
Missions were initially designed so that harder missions took longer and had lower success rates. However, this discouraged participation — players avoided investing time only to fail. My solution was to scale rewards exponentially for harder missions. While this improved outcomes, the real lesson was that time itself is a cost and must be balanced carefully to avoid negative player experiences.

Strongholds & PFPs: Bridging the Gap

To encourage cross-product engagement within the Titans ecosystem, we introduced a PFP-to-Stronghold interaction system. Users can assign their Titan PFPs to a Stronghold to enhance specific Reward Points generated by that Stronghold.

  • While referred to as “staking,” this system does not rely on smart contracts. The terminology was chosen to align with colloquial language familiar to the community, making the mechanic intuitive and approachable.

  • This feature creates synergy between the PFP and Stronghold collections, rewarding deeper engagement and providing strategic value to active users.

By bridging the two products, we strengthened ecosystem cohesion, incentivized multi-asset participation, and added a layer of strategic decision-making for collectors and investors alike.

$TITAN Token

The $TITAN token represents my first foray into decentralized finance, translating the Stronghold ecosystem’s revenue streams into a streamlined, tokenized model. By simplifying the Stronghold mechanics — removing sites, realms, and class traits — we focused purely on token quantity and rewards distribution.

Key Contributions:

  • Designed the rewards distribution model for token holders, ensuring fairness and scalability.

  • Created multimedia marketing assets to support presale engagement.

  • Developed and deployed a custom Discord bot (Node.js) to track large transactions and provide real-time presale updates, gaining hands-on experience with API calls (GET/POST).

The $TITAN presale sold 4.2M ADA (~$1.7M USD), a historic achievement in the Cardano ecosystem. Beyond the technical and design work, this project provided an invaluable learning experience in tokenomics, investor engagement, and strategic product launch, expanding my perspective on both finance and community-driven product ecosystems.

Key Takeaways: Strongholds

Build for Scale:
Rarer Strongholds provide modest but noticeable bonuses, making high-rarity assets feel more valuable without invalidating rewards for other holders. By splitting rewards proportionally across all 5,000 Strongholds, the system naturally rewards rarity while maintaining equity, demonstrating how thoughtful framing can enhance perceived value.

Adapt Quickly:
The final Stronghold design differed significantly from the initial vision, driven by partnerships, community feedback, and measured interest in revenue streams. Flexibility in adding features and shifting functionality proved critical to creating a product that resonated with users.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify:
While system depth is appealing, overly complex mechanics — spreadsheets, multipliers, and long cycle times — hindered accessibility. Focusing on core levers recognizable to every user streamlined onboarding and improved engagement.

“The $TITAN presale managed to sell 4.2 Million ADA (~$1.7 Million USD at the time of presale) which was historic in the Cardano ecosystem.”

Here are some videos I created leading up to the launch of the $TITAN token presale.

Key Takeaways: $TITAN Token

Fail Fast:
Experimenting quickly with new technology accelerates learning. Iterating on tokenomics and Discord bot development taught me to identify issues early and adapt, shaping both market understanding and technical skills.

Expect the Unexpected:
The Discord bot required rapid scope expansion — from local hosting to a cloud service with persistent storage, plus a custom database for transaction logs. During the presale, the bot experienced overloads, creating community concern. This reinforced the need for resilient systems, contingency planning, and real-time problem-solving.

AI as a Tool:
AI proved invaluable for debugging and troubleshooting complex implementation issues. While not a replacement for domain knowledge, it accelerated problem-solving and allowed me to focus on higher-level design and architecture.