In April 2026, just one month after Stacked's official release, this Rewarded LiveOps engine developed by the Pixels team delivered an astounding industry report card: cumulative active players exceeded 5.8 million, with 820,000 new real users in the first month; a single month processing reward distribution of 12.7 million dollars, with a total cumulative reward payment exceeding 203 million dollars; signed the first batch of 5 external Web3 game studios, with 3 having completed SDK integration and entered the testing phase; the return on reward investment (RORS) within the Pixels ecosystem further climbed to 3.2:1, setting a new historical record for the industry; the upcoming casual pet game Chubkins achieved incredible performance in closed testing, with a 7-day retention rate of 42% and a payment conversion rate of 28%, thanks to Stacked's AI optimization, far exceeding the average level of similar games.

Behind this latest set of data is a quietly occurring revolution in the gaming industry. For decades, the global gaming industry has been hijacked by an advertising economy: game companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on traffic acquisition, while advertising giants take the vast majority of the profits, leaving players with nothing and forcing them to endure endless advertising harassment. The emergence of Stacked fundamentally breaks this distorted value distribution chain for the first time—transforming the enormous budgets that game companies would typically spend on advertising platforms directly into rewards for real players, replacing the 'advertising economy' with a 'reward economy', allowing those who create value to truly receive compensation.

I. The dead end of traditional gaming advertising economy: burning trillions each year, yet retaining not a single player

To understand the disruptive nature of Stacked, one must first recognize the essence and dilemmas of the traditional gaming advertising economy. According to eMarketer's latest report (2026 Global Digital Gaming Advertising Report), global gaming industry advertising spending is expected to reach $1.2 trillion in 2026, accounting for 28% of total global digital advertising spending. However, the return on this huge investment is astonishingly low:

• Customer acquisition costs soaring: The average user acquisition cost (CPI) for global mobile games has risen from $2.7 in 2020 to $8.9 in 2026, with CPI for heavy games exceeding $25;

• Conversion rates plummet: The conversion rate from ad clicks to downloads is only 1.2%, the conversion rate from downloads to registrations is 18%, and the conversion rate from registrations to 7-day retention is less than 10%;

• Poor user quality: Over 70% of users acquired through advertising are "wool party" and "one-time players," with a 30-day retention rate of only 3.5%;

• Profit squeezed: More than 70% of mid-sized game companies' income is used to pay for advertising costs, with the industry's average net profit margin being less than 15%.

More deadly is the formation of an unbreakable vicious cycle by the advertising economy: game companies, to survive, are forced to invest more funds in purchasing traffic; advertising platforms take the opportunity to raise prices, further squeezing the profits of game companies; to recoup losses, game companies can only set more payment points and ads in games, leading to a deterioration in player experience and an increase in churn rates; after players leave, game companies need to invest more funds to acquire new users, ultimately falling into the deadlock of 'burning money - losses - bankruptcy.'

The Web3 gaming industry is a hard-hit area. The traditional P2E model attempts to replace advertising customer acquisition with tokens and NFTs but has swung to another extreme: blindly issuing tokens to attract speculators, leading to an influx of bots and cheaters, pushing out real players, and causing rapid collapse of the game economy. According to DappRadar statistics, of the more than 1,200 Web3 games launched in 2025, over 95% saw daily active users drop below 1,000 within three months of launch, with an average lifespan of less than six months. The industry average RORS is only 0.3, meaning that for every dollar spent on rewards, only 0.3 dollars can be earned back, rendering this model unsustainable from the outset.

"The advertising economy is a plunder of value, not a creation of value." Pixels founder Luke Barwikowski stated bluntly at the Web3 Gaming Summit in April 2026, "Game companies spend so much money but create no value for players, instead ruining their experience. Why can't we give this money directly to players? Let them earn rewards for playing games and stay because they love games; this is the truly sustainable model."

This is precisely the core logic behind the birth of Stacked: it is not about improving the advertising economy, but about completely replacing it. It uses precise rewards to replace ineffective advertisements, real player value to replace false traffic data, and a value-sharing model to replace a value-plundering model, opening up a new development path for the gaming industry.

II. The underlying revolution of Stacked: reconstructing the value distribution chain of the gaming industry

The essence of Stacked is a 'value distribution engine' based on data and AI. It redefines the basic rules of who creates value and who receives returns in the gaming industry, redistributing profits that originally flowed to advertising platforms back to players and game developers who truly create value.

(I) A complete reconstruction of the value chain

The value chain of the traditional gaming industry is:

Game developers → Advertising platforms → Players (no earnings)

In this chain, advertising platforms occupy an absolute central position, controlling traffic entry and taking away the vast majority of profits. Game developers can only passively purchase traffic, while players are the ones being harvested; their time, attention, and data are sold to advertisers without compensation.

The value chain constructed by Stacked is:

Game developers → Stacked → Players (receive rewards)

In this chain, Stacked replaces the position of the advertising platform, but it does not profit from traffic price differences; it only collects a technical service fee of 5%-10%. Game developers invest the budgets originally intended for advertising into the reward pool, and Stacked uses AI to analyze player behavior data, accurately distributing rewards to those who truly create value for the game—such as completing tutorials, leveling up, inviting friends, creating content, and remaining active.

This model has created a win-win-win situation:

• Game developers: Customer acquisition costs reduced by over 60%, user quality significantly improved, with 7-day and 30-day retention rates increasing 2-3 times, and RORS stabilized above 1, achieving sustainable profitability;

• Players: No need to endure advertising harassment, no upfront investment required, and normal gameplay can yield real rewards, with the value of time and attention recognized;

• Stacked: Generates stable revenue through technical service fees, with income growing exponentially as the ecosystem scales.

(II) AI-driven precise value distribution

Stacked's core competitiveness lies in its AI Game Economist, which can achieve 'personalized value distribution for thousands of players.' It does not simply give all players the same rewards but customizes personalized reward plans based on each player's behavioral characteristics, contribution, retention potential, and purchasing power.

The latest AI upgrade version (v2.1) introduces large language models and predictive analytics technology, capable of achieving the following functions:

1. Real-time behavior analysis: Processing over 1 million player behavior data points per second, it identifies players' game status, interest preferences, and churn risks in real-time;

2. Dynamic reward matching: Adjusts reward types and amounts in real-time based on player behavior, such as issuing return packages to players at risk of churning, growth rewards to high-potential players, and creation incentives to content creators;

3. ROI automatic optimization: AI will automatically calculate the ROI of each reward scheme, eliminating inefficient schemes and optimizing efficient ones, ensuring that every reward investment yields the maximum return;

4. Natural language interaction: Developers can ask AI questions in natural language, such as "How to improve the 7-day retention of female players?" "How to reduce the churn rate of new players?" The AI will automatically generate detailed analysis reports and actionable reward plans.

In Chubkins' closed testing, Stacked's AI Game Economist played a key role. The AI analyzed testing data and found that the churn rate of new players during the 'pet hatching' phase on day 3 was the highest, reaching 45%. The AI then automatically generated a reward scheme: providing extra food and toy rewards to players who completed pet hatching, and guiding them to join the community. After this scheme went live, the day 3 retention rate increased by 32%, the overall 7-day retention rate rose from 28% to 42%, and the paid conversion rate improved from 16% to 28%, achieving an RORS of 2.8:1.

"In the past, we needed a 5-person operations team, spending a week to complete an event planning and effect evaluation. Now with Stacked's AI, a single person can submit a request in 10 minutes, and the AI can complete all tasks within hours, producing results far better than what we could do ourselves," said the project leader of Chubkins.

(III) Industry-leading anti-cheating system

The premise of precise value distribution is the ability to accurately identify real players and cheaters. Stacked's anti-cheating system has been honed through four years of practical experience with Pixels, becoming one of the most advanced anti-cheating systems in the industry.

In April 2026, Stacked conducted a major upgrade to its anti-cheating system, introducing behavioral fingerprint recognition and AI predictive technology, effectively identifying various new cheating methods:

• AI-generated content cheating: By analyzing the semantics, style, and originality of content, it identifies AI-generated guides and videos, ensuring that only real human creations can receive rewards;

• Multi-account collaborative cheating: By analyzing device information, IP addresses, behavioral patterns, and social relationships, it identifies witch attacks and studio account farming behaviors.

• Script automation: By analyzing the frequency, precision, and randomness of operations, it identifies automated bot scripts and cheats;

• Transaction cheating: By monitoring transaction records of tokens and NFTs, it identifies money laundering and cash-out behaviors.

Data shows that Stacked intercepted over 1.2 million cheating attempts in its first month, with a cheating detection accuracy rate reaching 99.7%, ensuring that over 99% of rewards were distributed to real players. This data far exceeds the industry average, making Stacked the only P2E platform capable of withstanding large-scale cheating attacks.

III. The rebirth of $PIXEL: From game token to universal voucher for the global reward economy

The launch of Stacked not only reconstructed the value distribution chain of the gaming industry but also endowed the $PIXEL token with a new value narrative. It is no longer just an internal token for Pixels games, but is becoming a universal voucher for the global reward economy.

(I) Core value upgrade of $PIXEL

In the Stacked ecosystem, $PIXEL assumes the following core functions:

1. Core reward currency: The main rewards of all ecological games are distributed in the form of PIXEL, which players can earn by playing games, creating content, inviting friends, and more;

2. Cross-ecosystem payment voucher: Players can use $PIXEL to purchase items, skins, and services in all ecological games, and future support for consumption at partner merchants will also be available;

3. Ecological governance token: $PIXEL holders can participate in the governance of the Stacked ecosystem, voting to decide on the development direction, reward policies, and cooperative projects;

4. Staking yield voucher: Players can stake $PIXEL in the ecosystem staking pool to receive ecosystem profit dividends, with the current annualized yield rate stabilizing around 12%.

As of April 15, 2026, the total amount of PIXEL staked has surpassed 5 billion, accounting for 25% of total supply, with the number of staking addresses exceeding 1.2 million. The first batch of 5 external game studios has announced that they will use PIXEL as the core reward currency in their games, which means that the use cases for $PIXEL will expand from the Pixels ecosystem to the entire Web3 gaming industry.

(II) Continuous optimization of the economic model

To ensure the stability and sustainable growth of $PIXEL's value, the Pixels team has continuously optimized the economic model:

1. Mixed reward model: Stacked adopts a mixed reward model of 'PIXEL + USDC + Stacked points,' where PIXEL accounts for 60% of daily rewards, USDC accounts for 20%, and Stacked points account for 20%, reducing the direct selling pressure of $PIXEL;

2. Deflationary mechanism: 50% of the technical service fees collected by Stacked will be used to repurchase and destroy $PIXEL, creating continuous deflationary pressure;

3. Release mechanism adjustment: Adjusted the token release rhythm for the team and investors, extending the original 3-year release period to 5 years, reducing market sell pressure;

4. Cross-chain expansion: Plans to cross-chain PIXEL to Ethereum and BNB Chain in Q2 2026, enhancing PIXEL's liquidity and accessibility.

"The value of PIXEL does not come from speculation, but from its practicality," Luke Barwikowski stated. "As more games and merchants integrate with Stacked, the demand for PIXEL will continue to grow, and its value will be recognized by more people. Our goal is to make $PIXEL the universal currency of the global reward economy."

IV. Ecological expansion: From gaming to the entire industry, the infinite possibilities of the reward economy

Stacked's ambition goes far beyond the gaming industry. Its ultimate goal is to promote the 'reward economy' model across all digital economic sectors, including fitness, education, e-commerce, social, etc., to build a globally unified reward economy ecosystem.

(I) Rapid expansion of the gaming ecosystem

Currently, Stacked has successfully integrated four first-party games: Pixels, Pixel Dungeons, Sleepagotchi, and Chubkins, covering various game categories such as farm exploration, Roguelike, health and wellness, and casual pets. In Q2 2026, Stacked will officially open the SDK to all external game studios, expecting to have over 50 games integrated into the Stacked ecosystem by the end of 2026.

To attract more external game studios to join, Stacked launched the "Ecosystem Support Program":

• Providing free technical support and operational guidance to the first 100 game studios that integrate with Stacked;

• Establishing a $100 million ecosystem fund to invest in and support quality gaming projects;

• Opening Pixels ecosystem user resources to help external game studios quickly acquire users;

• Providing white-label services allows game studios to customize their own reward systems.

(II) Layout in non-gaming fields

In addition to the gaming industry, Stacked has begun to expand its presence in non-gaming sectors. In March 2026, Stacked partnered with the globally renowned fitness app Keep to launch the 'Exercise Earn Rewards' feature: users can earn $PIXEL rewards by exercising through Keep, accumulating exercise duration. In the first month of this feature's launch, it attracted over 100,000 users, with average daily exercise duration increasing by 35%.

In the future, Stacked will also enter the education, e-commerce, and social sectors:

• Education sector: Collaborating with online education platforms, users can earn rewards by completing courses, assignments, and participating in exams, incentivizing continuous learning;

• E-commerce sector: Collaborating with e-commerce platforms, users can earn rewards by shopping, reviewing, and sharing products, enhancing user shopping experience and loyalty;

• Social domain: Collaborating with social platforms, users can earn rewards by posting content, interacting, and inviting friends, incentivizing users to create high-quality content.

"The reward economy is a universal business model that applies to any industry that requires user participation and contribution," Luke Barwikowski stated. "In the advertising economy, users' attention is sold to advertisers; while in the reward economy, users' attention and contributions are directly converted into their own earnings. This is a fairer, more efficient, and more sustainable business model."

V. Industry impact: A turning point for Web3 gaming, the new future of the digital economy

The emergence of Stacked marks the entry of the Web3 gaming industry into a brand new development phase. It has completely ended the traditional P2E model of 'issuing tokens to attract new users, driven by speculation,' and has ushered in a new era of 'data-driven, value-sharing, and sustainable operation.'

For the Web3 gaming industry, Stacked provides a replicable and feasible successful template. It proves that Web3 games do not need to rely on speculative tokens and NFTs to attract users; as long as they can create real value for players and ensure that players' time and contributions receive reasonable returns, sustainable development can be achieved. An increasing number of Web3 game studios are beginning to abandon the traditional P2E model in favor of Stacked's reward economy model, which will drive the entire Web3 gaming industry toward maturity and health.

For the Web2 gaming industry, Stacked provides a completely new customer acquisition and operation approach. The traditional advertising customer acquisition model has reached its end, while the reward economy model can acquire higher quality users at a lower cost, improving user retention and spending. It is expected that by 2027, over 20% of Web2 games will integrate reward systems similar to Stacked, fundamentally changing the way Web2 games operate.

For the entire digital economy, Stacked has initiated a revolution in value distribution. It shows us that the future of the digital economy should not be dominated by a few platforms monopolizing all value, but rather should allow all participants to share value. As the reward economy model continues to be promoted and popularized, it will gradually replace the advertising economy, becoming the mainstream business model of the digital economy, enabling every value creator to receive their due rewards.

Conclusion

From the life-and-death trials of Pixels to the emergence of Stacked, from an internal tool of the gaming industry to the infrastructure of the global digital economy, Stacked has carved out its own innovative path in four years. It did not chase industry fads or become enamored with speculative bubbles, but instead focused on solving the real pain points of the industry with data and technology, constructing a more equitable and sustainable future with the concept of value sharing.

2026 is a turning point for the Web3 gaming industry. When the speculative bubble bursts and the false prosperity fades, truly valuable projects will eventually surface. Stacked has become a leader of this era with its proven practical model, leading technology, and clear vision. It is not only rewriting the rules of the gaming industry but also reshaping the future of the digital economy.

We have reason to believe that with Stacked's promotion, a new era of gaming where 'players and developers win together, and value coexists with fun' is about to arrive. And $PIXEL, as the value voucher of this new era, will shine even brighter.

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