Introduction
Echelon Prime (Echelon) is an ecosystem of blockchain-enabled games that includes trading-card game (TCG) Parallel TCG built on Ethereum, AI simulation game Colony built on Solana (launching Q1 2025) and a 3rd person extraction shooter game called Sanctuary (fka Project Tau Ceti) built on Base’s B3 (launching Q3 2025).
Parallel Studios (Parallel) is the development studio behind Echelon Prime. Founded in 2021, they raised $50m at a $500m valuation led by Paradigm in October 2021. They completed a $35m financing in March 2024 from notable investors Distributed Global, The Operating Group, VanEck, Focus Labs, Big Brain Holdings, Solana Ventures, Base, amongst others, along with angel investors Solana co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal and Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz.
Figure 1 – Parallel Labs $35m funding round
Source: parallel.life
The Echelon Prime Foundation (EPF) is a non-profit organization responsible for guiding the Echelon ecosystem. Emissaries Prime (EP) is the governing body that stewards the EPF. The first 11 member of the EP were elected in February 2022, which is like a Board of Directors in a traditional corporate structure.
Team
The founding team and management have a diverse background across numerous technology start-ups. Co-founders Sascha Darius Mojtahedi (CEO) and Perry Haldenby (CTO) have worked together at multiple ventures prior to founding Parallel. Kohji Nagata, Head of Game Design at Parallel, worked with the founders at a previous venture. Most of the team is based in Toronto, Canada. While they do not disclose total employees, 82 people are associated with Echelon Prime on LinkedIn.
Games
Parallel TCG
Parallel TCG is a science fiction-themed trading-card game akin to Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone that integrates non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and play-to-earn rewards into gameplay.
The game is set in a dystopian future where Earth has become uninhabitable due to a cataclysmic incident known as “The Event,” causing humanity to scatter across space, splitting into five factions: Earthen, Marcolian, Augencore, Kathari and Shroud.
Players collect NFT cards representing these factions and engage in head-to-head battles to fight for PRIME tokens, the token of the Echelon ecosystem.
Parallel TCG also offers various gameplay modes that cater to different styles of play, including The Ladder and Sectors, and features a rookie queue to provide a training ground for new players with customizable rookie decks.
The game initially launched in closed beta in July 2023 and moved into open beta in February 2024. It also launched in the Epic Games Store and on Steam.
Beyond the VC fundraising, the Echelon team started selling NFTs in 2Q 2021. In August 2021, near the peak of the NFT market, they sold $105m worth of NFTs in one month (Chart 1).
Chart 1 – Parallel Alpha NFT Sales
Source: opensea.io
While they received significant proceeds upfront, Echelon takes a 10% royalty on all subsequent NFT sales, with half of that going toward in-game prize pools and the other half to the company.
Certain NFTs provide the opportunity to earn revenue from use and/or trading. For example, Masterpiece NFT cards contain the art that derivative cards (other cards used in the game) use and are 1 of 1, with a total supply of 258 cards. One rare Masterpiece card sold for $1.1m of ETH in August 2021.
Benefits of Masterpiece cards include:
- Reward the owner 20% of the 5% royalty Echelon receives every time its derivative card is traded on the secondary market.
- Receive a portion of PRIME flows when its derivative card is used to create an Echo.
Figure 2 – Selected Parallel TCG Masterpiece NFT Cards
Source: parallel.life
Most of the Parallel TCG cards and items such cosmetics are on Ethereum with the remainer on Ethereum L2 Base.
As is often done with high profile non-blockchain games, Echelon runs season long e-sports competitions dubbed “Parallel Prime League.” Season 1, which took place over eight months, culminated in a 16-person tournament titled “Parallel League Championship” on March 1-2 in Las Vegas with a prize pool of $500k.
Season 2 begins March 6 with a total prize pool of $1m, followed by Season 3 with a $2m prize pool.
Finally, Parallel is in the process of launching a TCG mobile version with beta testing is underway and preliminary UI adjustments being made before a wider rollout. This should increase the size and breadth of the community given the increasing number of gamers that play on mobile devices.
Colony
The second game in the Echelon ecosystem will be Colony, an AI-powered strategic survival simulation game in which collaborate and compete to survive. Specifically, Colony features autonomous AI agents (AI avatars) that are continuously learning from prior game play. Human players must guide and collaborate with the avatars to navigate a future Earth dotted with distinct colonies, all competing for survival.
A public alpha version of Colony, which is being built on Solana is slated to go live in Q1 2025. A trailer can be found in the link below:
Sanctuary
Sanctuary is a 3rd person extraction shooter game built on Base’s L3 B3. Given it’s a new launch, little information has been released, although a trailer can be found in the link below:
Token
PRIME is the native token of the Echelon ecosystem. It is both a utility and governance token for the broader Echelon ecosystem as well as individual games and is used to power various token-gated products, services and experiences including the purchase of NFTs used in game.
Unique to Echelon Prime are token-gated products, services, and experiences available called “Sinks”. Several Sinks exist in Parallel TCG and will likely exists in future games. Sinks like Terminals and Artigraph, are cosmetic. Others, like Payload and Echoes, are critical for achieving scale in the game.
The benefit of Sinks is that they lock up circulating supply, refill the Gameplay Pool, and reward stakeholders through Sink Distributions.
The PRIME token was launched in July 2022, as a non-transferrable token with a total supply of 111,111,111 tokens. It was “unlocked” via a community vote on March 1, 2023. Initial distribution was across three groups:
- Community – rewards for Parallel TCG card holders
- Caching (staking) – rewards for ‘cached’ Parallel TCG cards and assets
- Parallel Labs team and investors
Chart 2 – Initial PRIME token allocation
Source: Echelon Whitepaper
Percentage allocations to each group are below.
Chart 3 – PRIME token allocations
Source: Echelon Whitepaper
In terms of vesting, initially, most PRIME tokens vest over a five-year period, with the Echelon Prime Foundation token reserve vesting over 10 years (Chart x). The vesting schedule in Figure x has been extended twice, with details below.
Chart 4 – Cumulative PRIME Vesting Schedule
Source: Echelon Whitepaper
But in a move that is rare in crypto, Parallel and EPF pushed out token unlocks in mid-June 2024 (Figure 3).
Figure 3 – Parallel and EPF extending token lock-ups
Source: x.com
Then taking it even further, on November 12, 2024, the Parallel founding team deposited all their tokens (cached, vested, unclaimed, and otherwise) into a new trustless contract that vests them 10% annually over 10 years. Rarely do we see such alignment in crypto where many teams unfortunately liquidate their token holdings as soon as vested leaving little incentive to push the project forward.
Figure 4 – Echelon Prime announcement on extending team vesting to 10 years
Source: x.com
The tokens are available on Coinbase, Gate, Bybit, Kraken, Bitget and numerous other smaller, centralized exchanges.
Valuation
As noted above, the PRIME token was launched in July 2022 with a total supply of 111,111,111 tokens and went live on March 1, 2023. The token price reached over $28 in March 2024, but has since dropped nearly 90% to around $3.30. 51% of the circulating supply is outstanding with a circulating supply market cap of $187m and an FDV of $369m, significantly lower than their Series A valuation 6 months after founding in October 2021, when the business was still a concept.
Chart 5 – PRIME token performance (March 2, 2023 – March 14, 2025)
Source: Coingecko
Wayfinder Protocol
Beyond gaming, Parallel Studios is developing a protocol known as Wayfinder, which is a blockchain-enabled tool designed to enable autonomous AI agents that are user-owned. Wayfinder was used to build their second gaming release, Colony.
Wayfinder will eventually have a native token, tentatively called PROMPT. As per the Wayfinder whitepaper, 40% of the total supply will be distributed to PRIME holders who stake their PRIME tokens (called “cache” in the Echelon ecosystem).
Currently, approximately 42% of PRIME circulating supply are staked earning PROMPT tokens (Chart 6).
Chart 6 – PRIME tokens Total Value Locked (TVL)
Source: flipside
Given Wayfinder will be a separate project from Echelon Prime we are not covering it here, although more detail can be found here:
Community
Echelon is one of the leading blockchain game communities based on number of players plus community engagement. As noted above, they run annual season capped by a final tournament with significant prize money, which draws players in from all over the world.
They have a large following on socials with consistent activity (many blockchain games are effectively dead given minimal community engagement).
Figure 5 – Echelon Prime Social Media Accounts
Source: x.com
Competitors
We view Echelon Prime’s competitors as gaming platforms given their move to multiple games.
Figure 6 – Echelon Prime Selected Competitors
Source: Coingecko
Blockchain gaming has been one of the worst performing subsectors in crypto since the September 2023 cycle bottom in alts, with both Immutable and Gala back at the same levels in September 2023 (Beam listed in April 2024).
Chart 7 – PRIME token performance (September 1, 2023 – March 14, 2025)
Source: Tradingview
While we have a favourable view of the Echelon Prime opportunity, some considerations include:
- Blockchain gaming: the sector has been one of the worst performing sectors of crypto over the past three years. We credit this to limited conversion from Web2 to Web3 gaming amongst the existing gamer community due to both lack of quality content and potentially limited desire to but NFTs to engage in game play. We still believe blockchain gaming is a primary use case in the near to medium term for crypto and Echelon Prime is well position if the overall user base grows.
- Supply overhang: while there are still a fair number of tokens to come unlocked, the team, who were allocated 20% of total supply, agreed to lock their tokens for 10 years starting November 2024, with 10% unlocking each year.
- Staked tokens: once Wayfinder AI lists it token, there is the potential for users to unstake and sell PRIME tokens, assuming they held the tokens to gain exposure to the PROMPT token airdrop. We think this risk is low as we do not believe most PRIME token holders are here for the unknown airdrop.
- Tokenomics: Given the supply-demand model for tokens requires actually participants in the ecosystem beyond just investors, Prime’s ability to onboard gamers is essential to consistent token demand. While their first launch has been popular, launches #2 and #3 and beyond will be important longer-term for token demand.
- NFTs: in game NFT demand has plummeted for nearly all blockchain games. While their flagship game ParallelTCG continues to gain traction, the overall price and in turn revenue generated from NFT royalties is insignificant.
- Valuation: While valuation appears compelling relative to both their Series A ($500m FDV) and peak ($1,575m FDV), a re-rate higher will require both the broader crypto markets and crypto gaming/AI to attract investor capital.
If you would like to discuss anything in the report, please contact the Vikara team.
Luke McFarlane
Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager
Vikara Capital
Mark Riccio, CFA
Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager
Vikara Capital
Contact Us
Vikara is a liquid, open-ended fund investing in digital assets (excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum) with no lockups (add or redeem monthly). Vikara’s proprietary investment and rigorous risk management processes aim to outperform the broader digital asset markets. Founders have over 40 years combined investment experience at Millennium, Balyasny, Platinum, Merrill Lynch and Macquarie.
Vikara, in Sanskrit, describes the process of change. Its definition is constantly evolving, changing with economic cycles, technology, and geopolitics. It is a transformation of thought or logic, a modification in the direction of travel, an alteration in action or participation. It is one thing to want change, but another to drive it. We believe in a world where commerce doesn’t need intermediaries. Where people are paid directly for content, time, and effort. Where privacy, data and free speech is given, not something to opt-in for.
This material is for the general information only and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security or asset in any jurisdiction where such an offer or solicitation would be illegal. We are not soliciting any specific action based on this material. It does not constitute a recommendation or take into account the particular investment objectives, financial conditions, or needs of individual clients. Before acting on this material, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and, if necessary, seek professional advice. The price and value of the investments referred to in this material and the income from them may go down as well as up, and investors may realize losses on any investments. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. Future returns are not guaranteed, and a loss of original capital may occur. We do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice to our clients, and all investors are advised to consult with their tax, accounting, or legal advisers regarding any potential investment. The material is based on information that we consider reliable, but we do not represent that it is accurate, complete and/or up to date, and it should not be relied on as such. Opinions expressed are our current opinions as of the date appearing on this material only and only represent the views of the author and not those of Vikara, unless otherwise expressly noted.
This material is produced as of a particular date. Accordingly, this material may have already been updated, modified, amended and/or supplemented by the time you receive or access it. Vikara is under no obligation to notify you of such changes and you should discuss this material with your Vikara representative to ensure such material has not been updated, modified amended and/or supplemented.
Be the First to Know
Keep up to date with industry news and events