As a newcomer in the AI space, Yupp is attempting to reshape the way AI models are discovered, compared, and used through its unique crowdsourcing model and incentive mechanisms, bringing about a paradigm shift in AI evaluation. This article will delve into Yupp's core mechanisms, technological highlights, team background, and its potential impact on the AI ecosystem.
Team Background and Funding: Backed by Tech Titans
Yupp aims to solve the long-standing evaluation challenges in the AI field by building a "trustless" AI feedback market. By leveraging blockchain and crypto-economic incentives, Yupp enables diverse user feedback to flow freely, creating a scalable, fair, and transparent model evaluation layer. Through incentivized distribution of high-quality human-labeled data, Yupp can capture real user needs and preferences in various scenarios, helping AI developers iteratively optimize model performance.
Founded in June 2024 by Pankaj Gupta (Co-founder and CEO) and Gilad Mishne (Co-founder and AI Lead), with Chief Scientist Jimmy Lin (a professor at the University of Waterloo) as part of the core team, Yupp's founders have extensive experience in building and optimizing large-scale recommendation and search systems at Twitter, Google, and Coinbase.
Due to its vision of decentralization and transparent data value, which aligns with AI vendors' needs for trustworthy evaluation and user engagement, Yupp has garnered significant recognition from well-known figures in the tech industry and top-tier venture capital firms. Last week, Yupp announced the completion of a $33 million seed funding round led by a16z partner Chris Dixon. Other investors include Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Stanford University professors Dan Boneh, Chris Re, Nick McKeown, and Balaji Prabhakar, as well as Coinbase Ventures.
Core Functions and User Experience: Building an "AI Parliament"
As a centralized AI evaluation platform, Yupp adheres to the philosophy of "Every AI for everyone," allowing users to easily discover, compare, and use the latest AI models. Unlike traditional single-response systems, Yupp returns two (or more) model answers for each prompt, forming an "AI Parliament." This design not only meets users' needs for diverse choices but also effectively identifies potential model "hallucinations," helping users make wiser decisions through comparison. As Yupp CEO Pankaj Gupta said, side-by-side outputs are particularly beneficial for users focused on identifying errors, as they can cross-verify results.
The platform currently supports over 500 AI models, covering text and image generation, including well-known models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Llama, and many emerging ones. To further enhance the user experience, Yupp has introduced the "QuickTake" feature, which condenses lengthy responses into a concise tweet.
Moreover, Yupp places a high emphasis on user privacy: all chat records are private by default, and users can control what and how much they share. Even when sharing publicly, no personal information is disclosed.
Economic Model and Incentive Mechanism: Monetizing Data Labor
Yupp combines free usage with user feedback through its "Yupp Points" system to measure model usage. New users receive 5,000 points upon registration and can earn more by rating model responses, choosing preferences, and providing reasons. The higher the quality of feedback, the greater the reward, ensuring users can sustainably use high-end models like Claude Opus 4 or OpenAI o3 for free. The platform promises that points will only increase, and all models are currently available for free trial.
After each question, users receive two model responses and earn "digital scratch cards" with rewards ranging from 0 to 250 Yupp Points. Every 1,000 points can be exchanged for $1, with a daily withdrawal limit of $10 and a monthly limit of $50. Points can be exchanged for over 20 currencies, including USD and EUR, with partners like Stripe, PayPal, and Coinbase. The platform also integrates Base Ethereum L2 and Solana stablecoins to provide instant, fee-free rewards globally.
As Pankaj Gupta noted, the high-quality feedback generated by users is far more valuable for AI companies' model fine-tuning and reinforcement learning than the rewards themselves. Although users' monthly earnings may only be equivalent to a few cups of coffee, this paid-labeled data is crucial for AI iteration.
To encourage more participation, Yupp also offers referral rewards: referrers receive 5,000 points, and referees receive 1,000 points. Currently, new registrants receive 5,000 points, with an additional 2,500 points for referees.
Yupp VIBE Score: A New Paradigm for AI Evaluation
Addressing the issues of transparency, fairness, and uneven data access in existing leaderboards, Yupp has launched a test version of its AI leaderboard and the "Yupp VIBE (Vibe Intelligence Benchmark) Score" evaluation system. This system aggregates global user preferences generated through natural interactions to provide robust and trustworthy evaluation results.
Yupp's evaluation principles include:
Robustness: Ensuring representativeness (covering diverse scenarios), authenticity (reflecting user concerns), and anti-cheating capabilities.
Trustworthiness: Being fair and neutral (unbiased towards models), transparent (detailed disclosure of ranking algorithms), and rigorous (adhering to evaluation standards).
The platform not only collects binary preferences but also encourages users to point out the strengths and weaknesses of responses (such as "on-point," "fast," "good style," etc.) and analyzes preferences across different demographic groups based on users' age, education, and occupation.
Technical Aspects
On the technical front, Yupp is exploring the use of blockchain, cryptographic primitives, and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the fairness, transparency, and verifiability of the evaluation process. The platform has also partnered with professional AI data providers to calibrate scorers through profile verification and multi-layer quality checks to eliminate malicious data.
The latest leaderboard update showcases the VIBE scores, win rates, dislike rates, speed, latency, context window, and cost metrics of models such as GPT-4.5 Preview, Claude Opus 4, and Claude Sonnet 4.
Development and Future Outlook
Yupp officially launched on June 13, 2025, after a six-month internal test. Since its launch, the product has continuously iterated:
Multimodal Support: Integration with models like Dall-E, Flux, Stable Diffusion, Luma Photon, and Google Imagen 4, and support for user-uploaded images/PDFs.
Expanded Interaction: Added voice input and voice reading functions.
Model Updates: Introduction of models such as DeepSeek R1/V3, Mistral Small 3, OpenAI o3-pro, Hermes 3, Amazon Nova Pro v1, Microsoft Phi series, and the "MAX Model" category.
Real-time Information: Routing online query requests to Perplexity and Google Gemini Live with hyperlinked citations.
Payment Upgrades: Added support for PayPal and Venmo withdrawals in the US, and PayPal support for 24 currencies.
Sharing and Exporting: Support for copying with format retention, and exporting in PDF, text, and Markdown formats, allowing users to share individual replies or entire conversations as needed.
Community Engagement: Hosting "AI Prompt Challenges" with prizes up to tens of thousands of points; added personal profile pages and AI-generated chat names.
Yupp's mission is "Empowering humans to shape the future of AI." Pankaj Gupta believes that the development of AI requires the participation and contribution of everyone. Through multi-perspective AI responses and user feedback, Yupp not only helps users make better decisions but also provides continuous momentum for AI evolution.
It is worth noting that one of Yupp's main competitors is the open AI model evaluation platform LMArena (https://lmarena.ai/), which is very popular among AI insiders but is currently in the commercialization exploration stage and does not offer direct material rewards or points-based incentives for user participation through blockchain technology.
Overall, Yupp's crowdsourcing model, incentive mechanisms, and evaluation system driven by real user preferences have blazed a new trail in AI evaluation. It not only provides users with free and diverse AI interaction experiences but also transforms user feedback into high-value training data, driving continuous model optimization. With its experienced team and top-tier capital backing, Yupp is poised to play a key role in the future AI ecosystem, realizing the vision of "AI for everyone, shaped by everyone."
However, for the newly launched Yupp, how to ensure data quality and resist potential cheating behaviors under large-scale user participation, as well as strike a balance between commercialization and user incentives, will remain directions that Yupp needs to continuously explore and optimize in the future.
