Imagine that you could ask a direct question to the people you most admire. What would you ask?

Now imagine you’re not just getting answers — you're also investing in their success. Who would you ape into?

Welcome to builder.fi, the market for knowledge

builder.fi is a SocialFi app where you can monetize your knowledge by answering thoughtful questions from other builders.

1. Launch your key to allow others to ask you questions.

2. Buy other people’s keys to ask them questions and reveal all past answers.

3. Hold their key to show support, or sell it when it gets more valuable.

An expertise marketplace, designed for people seeking in-depth information or solutions to specific problems.

Why builder.fi?

Crypto allows us to create markets. Builder.fi is the market for knowledge, built to democratize niche expertise and unlock an additional source of income for builders.

Experts are incentivized to share their knowledge and support the next builders.

Upcoming builders, and other curious minds, can connect meaningfully with high-value individuals and learn from them.

And traders are also free to speculate on the success of the best web3 builders.

Crypto’s future depends on building better technology, not just gambling on coins. It depends on builders. So if you’re not a builder, the best way to help crypto succeed, and to put your name in crypto history, is by supporting the next generation builders.

Getting started

To join, go to app.builder.fi and install it as a mobile app by adding the website to your home screen. Then signup with email, google, twitter, github or apple id.

Builder.fi will automatically create a new self-custodial wallet for you, that you fully own and control, using Privy. The onboarding can feel complex at times, but the experience will be super smooth after you’re in.

The app is built on Base and uses ETH as its main currency. You will need to deposit at least 0.001 ETH to create your account, but you will be able to withdraw your funds or export your wallet at anytime.

Another important step is connecting your web3 social profiles (ENS, Farcaster, Lens and Talent Protocol) with your builder.fi account. This will verify your identity, import your profile information and make it easier for your friends to find you.

Buy keys to ask questions

To allow others to ask you questions, you need to launch your first key.

The first key is free, you just need to pay Base gas fees (<$0.1). Creating the first key onchain creates a market for your keys, and makes you holder #1.

Buy other people’s key to ask them questions and reveal all past answers, visible only to their key holders. Hold their key to show support and keep your holder number. Sell it when you have no more questions to ask or when the key gets more valuable.

All of these keys are tracked in a smart contract and their price (in ETH) is tied to a bonding curve. Simply put, the more key of someone are purchased, the more their price goes up. The more are sold, the cheaper they get.

We use an exponential curve - that becomes steeper as a more people buy keys - because:

1. we don’t want an expert to have too many key holders: a lot of questions would put too much pressure on key creators;

2. trading keys is welcomed: after you learned from one expert, you can sell their keys and move on to another person you can learn more from;

3. higher key costs should incentivize better quality questions and reduce spam.

Questions & Answers

We believe a Q&A user experience will promote more meaningful interactions, when compared to traditional social media posts or private group chats.

1. Content quality: unlike social media, where the emphasis is often on quick, reactive posts, builder.fi encourages more thoughtful, detailed responses.

2. More relevant: The upvoting system facilitates moderation and gives visibility to the most interesting questions.

3. Easy to find: the structured nature of Q&A means questions can remain accessible for much longer compared to the ephemeral nature of social media and chats;

It's also important to note that the key creator (expert) is under no obligation to answer questions from their key holders.

Buying a key just gives a key holders the ability to ask questions to the key creator and unlock access to all previous answers.

If a user is unhappy with the response to a question they asked, they can always sell their keys back to the market.

The upvote/downvote system can help experts prioritize what questions to answer first, so making your question relevant and interesting will increase the likelihood of receiving a reply.

Fee breakdown

Every time someone buys or sells a key, they pay a 7.5% trading fee. This fee is split between the key creator (5%) and builder.fi (2.5%).

The remaining 92.5% are locked in the bonding curve, to guarantee full market liquidity. This is what allows keys to be purchased and sold automatically.

This means all key creators receive 5% of any purchase or sale their keys.

The platform fee is 2.5% during the alpha stage, but might be subject to an update.

Handpicking top builders

builder.fi is still highly experimental. During 2023 we will keep the app invite-only and roll it out in batches, to test and iterate fast upon community feedback.

For Batch #1 we already handpicked 100 top builders to test the app and give us real time feedback.

During each Batch, a maximum number of keys can be created. Batch #2 will open soon and is limited to 100 builders, followed by batch #3 (150 builders), and batch #4 (150 builders).

We're focused on quality, sustainable growth, in order to create a positive environment for growth, where users are encouraged to ask questions, share knowledge, and learn from others

This approach should also create an incentive for early users to be highly selective over who they invite, resulting in a platform with reputable builders.

Points and progressive decentralization

builder.fi is built to be owned by its users.

The app is currently tracking activity and contributions with a Points system, that will have future utility in the Talent Protocol ecosystem.

The first distribution of Points happened on November 24th, where 83 builder.fi users received a total of 34,055 points.

Here's a summary of how points work:

• Points are distributed every Friday. We consider activity until Thursday 11:59pm UTC.

• Points are non-transferable and recorded off-chain,

• The criteria to attribute points will update weekly. We do not recommend any specific methods to earn points; it is best to use the app as you normally would.

• We reserve the right to modify previous point distributions if issues arise.

Built openly by the Talent Protocol team

builder.fi was born at the Ethereum Singapore hackathon, in September 2023, where it won multiple prizes. This early success motivated us to keep building. Thank you to SJ, for the extra hand during the hackathon, and to Jason Goldberg for his enthusiastic support to this project!

Today, builder.fi is still designed for web3 builders and built by Talent Protocol, a trusted team that has been around for more than 2.5 years.

From a more technical lens, builder.fi is:

• a consumer crypto app, built on top of web3 social graphs from Farcaster, Lens, Talent Protocol and ENS;

• deployed on Base, a leading L2 network aiming to onboard the next 1B onchain users, and powered by web3 data APIs from Airstack and embedded wallets from Privy;

• using a PWA architecture, which gives users a mobile app with everything from notifications to offline functionality without requiring an initial app store download;

• the first stand-alone app we've built within the Talent Protocol ecosystem, that exists to help the next generation of builders achieve fulfilment and success.

builder.fi vs friend.tech

builder.fi was inspired by a few product innovations popularized friend.tech, so comparisons are inevitable.

We see builder.fi as a complement to existing SocialFi apps like friend.tech, not a replacement.

We all have multiple social media accounts, like Twitter, Instagram or Reddit, with slightly different use cases and audiences. It’s also perfectly normal to have an account and keys both on friend.tech and builder.fi, because they solve different problems.

builder.fi is designed to be the place where builders ask thoughtful questions to each other, and have financial incentives to share their knowledge. And we feel friendtech is not the best place for that: not the right audience or the right UX to share knowledge.

The three key differences are:

• Q&A interaction model, instead of a group chat;

• Web3 social graph (Farcaster, Lens), instead of Twitter;

• Focused more on experts and builders, and less on influencers and degens.

Follow our journey

You can stay up to date with builder.fi here on Paragraph or Twitter, and soon also on Farcaster.

builder.fi is currently invite-only. To secure early access do one or more of following:

1. Join the builder.fi waitlist to be among the first to receive an invite code via email.

2. Watch for the invite codes posted by builder.fi on Twitter.

3. Get invited by a friend: reach out to someone who already joined builder.fi.

Disclaimers

Users should be aware of the risks and speculative nature of volatile markets and are responsible for 100% of the trading activity on builder.fi.

Keys on builder.fi have no direct claim on any services, earnings or time from the key creator. They merely represent the ability to publish a private question and access to the history of previous questions and answers.

Keys and Points do not come with any inherent governance rights, and are non-transferable by nature.