Did you know:
Only a few hundred people control most of the daily allowance? We show you how to find them.
You can't over-tip anymore, you can't delete tips, and over-tipping by accident can't be reversed?
The future of Degen Tips will be changing dramatically in the next few weeks.
Full details down below 👇
I'm not a Degen team member. Nothing I write is financial advice, or a recommendation to take action. This is a collection of my personal notes, documenting facts and observations. Always do your own research. 🫡
What's New
If you just want to know what's changed, read the latest update post - but know that there's so much that's changed you'll need to come back here anyway!
If you've missed more than one update, there's a full list of updates you can read through.
New or updated material is marked with a emoji. You can search for that emoji to easily find this material.
Table of Contents
Section | Description |
What is Degen Tips, what is $DEGEN, ... | |
How to qualify for receiving tips, how to claim, ... | |
How to qualify for an allowance, over-tipping, ... | |
How to improve your chances of being seen | |
What are raindrops, how to use them, ... | |
Can I be disqualified, .... | |
Major themes in season 5 and what's coming | |
Frames, queries, etc. | |
Exact formulae used in Degen Tips | |
What is OpenRank and how exactly does it fit in |
1. Tipping Basics
Q: What is $DEGEN?
$DEGEN is a blockchain token that can be exchanged for other tokens or cash, or used to purchase products and pay for services on Base Chain or the recently created Degen Chain.
Q: What are Degen Tips?
Degen Tips are a way for members of the Farcaster community to indicate who they believe should receive $DEGEN during Airdrops.
Tips are a way to reward others with $DEGEN for posting quality content, thereby incentivizing the authentic growth of the Farcaster social network. The Degen project is not affiliated with Farcaster.
Degen Tips are not the same thing as $DEGEN tokens
👉 If you've received $DEGEN tokens, you hold actual cryptocurrency tokens in your wallet that you can send to others, or swap for some other token.
👉 If you've received $DEGEN Tips, you actually only have airdrop points that you'll still need to exchange for $DEGEN tokens at the end of the season. Tips are not always guaranteed to be converted into tokens. See Receiving Tips for details.
Q: What are Raindrops?
Raindrops are a new feature provided by the Degen Tips team to distribute $DEGEN tokens among specific replies to a raindrop cast. This FAQ has a separate section on Raindrops.
Q: Why would I want tips?
Because you're presumably on Farcaster to do something interesting, so why not receive donations that you can turn into $DEGEN tokens while you are at it?
Q: Who gets to receive tips?
Any Farcaster user can receive a tip, with some minor caveats. You will need to get the attention of somebody with a tip allowance by casting content which they want to tip. Everybody has their own ideas of what is tip-worthy, so start off by finding people who share your values and interests. See Receiving Tips for further discussion.
Q: Who gets to donate tips?
Farcaster users with a Degen Tip Allowance get to tip. See Tip Allowances for details.
Q: Why would I want a tip allowance?
Good reasons:
you want to actively support high quality content on Farcaster
you're good at identifying high quality people and want to support their growth and development
you're a natural social connector, bringing people, places, and things together in productive ways
Bad reasons:
you want a marketing budget to promote yourself
you want to steal tips from the airdrops for yourself
you want to trick people into tipping you
Q: Who runs this process?
The process for calculating tip allowances is machine automated, and based on Farcaster activity (casts, reactions, etc.). @jacek is the principal developer.
Q: Why do people ask me to "like, recast, reply, follow, mention" as part of a $DEGEN Tip "giveaway"?
The formula for calculating tip allowances is partially based on engagement with other users. The people running these giveaways are using you to increase their engagement score, and thereby increase their tip allowance. This allows them to run even bigger giveaways, and increase their engagement score even more. They do this over and over, day after day.
Not all giveaways are necessarily a problem, but the ones that are on a loop and don't involve creative input/output are most likely bad for the community. Following their instructions encourages them to do more of the same. See Roadmap for a discussion about why this is problematic and what is being done about it.
There's no guarantee the tipper even has an allowance to tip you with (fake tips!), or that they won't invalidate their tips later!
Q: People can fake tip?
Fake tipping is basically the same thing as over-tipping, therefore you can use the same tools to check tip validity as for over-tipping (see above). Don't blindly trust tips people claim to give you, e.g. don't sell anything for tips unless you are willing to take the risk of not receiving the tips.
There is also a different form of fake tipping where people write something like 123 $DEGEN but it's not actually a Roman "D", or the space is actually a special non-breaking space character. Sometimes this is an accident, sometimes it is on purpose to fool you. To detect this you can use the Degen Tips frames in the Useful Links section.
Q: And tips can be invalidated, reversed or cancelled?
Yes; in summary, based on the various details throughout this FAQ, tips won't count if the donor:
exceeds their tip allowance
deletes the tipping cast
does something to reduce their allowance retroactively (e.g. deletes a very popular cast that contributed significantly to their allowance)
removes all their verified wallets
no longer has 10K $DEGEN in their wallet
is disqualified
runs out of storage and their tipping cast is removed (highly unlikely)
Don't ever use tips as a means of value transfer with somebody you don't trust! That's what tokens are for!
Q: Are tips and allowances locked down each day, forever ("snapshotted")?
No. Adjustments to the formulas and algorithms for both donations and receipts can be made up until the last minute of the season if necessary (e.g. disqualifying a bot farm from receiving tips).
There is only a single snapshot taken at the end of the season, and it looks back over all the data for the month. This is also why you shouldn't worry about technical issues mid-month, as the season snapshot is only taken when all issues are resolved and there is valid data for every day of the season, looking back.
Q: Where can I get support?
There's no official support.
Community support: try mentioning @jacek on Farcaster, otherwise ask questions on /degen (the most popular $DEGEN channel) or /degentokenbase (the official channel).
Note you are not guaranteed an answer. Tag me or send me a DC if you're stumped.
Q: Can you draw me a picture?
Sure, it comes in light and dark flavor.
2. Receiving Tips
Q: How do I qualify to receive tips?
You must simply have at least 1 verified address on your Farcaster profile (see Airdrop 2 Leaderboard: line 95).
In the past there was a disqualified users check, and a profile display name check; these have both been disabled (lines 96 and 97).
Q: I got tipped! How do I get $DEGEN?
At the end of each Airdrop season you will go to the Degen Tips website, and click the "Connect" button on the menu. After you've connected your wallet, visit the page for the Airdrop & Season you're participating in. Then click the Claim button to get your $DEGEN.
Q: When does the current season end?
No exact date has been announced, but usually the season ends around the 28th of each month. Follow @jacek and enable notifications for his account to be alerted.
Q: How many airdrops and seasons will there be?
You're currently in Airdrop 2 Season 5. A season is currently 1 month in duration. I have an analysis of all the airdrops on Dune.
See the Tokenomics page for the official breakdown of supply distribution:
Q: How much time do I have to claim my points as $DEGEN?
You have until the start of the next season, so typically about 4 weeks.
If you don't claim within the claims period then you will lose your points permanently.
Q: What's the difference between tips and airdrop points?
Tips are what Farcaster users give you. Airdrop points are what the system calculates you have received in $DEGEN tokens.
Q: What's the ratio of tips to airdrop points?
Scenario | Points per Tip |
Invalidated tips, over-tips, disqualified tips, etc. | 0 |
All others | 1 |
There used to be a 50% points boost for tips received in certain channels. This was removed in Season 5.
Q: Where can I see my points?
You can see your overall points using the same frames in the Useful Links section, and on the Degen.tips website.
There are also bots like @degentipbot and @edit's that will sometimes tell you in near real-time whether a particular tip was valid. Unfortunately there are so many people tipping now that the bots can't reply to everybody.
There is also a query on Dune you can run that will indicate if a tip is valid, but it hasn't been updated for Season 5.
Forking and fixing this query is a great opportunity for a developer out there to start making a name for themselves! Tag me or DC me on Warpcast and I'll share your work.
Q: People are tipping me but I'm not seeing any points!
It's possible there is a technical issue. You can try using the Data Status page in the Useful Links section to monitor data freshness, otherwise tag me or send me a Direct Cast on Farcaster and if I'm not busy I'll see if I can help. Don't worry, if the tips are legitimate, they will eventually accrue to you.
Q: What strategies are there to receive more tips?
50% of tip allowances are distributed to the top ranked 171 people.
If you are looking for tips, it would be logical to study the Most Engaging Users list, figure out what behavior or content they like to tip, and then interact with those whose tipping preferences align with what you enjoy doing anyway. In other words: be yourself, but don't act in a vacuum.
Make sure you also read the section on Being Seen, because this has become a very complex topic that deserves a dedicated discussion. There are also more anti-social strategies for receiving tips, but I will not share them here.
3. Donating Tips
Q: How do I qualify for a tip allowance?
You must have a verified wallet address on Farcaster (Airdrop 2 Tip Allocations Exponential Decay line 75). You can verify an address using your Farcaster client, e.g. on Warpcast go to
Settings -> Verified Addresses. Make sure to complete all the steps: many people forget to do the final step!You must hold at least 10K $DEGEN tokens in total across these verified Farcaster address(es) on Base Chain. This can be in any combination e.g. all 10K in a single address, 5K in 2 addresses, etc. (Airdrop 2 Most Engaging Farcaster FIDs line 36).
Your allowance will be significantly nerfed (reduced) if you haven't tipped at least 5 times in the preceding 7 days (Airdrop 2 Most Engaging Farcaster FIDs line 17). Effectively, you need to signal your intention to participate by taking explicit action and thereby opt-into the tip allowance system.
Only $DEGEN tokens, not tips/points counts towards the 10K minimum.
Only $DEGEN tokens on Base Chain count, not those held on the Degen Chain.
In previous seasons there were more stringent criteria e.g. minimum number of casts, avatar picture, non-disqualification, etc.
Q: Are you sure I don't need to hold everything in one wallet?
It's my understanding that query 3488807 calculates wallet balances and query 3471566 aggregates balances per FID. These are the queries used for Airdrop 2 Most Engaging Farcaster FIDs. That being said, this seems quite implementation specific and at risk of changing. It's probably wiser to keep everything in one address.
Q: Can I move my 10K $DEGEN after I get a tip allowance?
Your tip allowance for every day in the season will be verified at season snapshot time i.e. at the end of the season. If your aggregate $DEGEN balances on your verified wallets is below 10K at the time of the season snapshot, all your tips for the entire season will be invalidated (see Airdrop 2 Most Engaging Farcaster FIDs line 37, which does not consider daily balances, only the current balance).
During the season, if your balance falls below 10K then none of the allowance checking sites or frames or Dune queries will give you an allowance. Provided you restore your balance to 10K before the end of the season, you will nevertheless have a balance for the days due to the fact that the algorithm only cares about your final balance at snapshot time, not on individual days.
You will only make things needlessly complicated by running your balance below 10K $DEGEN.
Q: How is the size of my tip allowance determined?
It's complicated, but basically Degen Tips uses something called OpenRank to figure out what your reputation in the social network is and gives users with a higher reputation a bigger chunk of the daily global tipping allowance, which is currently 5 million DEGEN/day.
This is done because a tip allowance is seen as a privilege earned within the community and not a right that everybody automatically gets. See the Roadmap and Deep Dive sections at the end of the FAQ for more detail about why this is the case and what the exact mechanics look like.
Q: Is there a minimum allowance?
Yes, the minimum allowance is 5. This allows you to opt-into the tipping program by performing the minimum tipping behavior (remember you must tip a minimum of 5x every 7 days or your rank will be significantly nerfed).
Q: Is it true that the more $DEGEN I hold, the larger my allowance will be no?
No, this is a misreading of a comment @jacek made: the "10K min" part was incorrectly interpreted as implying something happens when balances exceed 10K. There is nothing in the Dune code that looks at $DEGEN balances other than the 10K qualifying balance check.
Q: I didn't get a tip allowance, can you tell me why?
Try the Eligibility Checker found in the Useful Links section. If you're still struggling, tag me or DC me and I'll help where I can.
Q: Why is my allowance decreasing every day?
It's most likely that your rank has fallen. Either other people are receiving more engagement than you from higher ranked users, or you're receiving less engagement, or both. You can check your rank using frames or on Dune; see Useful Links.
Make sure you've tipped at least 5 times in the preceding 7 days, otherwise your rank will fall dramatically!
There were also multiple changes up until around 4 June that would have affected your rank.
Q: I still don't understand why my rank is falling each day?
Most people aren't consistently popular every single day. For example, I get a ton of engagement when I release a Degen Tips FAQ update, but then my engagement drops off significantly. My OpenRank score will grow quickly on the day I publish an update, but then over the next few days more popular users will catch up and eliminate my gains just through natural growth.
There is also one other phenomenon to be aware of: 'sleeper' users who are not currently participating in tipping can wake up and do the minimum of 5 tips in a week to activate their allowance. For example, currently Vitalik Buterin is not participating in Degen Tips, but if he were to tip 5 tips in a week then he would end up with a very high rank due to his high reputation, and everybody underneath his new rank would drop down 1 rank.
Q: How do I tip?
Reply to the person you want to tip with a message containing text like this:
123 $DEGEN
This will donate 123 points of your allowance to the person you're replying to, if you have sufficient allowance. Your allowance will reduce by 123 points, and the recipient's points will increase by 123 points.
You can only donate whole amounts e.g.
420.69 $DEGENwill accomplish nothing.Case doesn't matter e.g.
$DEGEN,$degen,$deGeNare all equivalent.The space is important: writing
123$DEGENwill tip nothing.You can write anything you like before and after e.g.
awesome! 123 $degenor123 $degen this made me lolwill work fine.
Think of these messages like IOUs. Nothing exchanges hands until the end of the month, when all the IOUs are collected and validated by @jacek in a season snapshot.
Q: What's the technical details for the tip message format?
It is implemented using a case-insensitive regular expression (Airdrop 2 Leaderboard: line 16): ([0-9]+) \$DEGEN.
Note that this specific format has been exploited by some people who use non-breaking spaces, or non-Roman D/E/G/N letters to present what looks like a real tip but isn't picked up by the regex.
If you're building a tip-monitoring bot, consider detecting these fake tips to alert users specifically that they've been fake tipped. If you do go this route, be careful about making accusations: e.g. non-breaking spaces are often inserted accidentally by innocent users.
Q: What happens if I delete my tipping cast?
The tip will still stand (Airdrop 2 Leaderboard line 19).
In previous seasons, you could delete a tipping cast and the tip would be ignored. As of 26 May, tips will still stand even if deleted.
Q: What happens if I over-tip?
Tips are accepted wholly, never partially. For example, if your allowance is 100 and you tip 150, the system will reject your tip - it will not partially tip the 100 you can afford.
Tips will be accepted first-come-first-served, until a tip would exceed your allowance (Airdrop 2 Leaderboard line 54). Even if subsequent tips don't exceed your allowance, they will still count as over-tips. For example, consider:
You have an allowance of 100
You tip 90 - this will be accepted because your running total is now 90, which is <= 100
You tip 15 - this will be rejected because your running total is now 115, which exceeds 100
You tip 5 - this will also be rejected because your running total is now 120, which exceeds 100
This may not be intuitive - you may expect that the 15 will be skipped and the 5 accepted, but this is not the case (Airdrop 2 Leaderboard line 32-35 combined with 54).
Combined with the fact that you can no longer delete your tipping casts, an over-tipping mistake cannot be corrected e.g. if you have a 10 allowance and you tip 100 by accident then you will have no recourse and no tipping allowance until the next tipping day.
In previous seasons, there was an over-tipping safety margin that allowed you to get away with a small amount of over-tipping, due to data integration reliability issues experienced early on in the program. This safety margin has been removed, so do not exceed your allowance.
In previous seasons, users who repeatedly and significantly over-tipped were disqualified. Currently nobody is being disqualified in Season 5, but be aware of the risks of not regularly checking your allowance.
Q: If I can't see my allowance on a frame, or on degen.tips, or Dune, what does it mean?
Don't panic. Degen Tips is experimental and frequently subject to technical issues.
Since the snapshot is only taken at the end of the month after any technical issues resolved, that means it will look back over the entire month with all missing data accounted for. In other words, you should always assume you have a tipping allowance if you previously had one regardless of whatever technical issues may be preventing you from viewing your allowance today. Remember if you don't use it on the day, you lose it.
Most people assume they have somewhere between 50-100% of their tipping allowance from the previous day and continue as per normal when there are technical issues.
Q: The frames/Dune/degen.tips don't agree on my (remaining) allowance!
Sometimes there are technical issues. Check if my account has shared any information, or @tag me so I can ask around. Go with the lower allowance amount until you know for sure - it's better to tip less than make a promise you can't keep.
There is also a problem with @paybot commands overlapping with Degen tipping commands. For example, if you try to send with @paybot 123 $DEGEN, you will simultaneously tip the same amount. Use the alternative send options or command format to avoid this.
Q: What happens if I don't use my allowance?
It is lost, i.e. it won't carry over to the next day.
Q: I used up my allowance, when does it get topped up?
It will be topped up to the full amount all at once at 00:00 UTC, every day of the week. Allowances are always topped up fully at the same time each day, never partially. Most Degen Tips frames will show you the relative refresh time (e.g. "4 hours from now"); see Useful Links.
Time Zone | Time Zone Name | Local Time |
UTC | Coordinated Universal Time | 00:00 (midnight) |
EDT (UTC-4) | Easter Daylight Time | 8:00 PM |
CDT (UTC-5) | Central Daylight Time | 7:00 PM |
MDT (UTC-6) | Mountain Daylight Time | 6:00 PM |
PDT (UTC-7) | Pacific Daylight Time | 5:00 PM |
BST (UTC+1) | British Summer Time | 1:00 AM |
CEST (UTC+2) | Central European Summer Time | 2:00 AM |
EEST (UTC+3) | Eastern European Summer Time | 3:00 AM |
IST (UTC+5:30) | Indian Standard Time | 5:30 AM |
CST (UTC+8) | China Standard Time | 8:00 AM |
JST (UTC+9) | Japan Standard Time | 9:00 AM |
AEST (UTC+10) | Australian Eastern Standard Time | 10:00 AM |
@jacek has previously indicated on AlfaFrens that the new refresh time is 01:05 UTC, however I can't see any indication of this in the Dune source code. Everything I see points to 00:00 UTC. Please tag / DC me if you confirm either 00:00 or 01:05 UTC!
Q: Does storage matter?
Yes, storage is critical:
If you run out of storage, your casts and reactions will be removed (oldest first). This means that the OpenRank algorithm will not be able to take engagements with you and engagements from you into account. This means you affect both your own reputation and that of others.
If you cast frequently enough that your tipping casts from earlier in the season are removed, then those tips will not be processed and the people you tipped will lose the points.
Check your storage regularly to ensure you haven't run out:
Q: What strategies are there for receiving a greater allowance?
The only way to improve your allowance is to improve your OpenRank (and make sure you tip at least 5 times each week). See the dedicated OpenRank section if you want to understand it better.
Q: Will mentioning big accounts increase my rank?
No, it doesn't work in that direction. Your rank will only increase if big accounts mention you.
Q: Then why do I keep seeing people tag big accounts in nonsense casts?
They are probably trying to bait those big accounts into engaging with them, which will increase the reputation of the baiter and therefore their rank (credit: @wake). Don't engage with spammers, you will literally send the wrong signal to the system!
4. Being Seen
Q: To receive tips I must be seen, and to be allocated an allowance I must be seen; how?
The standard advice is to start off by replying to other users in a constructive manner. People will see your value, and begin to tip and/or follow you.
Q: What shouldn't I do?
If you're new to Farcaster, the worst mistake you can make is to dive in and start casting on your own profile: if you have no followers, nobody will see anything you write there!
Q: Then what do I do?
The same thing you do in real-life when you join any new community: contribute meaningfully to existing conversations by replying, giving people an opportunity to see your potential value in the community. Once people see your value, they will start following you. Then you can start posting your own content, because there will actually be people who see it.
This advice will serve you well if you are an established Farcaster user with a solid number of followers (> 100). But if you're a newcomer, there's a catch to this strategy: Warpcast Priority Mode and Power Badges.
Q: What is Warpcast Priority Mode & Power Badges?
Some background:
Farcaster is a permission-less decentralized social network i.e. anybody can join if they pay the fee, and they can cast anything. This means there's a lot of spam on the network from scammers, bots, etc.
Warpcast is the software most people use to access Farcaster, and Warpcast has some rules about what casts they show to their users. They do this to protect users from scams, spam, etc. and to improve the overall experience on Farcaster.
Understanding the Warpcast rules is critical if you want participate productively on Farcaster as a newcomer (even if you don't use Warpcast yourself).
The biggest rule to understand about Warpcast is Priority Mode. Priority Mode is enabled on Warpcast by default, and it means that Warpcast users will only see:
Accounts they follow
Accounts with a Power Badge
Accounts that a cast author replies to or likes
Now, if you're a new user: (1) nobody follows you, (2) you won't have a power badge, and (3) cast authors won't reply or like anything you say because they won't see you unless they have Priority Mode disabled (rare). If this seems like a chicken & egg problem, you're correct.
Q: What can I do about Warpcast Priority Mode & Power Badges, as a newcomer?
Read the Priority Mode page extremely carefully, and then read it again, and then read it ten more times:
Priority Mode doesn't apply everywhere in Warpcast so you aren't completely invisible.
Not everybody and everywhere has Priority Mode enabled, so eventually people will stumble across you e.g. on the Trending tab of a channel.
There are recommendations for how to get started e.g. whomever introduced you to Farcaster can follow you and start liking/replying to you on their casts.
Aside from studying the above, there is also one other thing you can try: the /powermonday channel, which is monitored by people who have chosen to disable Priority Model and give random strangers a chance.
Q: Anything else?
Warpcast has recently changed how they order casts show to their users. Study the following:
Varun Srinivasan on Warpcast
Warpcast now uses an ML model to order casts. If you have many unread casts, the model decides which ones go at the very top of your feed. It's main purpose is to learn your preferences and show you the most interesting stuff first. I'll go into some more details on how it works in the thread below.
5. Raindrops
Q: What are Raindrops?
Raindrops are a new feature introduced in Season 5 that can be used to promote one of your casts.
Raindrops involve the following steps:
Fueling Up: sending $DEGEN on Base to the raindrops wallet (a 2% fee applies)
Casting: post a cast with
rain <amount> $degenanywhere in the textReply: other users reply to the raindrop cast
Rewards: author likes replies to distribute rewards evenly among them
Distribution: recipients of the raindrop receive rewards during regular airdrop claims
Q: How can I check if my raindrops cast is working?
Check the official Degen Rain Casts list.
Q: Why isn't my raindrop working?
Did you factor the 2% fee into account?
Q: Are Raindrops related to tips?
No, Raindrops are completely independent from tips.
Q: Can I use my tip allowance to start a raindrop?
No, you can only use actual $DEGEN tokens you currently hold.
Q: So the Raindropper sends real $DEGEN immediately but the recipients only receive airdrop points?
Correct.
Q: How long does the raindrop remain enter-able?
Until the end of the season. But that doesn't mean the caster will continue liking replies.
Q: How do I know if a raindrop is legit?
There's a validity checker in the Useful Links section.
6. Disqualification
Q: Can I really be disqualified
Not currently.
In previous seasons, disqualification was a thing. With the new algorithm, @jacek has indicated on AlfaFrens that he has lifted bans and is considering keeping them lifted as low ranking users will have no significant allowance to abuse anyway.
Q: What used to get people disqualified?
Source: Disqualified Farcaster Users comments
Manual/Auto moderation (e.g. engagement farming, trying to extract tip allowances back to yourself/friends, etc.)
Bots doing dumb bot things
Regular overspending
Triggering the spam rules: to protect the system, I will not elaborate on the rules, but basically just be a normal human who posts original casts and doesn't just quote/follow non-stop like a bot
Q: Is there a public list of who used to be disqualified?
Yes, see Disqualified Farcaster Users.
Q: Aside from the above, are any other Farcaster accounts disqualified from participating?
Yes, specifically some bot accounts: @degenbot, @degentip, @degentokenbase, and @paybot (Airdrop 2 Leaderboard line 20).
Q: Would disqualification be retroactive if re-instituted?
That's how it worked in the past -- if you get disqualified on the last day of the season, you are disqualified from receiving and donating tips for the entire season retroactively.
Q: Can I be shadow banned?
No, read Dan Romero's comment, but also read the section on Priority Mode, which some argue is effectively shadow banning:
Dan Romero on Warpcast
PSA — there is no more "shadow ban" on Warpcast 1. Everyone has Priority mode turned on by default 2. If you want someone to see your casts: a. Follow you b. They turn off priority mode c. You earn the power badge https://warpcast.notion.site/Priority-mode-7a9bccacc1474ccbba1e58dd2bec2dd3?pvs=25
7. Roadmap
Q: What's the big picture here?
The Degen Tips website explains that the purpose of Degen is to "reward others with $DEGEN for posting quality content" (emphasis is mine).
In my opinion, Degen Tips has succeeded if its design incentivizes an increase in average post quality, and it has failed if it instead incentivizes a decrease in average post quality.
Q: Which problems were tackled in Season 4 (May 2024)?
Season 4 tackled the problem of $DEGEN supply inflation. Supply inflation means that as each airdrop mints more $DEGEN, the value of each $DEGEN out there decreases, ceteris paribus (other things equal, i.e. assuming nothing else changes).
While it's true that demand for $DEGEN is also increasing, demand and supply increases must be kept in balance to prevent both inflation and deflation. In the previous seasons, airdrop supply was largely unconstrained.
To this end, the daily maximum allowance was capped to 5 million DEGEN/day in Season 4, which works out to 150 million DEGEN per typical month. This represented a roughly 80% decrease in airdrop size compared to the preceding month. This daily cap could presumably change up or down in the future, depending on what happens to demand.
Q: Which problems are being tackled in Season 5 (June 2024)?
As per @jacek, Degen Tips has been subject to a tragedy of the commons in two main forms, and the Season 5 changes are just the beginning of an attempt to address these issues:
Gaming
Sybil clusters
Q: What's an example of "gaming"?
You may have seen something called a "tip giveaway flywheel", which looks like this:
A dude announces he'll give away most or all of his allowance to a random person who reacts to his post i.e. likes or recasts it. He promises extra "contest entries" to people who tip him.
People engage with his cast and tip him for extra entries, hoping to win the allowance.
The algorithm notices the engagement he's getting and increases his reputation.
Since reputation is used to determine tip allowance each day, the next day his allowance will be larger.
Next day he goes back to step (1), but with a larger allowance to give away, which attracts more people than before.
This flywheel continues day after day. He doesn't even have to really count entries - who can prove it either way. The winner will, of course, sing his praises and promote him to their followers and real-life friends, again growing his follower network.
Q: What's the problem with gaming, nobody gets hurt right?
Let's look at the macroeconomics of this behavior:
He's taken tip allowances in the thousands of dollars from thousands of users and directed them to a single user.
This single user does nothing all day but post low quality memes, which are probably sourced from fiverr for $5/day.
Word spreads as giveaway winners tell their friends to join Farcaster for the mad loot.
Newcomers begin to think Farcaster giveaways are a "job"; more advanced users start building bots to "compete" in giveaways.
The network is flooded by an army of desperate people and bots producing low quality or zero value content while taking tips out of the hands of people who are actually productive.
I've received evidence that some of people are non-technical and are paying others for "access" to Farcaster, and are being told they are "workers" who have to earn the payment back; this results in a highly charged negative atmosphere on the social network when the tipping rules move against them
Clearly this is not sustainable: the number of bots and low quality users will always be able to increase faster than the number of high quality users. This imposes a massive cost on running the network, and for normal people joining Farcaster the place looks like a complete dystopia of bots and "workers". If allowed to continue unchallenged:
The network can't scale to handle trillions of bots because it's designed to (ultimately) only handle 1 billion humans; this is an existential threat to Farcaster itself.
Before that happens, the high-quality humans will leave because they don't want to stick around watching trillions of bots and low-quality users foraging for tips
As the high-quality humans leave, average post quality will fall and therefore Degen tips will have failed its mission.
Q: Are all giveaways bad?
Based on the definitions above, no. It is entirely possible for a giveaway to result in a net increase in quality posts, or average post quality e.g. a giveaway that calls for some kind of original work of creativity. Quality content can also pertain to outside the social network e.g. performing charitable work such as planting a tree or helping the less fortunate.
My personal view: Let's be real - there's nothing wrong with the occasional frivolous giveaway. It's part of what makes things fun and exciting on Farcaster. We are humans not robots, we don't have to be 100% rational and consistent. Tip giveaways become a problem when they are happening repeatedly as part of a pattern of abuse designed to exploit the tipping system for personal gain at the expense of the broader community.
Q: Aren't Raindrops the same as a tip giveaway?
No. Tip giveaways come from the community airdrop pool, which is a shared resource that mints $DEGEN tokens every month. Raindrops come from the user's own existing $DEGEN holdings and have nothing to do with Degen Tips directly, other than being run as part of the same project.
Tips increase $DEGEN supply; Raindrops don't alter $DEGEN supply. Because Raindrops don't mint new supply, they don't have the same risks of abuse, and therefore the same arguments don't apply to Raindrops.
Q: What are Sybil clusters?
This is when people create fake accounts they run themselves, with the idea to tip these accounts and then ultimately receive the $DEGEN airdrop into their own account, i.e. taking more than their fair share. There can also be an overlap between Sybil clusters and tip giveaways, e.g. making the giveaway winner one of your fake accounts, or using your fake accounts to hype up the giveaway with "extra entry tips", etc.
Q: What's the problem with Sybil clusters, nobody gets hurt right?
Similar to tip giveaway flywheels, the capacity to create fake accounts is virtually unlimited. If allowed to continue unchallenged, the share of the $DEGEN pie incentivizing high-quality users will decrease and therefore it's likely average post quality will fall.
Q: What's the solution introduced in Season 5?
As per @jacek's comments on AlfaFrens, Degen Tips will be shifting away from "using engagement as a metric to leveraging the social graph". The social graph refers to the activity between Farcaster participants. Specifically, something called OpenRank will start with a small group of top tier users that are entrusted to embody the Degen Tips values. The algorithm will then follow the activity of those top tier users with other users on the network and distribute reputation downstream to them, and then do the same for those users' activity. This repeats until the global reputation changes stabilize.
By leveraging the social graph, the rules around how reputation is calculated have become much more difficult to manipulate via gaming and Sybil clusters. This is because creating engagement with bots is easy, but it won't mean anything if those bots don't have a high reputation in the system. See the OpenRank section for details.
Q: These changes are unfair to newcomers / small accounts / ....!
These changes don't affect your ability to receive tips. They are a "quality gate" on who is trusted to distribute tips from the community pool. I strongly recommend you read the design considerations for the EigenTrust algorithm, which is what OpenRank (and therefore Degen Tips) uses to establish reputation (trustworthiness).
It's simply not feasible for everybody to have a tipping allowance - it has been tried in the past, and it will end up being abused and reduce the value of the token.
You should ask yourself why you believe you should have an allowance when few other people have on. Refer back to Section 1 "Why would I want a tip allowance" to verify your motives are in alignment with the project. There is no tipping allowance on Facebook, Instagram, X, etc. and people can build an audience there so why not on Farcaster?
Q: What's coming next?
@jacek has discussed two major changes publicly:
Late June (still season 5): tip airdrops & raindrops on the Degen L3 Chain; if this happens, then season 5 will presumably be claimed natively on the Degen L3 Chain.
In July (season 6): switch to Degen native rankings based on channel activity and tipping behavior; in other words, the definition of engagement will extend to include tips themselves. It's unclear which channels are being referenced, presumably it is /degentokenbase.
8. Useful Links
Data & Official
Official website | |
official FAQ | |
Official calculation recording the points received by each user | |
Official calculation recording the allowance allocated to each user | |
Official ranking of each user who holds 10K $DEGEN and is an active tipper (>= 5 tips in the past 7 days). | |
Unofficial view of how up-to-date the underlying data sources are for the leaderboard/tip allocations links above | |
Official Degen Rain balances query | |
Official Degen Rain leaderboard | |
Official list of acknowledged Degen Rain Casts |
Frames, websites & cast actions
In alphabetical order by creator name.
Drop tokens to a channel or a cast, all in a single transaction | |
Stats by user or channel | |
Top 10 Degen Supporters in 24 Hours | |
Check your OpenRank stats | |
Top 10 people who you received tips from | |
Daily allowance, top tips, raindrops, tips received, points | |
Check your allowance, points, raindrop balance in a frame and anybody's allowance from a cast action. | |
Check if a raindrop is fake or not | |
Find who tips the most Degen so you can follow them | |
Daily allowance, points, most tipped FIDs, time until refresh | |
Top Directly Engaged Users | |
Confirm you whether you've passed certain eligibility checks. Not updated for season 5, but you can just ignore: neynar_data_has_username, has_enough_casts, user_is_disqualified |
9. Deep Dive: Formulae
Q: How is the tip allowance amount calculated?
First we define the following constants:
Every day we pull in the OpenRank reputation value of all users, penalizing for inactive tippers. The reputation value for user i is defined as:
Users are then ordered from highest to lowest reputation:
For each user on a specific day we take their OpenRank reputation and apply an exponential decay function:
Sum of initial points across all qualifying users for each day:
Scaling factor for each day is based on the target daily allowance:
Final points distribution applies the scaling factor and the minimum allowance:
Which is then the tip allowance for user i on day d:
Q: In English?
Your OpenRank reputation is used to determine your initial points.
You won't be considered at all if you don't have a 10K $DEGEN balance
Your reputation value will be shrunk 10,000x down if you haven't tipped at least 5 times in the past 7 days.
Everybody's reputation value is put into a list, and then ordered from highest reputation to lowest
Your position in this list is your Degen Tips Rank, and so will likely not be the same as your OpenRank Rank
Your initial points are equal to an exponential decay function applies to your rank
Everybody's points will be added together. If this amount exceeds 5 million, everybody's points will be scaled down to make them add up to 5 million. If the amount is less than 5 million, everybody's points will be scaled up to make them add up to 5 million.
Final allowance has a minimum of 5 DEGEN/day constraint i.e. if you have 10K $DEGEN in your wallet, you will always have at least 5 DEGEN/day as an allowance.
Q: So what can I do for more allowance?
The only thing you can control is whether you tipped at least 5 times in the past 7 days. You can also try to influence your OpenRank. See that section for details.
Q: What does the exponential decay function look like?
I created a Desmos simulation you can play with. The X-axis is the user rank, and the Y-axis is the initial points value.
Q: What does the distribution of allowances look like?
I built a query to analyze user rank vs. total percentage of DEGEN allocated.
At the time of writing, 50% of the daily 5 million DEGEN is allocated by the time you get to rank 171, and 99% is allocated by the time you get to rank 1000.
In other words, the top 171 users decide where 50% of the daily tip allowance goes to, and the remaining 829 decide where the other 50% goes to.
10. Deep Dive: OpenRank
Q: What's OpenRank?
OpenRank is a decentralized reputation protocol built by Karma3Labs. OpenRank replaces the use of median reactions that was used in season 1-4 for measuring engagement, which was the basis for tip allowance allocation in those seasons.
Q: Why?
Engagement by itself can easily be gamed. OpenRank is based on the EigenTrust algorithm, which is robust in a mutually adverserial environment like Farcaster. See the Roadmap section for a full discussion of the problems that Degen Tips is attempting to address with this update.
Q: What are the design considerations for EigenTrust?
You can read more in the original paper, but I'll summarize here:
Self-policing: the ethics of the user population are defined and enforced by peers themselves and not some central authority. In other words, @jacek doesn't unilaterally decide who is trustworthy, everybody collectively does. There is not 1 line of code where @jacek gives himself a boost in the Degen Tips algorithm, nor 1 line of code where his personal preference influences who is a top tier user.
The system should maintain anonymity and not require users to identify or de-anonymize themselves. For example, it shouldn't consider IP addresses or passports. Anonymous users should be welcome.
The system should not assign profit to newcomers. Reputation should be obtained by consistent good behavior through several transactions, and it should not be advantageous for malicious peers with poor reputations.
Should have minimal overhead so that anybody can run the algorithm and prove to themselves it is not rigged.
Should be robust to malicious collectives of peers who know one another and attempt to collectively subvert the system.
As you can see, these are all desirable properties for a reputation system in the Degen Tips environment.
Q: How does it work?
There are a number of strategies that are implemented by OpenRank, and the users of OpenRank data must select a particular strategy. In the case of Degen Tips, the "engagement" strategy was selected (see Airdrop 2 Most Engaging Farcaster FIDs line 10).
The exact way the ranking strategy is implemented is complex, but you can read about it here. I will provide a brief summary:
The algorithm, EigenTrust, requires seeding the rankings. In the case of the "engagement" strategy, reputation is seeded using a curated list of profiles based on the Dune Farcaster Explorer dashboard.
Specifically, at most 100 profiles are pulled from that dashboard where they are in the "influencer" or "vip" tiers. Currently 73 profiles have been identified as "top tier", or seed-level users.
This list of users is stored as pre-trust values in the form
(user, pre-trust value)The algorithm is also provided with a list of local trust values. This is a list of
(from user, to user, value)pairs, that expresses how much the from user trusts the to user. Specifically in the "engagement" strategy, this is based on Farcaster activity, where value is the sum of all the following scores:
Likes = 1, Replies = 6, Recasts = 3, Mentions = 12, Follows = 1
Remember this only works in one direction! You will not get reputation by liking, replying, recasting, etc. a big account! You only get reputation if a big account engages with you. So please don't spam.
The algorithm then takes these inputs, and starting from the pre-trust values, it starts to spread reputation from the pre-trust users to other users using the local-trust values. The local-trust values of those users in turn is applied, with the impact to the to user being constrained at each step by the reputation of the from user. Note that this can and will go around in a circle back to the top tier users. Eventually the reputations of everybody doesn't change much, though, and that's when the calculation stops.
The final reputation values of everybody are then expressed as percentages, i.e. the reputation of everybody in the system will add up to 1 at the end of the calculation. Large values represent a larger reputation and values can be compared for two users to determine who has a greater reputation.
Q: I have more questions
The implementation is here.
Q: Can you draw me a pretty picture?
Sure, it comes in light and dark flavor.
%26blogName%3DRyan's%2520Notes%26blogImageUrl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fstorage.googleapis.com%252Fpapyrus_images%252Fc25da666b44f17b9f33d5e61ccf9ad5b.jpg%26coverPhotoUrl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fstorage.googleapis.com%252Fpapyrus_images%252F5ef69e91158e475dceba1d20a2c42344.jpg%26size%3D1024%26publishedDate%3D1717783094207&w=3840&q=75)
A friend of mine that is relatively new to Farcaster got tipped some DEGEN recently. They were curious what it meant for them. What's the best 1-2 links to send them to explain the ecosystem and how to get set up? cc @jacek
@rjs degen faq article prob
https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8
@nitsirk might be helpful for you
Oof it's not been updated in some time. The allowances section is out of date in particular. Rest is probably ok...
Recently sent these to a friend: https://www.loom.com/share/d92582f2255c492b80619267b16bf2b7 https://www.loom.com/share/e32a51d3e4cd4c568dbeb8a1cd225d59
thanks sugar. still in the dark on this ourselves
Just ignore and move on
I wrote this in March A bit outdated but still informative https://paragraph.xyz/@kaloh/dollardegen-more-than-a-meme-coin
first.. need a verified wallet.. you know.. to account and claim the tips.. then.. it is ready
we love to see it. id say degen.tips, /degen, and the below pod ep. @cadillion on a pod: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5PqvSV98aZ2zsoox3cm1c4?si=bebcTwvPRPSxo2meZ0kalQ have your friend reach out with any questions. Happy to speed run them into whats happening. here is my remaining balance for the day. 40 $degen
69 $DEGEN
1000 $degen
Hey! Just saw this—best place to start is the Degen.tips airdrop page. It could be clearer, so I’ll work on better resources soon. For now, all they need is to connect a wallet to their Farcaster account and claim with it on airdrop day! 500 $DEGEN
curious what brought them here recently
Happy holiday season 🎄🤍🕊️💫 700 $degen
how does @openrank work?
I explain it here, even comes with an animated GIF 🫡 https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8#h-10-deep-dive-openrank
Does anyone have a current chart showing how much x amount of degen locked up get you in allowance (baseline + rank boost)? For example 10k locked = x etc? Thanks!
Degen Stats action.
sorry “check degen stake” action
Thanks but it doesn’t tell me how my allowance would increase if I were to lock 20k for example.
should be straight multiple as it’s based on %age of total staked
Not sure but FWIW I've got 40k locked and I'm at 578 allowance, a little of that is from boost but not a lot. I think it's like 125 degen per 10k or something roughly.
Thanks @olystuart ~ I was hoping to get a baseline because a lot depends on your boost as you mentioned. I have 10k locked and have 500 allowance for example. 50 $degen
@manuwilliams you will have to enter the current pool value, 807 million rn. https://lockcalculator.vercel.app/
Thanks for the calculator @midnightmarauder.eth ! I still can’t figure out how much my boost would be. Does the boost stay the same based on OpenRank or does it increase exponentially based on how much I lock? 100 $degen
Ty, the boost is from openrank. You can check here. Scroll far right after putting in FID or username https://dune.com/queries/3909070
Oops, it’s late here it stays the same
We'd like to do a better ob highlighting great writers & content. What are some of the best things you've read on Paragraph recently?
The best things I mint. I'm also using bookmarks on warpcast and supercast to build a "to read later" list. I know doesn't really answer your question...
This by @rjs https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8?referrer=0x1a8652b88d2dbf84d362676e47d0e4ac5e564060
Hello Everyone! From what I see in the dune query, 1000 for PowerBadge holders is removed as of today. Line 66 says: WHEN pb.fid IS NOT NULL AND fin.points < 1000 AND fin.snapshot_date < TO_DATE('20240618', 'yyyymmdd') THEN 1000 Link to the query https://dune.com/queries/3745431 @rjs @degenfans @jacek
1000 $degen
Thanks for letting us know bro💆🏻♂️🖤 240 $degen
@zachlipp
Thanks for sharing 🤝
So what about the tips that we did if our allowance is not a 1000 ?
Good find 1000 $degen
Awesome finding 333 $DEGEN
This sucks. I'm in the EU zone, tipped around 800-900 during the day, now I see the 1k allo is removed mid day, for todays allo. I'm definitely in red now.
So if I earned the PB today, can I give out a thousand before the update tomorrow?
from what i understand - no.
I earned it last night. gave it all out today. now im negative. so what happens to the 995?
thanks for the response!
Bah, ok. Back to tipping ham
here is an article @rjs did about it: "In previous seasons, you could delete a tipping cast and the tip would be ignored. As of 26 May, tips will still stand even if deleted." https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8#h-q-what-happens-if-i-delete-my-tipping-cast
"How does OpenRank work?" What do you all think of the new style? (HQ version at the link, will be possible to include links in the future, which I think is useful.) https://gist.github.com/ryanjshaw/38886ade10493032d544bb025eb78961
1000 $degen
Thanks king 🫡
Thanks Ryan!
Thanks for the breakdown, super helpful! 50 users seems a small group to bootstrap the rest of the system’s reputation, though. How did you decide on the 50?
I'm not part of the team - I do have the details of who + how in the full FAQ, coming out ASAP
Thanks for doing what you do! 50 $degen
Glad it's useful 😃
This is excellent, thank you! Will keep my eyes out for what's still to come 🙏
I need 48 hours in a day 😭
I know the feeling!
wow. this is a lil scary tho. it means i need to be way more selective in who i say gm to and i feel like thats overthinking a bit? but i understand the value. no system is perfect. i guess it's a good excuse for me a ramp back. eesh. 250 $degen
You won't be penalized but you will be signalling they are good peoples.. I wouldn't stress, as long as you're interacting with them the same way most people do you're not doing a disservice
I think just no talk to botty. Talk to natural users, also, those natural users will grow up to be bricky.
1000 $DEGEN
Thanks man 🙂
Appreciate this excellent explanation 🤘 Appreciate the simple breakdown 100 $degen
This is so good. Quite helpful. I’m glad you engage with me 600 $DEGEN and 🍖x100
Same goes for you! 500 $degen
This is terrific, thank you. Sharing to spread to knowledge. 500 $DEGEN
Thanks Brian. Updated diagram & a write-up + link to the original EigenTrust paper if you're interested: https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8#h-10-deep-dive-openrank
awesome, thank you will dive in!
looking forward to diving back in!
Welcome to Farclopedia! A user-created, Farcaster knowledge base. "Whoever starts a candle from mine, receives light without darkening me." ~ Thomas Jefferson
While I am studying up on /charmverse, let's begin assembling the talent who will contribute to this @farcaster wiki: @pichi @meesh @0xt0ny @geoffgolberg who else should I invite?
@ryya and @clauswilke have written some awesome paragraph articles that could probably live in the wiki. And @rjs may want to contribute some of his existing articles and graphics too.
Also @felirami.eth has written about degen.
Thank you so much! We are on our way. I am going to stream my experience as a new user to Farcaster on /unlonely in about a minute. https://www.unlonely.app/channels/awedjob
I have followed each of those people. I am having difficulty locating their articles about FC. If you or they could point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it.
bringing in @camilla in case you ever get bored with your /framedl puzzles and you want to share your knowledge.
That is a wonderful quote.
I agree. As an educator it's one of my core maxims.
Me quedan 2653 farther por repartir hoy. Si hoy no has recibido tip mio, dime que puedo mejorar en mi interaccion aqui y te doy un tip de farther. https://farther.social/tips
Buenas noches, creo que no he recibido ningún tip 😉
Esa es la sugerencia?
Creo que interactuar con otros Power Badge aumenta la posibilidad de aumentar los puntos para el airdrop de DEGEN.
Hahaha puedes hacer algún tipo de dinámica de memes 🫨
La verdad es broma bro. Tantos seguidores es mucha responsabilidad. Ya esto me toma mucho tiempo. Yo quiero que bajen los seguidores en realidad
Hahahaa que aumenten es mejor 💪🫨
@alexescd.eth Me cuesta encontrar en que mejorar, eres activo y tus cast tienen buen enganche. Estuve leyendo en /degentokenbase ,se agradece que hables el tema de la igualdad en los usuarios, no es justo que se priorice a OG user con miles de usuario pero nada de contenido sobre usuarios nuevos pero de buen contenido
De acuerdo. Pero quizas esos son los que tienen esta maquina corriendo. Hay quienes se lo merecen asi no publiquen nada. Habria que ver a quienes te refieres. Pero entre ellos hay algunos muy sencillos como el mismo wake. El me siguio un dia por un simple comentario que hice. 300 $farther
Si hay muchos que son unos crack y super accesible cuando recién entre le envié un dm Séneca y me respondió🫣 pero otros solo usaron a los demás para farmear
¿Es solo para PB users? Como funciona esto. Tengo curiosidad
Recién ahora me doy cuenta de la existencia de FARTHER 🤣
Ya hoy gaste mi allowance de farther, inclusive me pase @almalq.eth 40 $degen
Muchas gracias Alex ☺️💪 que todos nos divirtamos aquí 🫶
Me sumo al grupo de los que no sabemos que el FATHER y como se usa Jajajaja
Estoy hasta en la sopa como los bot jajaja siempre ando preguntando pero no es hasta que publicas esto que me entero que existe $FARTHER 😅
Bueno, pero ya sabes, es muy buen proyecto @sumerdan Pero tu solo preguntas. Yo hice una pregunta. Pense ibas a sugerir algo. Por ejemplo, pudiste decir que debo de opinar sobre tu nariz asi no quisiera hacerlo 300 $farther
Disculpa amigo es la curiosidad me mata siempre . Te cuenta que llevo tiempo queriendo sugerir algo. Existen talentos reales que se ven eclipsados por IA y Granjas de Bots . Propongo dinámicas dónde el usuario realmente desarolle el contenido de verdad.
Es solo para PB o también sirve para user normales?
Hola de verdad no se que es, pero me gustaría saber.
Bueno no se, parace que me pase @vickycar 40 $degen
En serio?
Ummmm no se bro soy nuevo en esto... Pero podrías hacer especies de preguntas tipo concurso y quién responda o se acerque a la respuesta correcta gana algo y quizas consigas más interacciónes en tu contenido.
Since some have asked, here is the Dune dashboard for checking how many times you've tipped over the past 7 days. https://dune.com/queries/3745451
77 $degen
Thanks for sharing the query Andre 🫶
happy to help
<3
Thanks man🫡
This is gold. Bookmarked it.
What if I told you @rjs put it all out there for us. Useful links & another sections for useful frames etc. This is the one to bookmark 💙 https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8
Oh I didn't figure out it's on his FAQ. Yeah I know it, I always read it every season! But I might double or even triple check it because I probably missed important things it seems <3
Staggering to see the comments in the OP. Sub 100 comments would be a BAD day & many are shocked by the thought of doing 100 👀 199 $DEGEN
tbh i feel like people should feel bullish knowing the payoff scales with the effort and it wasn't just the cabal after all 111 $degen