It cares if you're useful. If you're good. If you can keep up.

This will make you fight to be there.

The city attracts world-class talent in every field - art, finance, tech, fashion, food - all colliding in one compact, walkable place. Everyone's chasing something different. And that friction creates a unique energy.

But there's also confident mediocrity in the city. So you have to trust your own judgment. No one will tell you who's real.

New Yorkers talk shit about their city constantly. The rent is insane. The subway is broken. Winter is brutal. You're competing with the richest people on the planet just to be there.

And yet, most people stay.

Not because it's easy. But because leaving would feel like giving up on yourself.

New York has a way of making you feel like anything is possible.
You can almost touch your dream.

I feel like my best version when I'm there.
More focused. More alive. More willing to bet on myself.

It can be lonely. Eight million people, and you can still feel invisible.
But if you find your people, it's the best place to be.

NYC isn't a destination. It's a mirror.

It will show you who you could become, if you're willing to fight for it.

I could have done what I usually do: dump everything on a page, try to make sense of it, pick what feels important.

But I keep seeing the same issues show up in every annual review. I've literally written this exact line for three years straight: "Still doing too much, not focused enough".

Three years of the same note. Maybe this is not a willpower problem, but a systems failure. My process isn't designed to catch patterns across time.

So this year I tried something different. I brought an outside perspective. Someone who could ask "wait, didn't you say this last year?" when I started repeating myself. Who could push back when my vision contradicted my reality.

The framework that emerged was not only effective, but also fun to go through.

Here's how it works.

The Framework

Most goal-setting frameworks don’t work for me.

They’re either too vague ("what's your purpose?") or too boring (OKRs, SMART goals).

I wanted something practical and honest. Something that would catch my patterns, not just capture my ambitions.

The framework I ended up with has two parts:

Part 1: Four Reflection Exercises (understand what actually happened)

1. What worked / What didn't

2. What gives energy / What drains it

3. Where does your unique contribution matter?

4. What are you leaving behind?

Part 2: Two Goal-Setting Exercises (decide what happens next)

1. Future-back vision (December 2026—what happened?)

2. Constraint-based reality check (what's actually possible?)

Let me walk you through each one with my real answers.

Reflection 1: What Worked / What Didn't

I used AI as my guide and editor, but a human also works.

This time Claude was prompting me, instead of the other way around: "Don't overthink it - just brain dump the first things that come to mind."

What worked for me in 2025: Living in NYC. Finding flow states through coding and writing. Physical training I actually enjoy (Muay Thai, basketball, tennis). No alcohol (3 years and counting). Small team executing fast with our new "Shake Up" process at Talent.

What didn't work: Still doing too much, not focused enough (I've said this in every retro for 3 years). Data/analytics positioning was not right for talent. Product too scrappy for most of the year. No vacation until November. Very little street photography.

The pattern Claude spotted: "You thrive when building directly, struggle when spread thin across responsibilities."

Reflection 2: What Gives Energy / What Drains It

I noticed something weird this July.

I couldn't stop coding. For 31 days straight. But I wasn't disciplined, I was energized! I'd wake up excited to solve the next problem. No one was asking me to do this, this wasn't even part of my core responsibilities. I just wanted to.

Juampi.eth

@HooCrypto

If your team doesn’t lock-in on a flight, then you are not gonna make

59

8:36 PM • Sep 14, 2025

Compare this with October. Coordinating instead of creating. Managing too many projects at once. Firefighting the same problems repeatedly. Not taking regular breaks.

Same person. Same job. Completely different energy.

When I listed it all out, the pattern was obvious:

• Energy: Creation. Depth. Movement. Novelty.

• Drain: Maintenance. Breadth. Sitting. Repetition.

"You love the start, but hate the scale."

This one line explained why I thrived shipping Creator Score app but struggled when working on multiple work streams. Why my best months had 80% building time and my worst had 80% meeting time.

Reflection 3: Where Does Your Unique Contribution Matter Most?

Claude's first attempt at analyzing my answers to this question was too obvious: "You should delegate operational work."

I pushed back: "That's common sense. What's the real challenge?"

The real answer:

Finding and enabling someone who can take a vision from 1→10 with the same taste, speed, and conviction I'd bring to it.

This is what I couldn't solve with BUILD. This is what my co-founders flagged in the past: "There's no one in the core team that could quickly take over many of your responsibilities."

How I created value this year:

• Vision to execution speed: I can see it, design it, prototype it, ship it. No translation layers.

• Taste + technical: rare combo of creative agency background with engineering foundation.

• Builder empathy: I AM a builder, so I understand talent’s core audience viscerally.

• Pattern recognition across domains: music, sports, design, code, crypto.

My patterns:

• Love starting things, struggle maintaining them alone.

• Thrive with small focused teams, drain when spread thin.

• Need periodic breaks to stay creative (learned this the hard way).

• I’m more productive with side projects than without them.

• Prefer building to talking, creating to managing.

What I should focus on doing:

• Setting vision.

• Building first prototypes.

• Final decision-making.

• Killing things faster.

What others could do more (with the right person and handoff):

• Taking prototypes from 1→10.

• Keeping projects alive without me.

Reflection 4: What Are You Leaving Behind?

This is the most important exercise and the one a lot of people skip.

It's not enough to decide what you'll do. You have to consciously decide what you won't do.

Talent/Crypto: Builder Score as talent’s core product. Trying to track all data for all people. The "analytics/data company" positioning. Trying to fit in on crypto twitter. Shallow networking.

Personal/Energy: Working without periodic breaks. Not celebrating wins before moving to the next challenge. Caffeine. Mindless screen time.

Personal Patterns: Having too many goals at the same time. Trying to do too much.

Claude's observation: "The 'trying to fit in on crypto twitter' addition is huge - that's you reclaiming your voice instead of performing for an audience that isn't yours."

From Reflection to Goals

After four reflection exercises, we moved to goal-setting.

Goal-Setting 1: Future-Back Vision

Claude asked me to imagine it's December 31st, 2026. I'm doing my annual reflection, feeling genuinely satisfied.

"What happened in 2026 that made it a successful year? Don't filter. Don't make it 'realistic' yet. Just write what success feels like."

My vision:

2026 was the year I built another viral, fun onchain app related to "betting on builders." Leveled up my coding skills significantly. Celebrated my 40th birthday with a fulfilling party, old and new friends, lots of fun DJing.

Published more honest, unfiltered content. Both long-form writing and 30-60s vertical videos. No overthinking what people will think.

Keep $MACEDO alive as low-commitment creative testing ground. Built a simple $MACEDO mini-app where I test new ideas.

Made new friends I actually like spending time with. Went to the cinema more. Played sports regularly. Kept doing Muay Thai.

Entered my 40s in the best shape of my past 10 years.

What I didn't do: Active DJ career. Forced street photography. More than 1 side project at a time.

Goal-Setting 2: Constraint-Based Reality Check

Claude pushed back: "If you're still Talent’s CPO during 2026, can you do all of this?"

My initial vision had everything: viral “bet on builders” app + Builders Table expansion + full $MACEDO features + new side project to tokenize cars + consistent content + best shape + street photography

"What if you can only pick 3 main focuses?" Claude asked.

The reality check: I'm CPO at talent (~60 hours/week), need 7 hours sleep, training 3x/week. Maybe 20 hours left for everything else. And from Reflection 2, I know I drain when spread thin.

What got cut or reduced:

• $MACEDO? A wrapper to all my content and ideas, not just another project to maintain. But constrain it to half-day sprints only.

• Builders Table? Keep it simple or delegate. I can't scale it alone.

• Tokenized Cars ? Help with MVP, find someone else to run it.

• Everything else: delegate it, do it minimally, or explicitly NOT do it.

The constraint check was about being honest with myself about what actually gives me energy vs what would just spread me thin again.

The Goals I Landed On

After all the reflection and reality checks, here's what 2026 actually looks like:

Talent:

• Ship "Bet on Builders" in Q1.

• Make talent.app sticky.

• Become net positive by EOY.

Building:

• $MACEDO miniapp prototype.

• Post more unpolished content.

• Maybe builder.notes if there's bandwidth.

Health:

• 3x/week exercise.

• Sleep before midnight (70%+ nights).

• Best shape of my past 10 years.

The non-goals matter just as much:

• No active DJ career.

• No forced street photography.

• No keeping projects alive alone.

5 Highlights of 2025

1. Living in NYC for 4 months — the longest I’ve been in one place outside of Portugal.

$macedo

@0xmacedo

Putting together a builders-only dinner this Wed before FarCon.

Co-hosting with @iggy_gl in an epic NYC penthouse.

If you’re…
> building something serious onchain
> hungry for high-signal conversations
> willing to share your hardest problems

1–2 spots left
dm if interested

8

7:52 PM • Apr 28, 2025

Lesson: Environment shapes output. My most creative and effective months happened in NYC. Don't ask yourself just what you'll do in 2026, but where you'll be when you do it.

2. The 31-Day Coding Streak — I shipped two apps (almost) solo this year, the Creator Score App and the Builder Registry (that got his own Times Square billboard).

Times Square Celebrates Onchain Builders

talent

May 1, 2025

Happy Builders Day! 🫡 This May 1st, thousands of builders from all around the world have their names lighting up the most famous square in the world. For a brief moment, the heart of New York City be...

0 collected

Collect

Lesson: I'm happier building than managing. This became the core insight of Reflection 2: “I love the start, hate the scale”. When I'm in the code, I'm energized.

3. Said Goodbye to BUILD and DENITES — two projects I'd been keeping alive through willpower finally ended. BUILD became a public good in February (we airdropped 163B $BUILD to the community). DENITES distributed its final grants in September. Both chapters officially closed.

BUILD is Now a Public Good—Airdropping 163B $BUILD

$macedo

Feb 2, 2025

$BUILD is now a public good! 163B $BUILD airdropped to 40K+ members, no treasury, no gatekeepers—fully owned by the community. LFB!

4 collected

Collect

Lesson: Some projects need to die for you to thrive. This became the foundation of Reflection 4: "What are you leaving behind?" Letting go of BUILD and DENITES were two of the best decisions I made all year. Not every fire needs to keep burning.

4. The $MACEDO Experiment — on December 5th, I launched a personal index token backed by a fully transparent public treasury. The idea had been floating in my head for months.

One Token For Everything I Build

$macedo

Dec 5, 2025

I'm turning my Zora Creator Coin into a Personal Index Token. Buy $MACEDO once, get exposure to everything I build: my companies, side projects, and content.

4 supporters

Support

Lesson: I get unreasonably energized by new, untested ideas. Where others see potential risks (legal exposure, reputation damage, uncharted territory), I see a playground. I love being the guinea pig. This is a feature, not a bug, but it needs to be managed. One experiment at a time.

5. Talent distributed $600K in Builder Rewards — we landed our first B2B customer, took another step closer to profitability, and distributed $600K to builders worldwide.

$macedo

@0xmacedo

We just announced one of the things I'm most proud of shipping: Builder Rewards

I'm tired of seeing the loudest voices get rewarded while the best builders go unnoticed.

But for @Base builders, that ends today.

Be rewarded based on what you ship, not what you shill.

52

9:15 PM • Mar 31, 2025

Lesson: Focus compounds and solid things take time. You can't do everything, but you can do one thing well.

How to Do This Yourself

The framework is simple. The hard part is having someone push back.

When I said "I need to focus more," my editor asked: "You've said that three years in a row. What's actually different this time?"

When I listed my 2026 vision, my editor asked: "You're still CPO. You need 7 hours of sleep. When exactly are you doing all this?"

When I said I'd keep $MACEDO low-commitment, my editor asked: "Define low-commitment. In hours per week."

That's the value of an outside perspective. Not generating ideas, but interrogating them. Catching the patterns you're too close to see. Calling bullshit on vague intentions.

Your editor can be:

• A friend who knows your history (and isn't afraid to be honest)

• A co-founder or colleague who's seen your patterns

• A coach or therapist

• AI (it doesn't get tired, and remembers everything you said)

The tool matters less than the function. What matters is having someone that asks better questions than you'd ask yourself. If you have that person in your life, buy them coffee and send them this framework. If you don't, AI is a surprisingly good substitute.

What matters isn't who. It's that they do three things:

1. Ask "why" more than you're comfortable with. Surface-level answers hide the real blockers.

2. Pattern-match across time. "Didn't you say this last year?" is the most valuable question.

3. Pressure-test your constraints. Vision without math is fantasy.

How to run it:

Block 2-3 hours, not 30 minutes between meetings.

Write, don't just talk. Talking lets you stay vague. Writing forces precision.

Do the exercises in order. The reflections inform the goals.

Don't skip exercise 4. "What are you leaving behind?" is where most planning fails. Addition is easy. Subtraction is where the real decisions live.

The trap to avoid:

Doing this alone.

Your brain is excellent at protecting your existing beliefs. You'll skip the uncomfortable questions. You'll let yourself off the hook on the constraints. You'll write the same goal for the 4th year in a row and convince yourself this time is different.

Your goals need an editor. Find yours.

P.S. If you try this, send me your "What are you leaving behind?" list. That's always the most revealing part, and the one most people skip.

I didn't have a clean answer, and that bothered me.

if you're new here: i’m Filipe Macedo, co-founder of talent protocol.

I’m an engineer turned creative who spent 10+ years building digital brands before going all-in on crypto in 2021. Now I'm building onchain reputation systems and experimenting with new models to support talent.

This post is about my latest experiment.

The truth is that my career often feels like a browser with too many tabs open.

Over the past few years, I've helped launch multiple tokens, with the most meaningful being:

• $talent, my company and biggest bet

• $build, a community project launched in 2024

• $macedo, my creator coin on Zora

But each new token fragments value and attention.

For example, you might have supported $build early, but you won't benefit from $macedo or $talent's success. Or you might hold $talent now but miss out on $macedo.

How can I make sure all my early believers get their fair share?

Time for a new experiment: turning $MACEDO into a Personal Index Token.

Buy $macedo once, get exposure to everything I build: my companies, my side projects, and my content.

$macedo is not just another speculative coin:

1. It's backed by a public treasury you can verify onchain.

2. All Zora creator fees flow back to treasury.

3. Weekly buybacks from personal income.

Let me explain.

$macedo

@0xmacedo

time for a new experiment:
i'm turning my creator coin into a personal index token

buy $macedo once, get exposure to everything I build

my companies, side projects, and content - all in one token

107

2:00 PM • Dec 5, 2025

how $macedo works

1. it's a zora creator coin 🪙

I'm using a Zora Creator Coin because that’s tested and trusted infrastructure. And reusing an existing token means I don't need to launch a new one, which would just add more fragmentation.

Every post I create on Zora, the Base app, and Paragraph is paired with $macedo, creating a content flywheel that drives more attention and trading volume. Plus, the automatic 1% creator fees can be reinvested on buybacks and liquidity.

2. backed by a valuable treasury 🏦

The treasury.macedo.eth is kicking off with more than $17k in Net Asset Value (NAV), with an equal split between the 3 treasury tokens.

My target treasury allocation for next year is:

• 60% $talent → I'm building talent.app full-time

• 30% $macedo → I'm creating content paired with it

• 10% $build → I'm still connected as a community caretaker

It will take some time to reach the desired targets since most of my $talent and $macedo tokens are still vesting, but no more $build will be added (all tokens have vested).

3. with active rebalancing ♻

Here's how I'm thinking about the rebalancing mechanism:

• when $talent or $build outperform $macedo → The treasury allocation shifts out of balance → I sell the winners and buy back $macedo to restore the 60/30/10 targets → This creates buying pressure on $macedo

• when $macedo outperforms my project tokens → I sell $macedo and buy more $talent or $build to restore balance → This creates buying pressure on the project tokens

• when everything's down → If possible, use my vested tokens to gradually rebalance without creating sell pressure during downturns.

Most creator coins are backed only by content. $macedo is also backed by a treasury, with active rebalancing and regular buybacks.

the 2-month experiment

I’ll kick off with a 2-month experiment to test and optimize the approach. By Feb 2026, I'll publish learnings and commit to a finalized strategy for the rest of the year.

Here’s my commitments for December and January (at least):

• Weekly Buybacks: Buy $macedo from the market with my personal income (min $100/week) and transfer it to the treasury

• Creator Fees → Treasury: all fees flow back to the treasury for buybacks and liquidity (on Zora I earn 1% creator fees on all $macedo trading volume).

• Treasury Rebalancing: When positions drift >10% outside treasury targets, I rebalance.

• Building in Public: Make every decision public and every transaction visible onchain.

But there are no guarantees this will work. The rebalancing could create more complexity than value. The buybacks might be too small to matter. Trading volume might never materialize. I might realize 2 months in that this entire approach is flawed.

But here's what I know: I have 500M $macedo tokens vesting over 5 years. I'm buying more every week from my own income. If this fails, I lose more than you do. I'm betting on this. With my time, my money, and my reputation.

how to get involved

If you like what I’m building, holding $macedo is the simplest way to be part of it.

• CA: 0x7b67f8e45f91e043f80eeaea52f3dc8ff1e55a5a

• Buy $macedo: Zora | OpenSea | Matcha | Uniswap

• Track the treasury: treasury.macedo.eth | Dune Dashboard (coming soon)

• Follow @macedo for updates: Zora | Farcaster | Base App | Paragraph

why i'm doing this

When you buy $macedo, you're buying it from other people on the market, so the funds doesn't come to me. Think of it less like "giving me money" and more like "a public bet on my career."

So why am I doing this? Because $macedo trading activity can bring visibility to what I'm building and some recognition to me as a builder.

This is the solution I've been searching for:

• one simple entry point for people to support my work and benefit when I win

• freedom to launch new projects without fragmenting or hurting existing supporters

• full transparency, alignment, and upside for those who've helped me succeed

And most successful builders I know face a similar dilemma:

• launch new tokens and risk fragmenting our community,

• or miss out on tokens, one of the most powerful tools we have today

A Personal Index Token could be a third path.
A token that grows with everything we build.

It simplifies things for supporters. It simplifies things for builders. And it holds us accountable to building long-term, not chasing short-term hype.I

If this works for me, it could become a blueprint for other builders.

treasury updates

$macedo

@0xmacedo

30 days into the $macedo index token experiment

here's what's working and what's not

3

6:13 PM • Jan 5, 2026

Special thanks to dinis, ibu, jesse, juampi, kompreni, limone, lior, luc, pcbo, rev, rudnevsky, simão, simon, thomas, tolga, wbnns for the support and feedback.

Disclaimer: $macedo is a Zora Creator Coin for supporting my work, not an investment offering.

I'm not raising capital or selling tokens. All trades happen peer-to-peer on secondary markets. No promises of returns or future value. This experiment may change or stop anytime. By buying $macedo, you're supporting my work, not making a traditional investment.

This is not financial, legal, or investment advice. Cryptocurrency is extremely risky. Only participate with funds you can afford to lose completely.

faq

Sometimes I wonder if what we're building at Talent Protocol truly matters... but then I see tweets like this and remember exactly why we keep showing up.

May brought so many incredible milestones for our community:

🏆 Builder Rewards completed its first chapter

Our 4-week pilot with Base successfully rewarded almost 200 superbuilders with 8 ETH through a fully permissionless, automated system. The 72% retention rate speaks volumes about the value this brings to the ecosystem.

Talent Protocol

@TalentProtocol

2K+ active builders, dozens of new apps and repos, over $15K to reward real impact.

This was @base Builder Rewards in April.

No applications. No shilling. Just shipping.

Here’s what we learned so far

33

12:03 PM • May 8, 2025

💻 I'm shipping code again!

This month marked my return to coding after 10+ years with the launch of the Onchain Builder Registry. There's something incredibly empowering about going from idea to production solo through "vibe coding." Having that full autonomy to create something meaningful reminded me why I fell in love with building in the first place.

Verified Builder Registry

A community-powered directory of verified builders backed by onchain attestations.

https://www.onchainbuilders.org

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

After 10+ years without writing code, I'm shipping software again!

It's so powerful to have full autonomy to go from idea to production.

The Verified Registry of Onchain Builders is the most meaningful thing I built recently.

Check it out and lmk how I can improve it.

18

5:14 PM • May 1, 2025

Times Square lit up for Builders Day

We surprised over 2,000 onchain builders by displaying their names on a Times Square billboard on May 1st. The reactions were incredibly moving. Seeing founders who've raised millions get emotional about their name being up there revealed something powerful: even the most accomplished builders crave mainstream recognition.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

Today we got the names of over 2,000 onchain builders on Times Square!

Happy Builders Day!

296

10:21 AM • May 1, 2025

What made this even more special was how we approached it. Great ideas don't always need massive budgets. This campaign delivered exponential returns in community goodwill, brand trust, and genuine excitement. It was a reminder that with the right story and a frugal mindset, small investments can create outsized impact.

Joining the Base Security Council

We're honored to be one of the 10 members helping secure and decentralize control of Base contract upgrades as part of their Stage 1 Decentralization. This responsibility speaks to the trust placed in both our team and me individually.

Base

@base

Base has reached Stage 1 Decentralization

We're building the foundation for a truly open, global onchain economy

5,089

12:19 PM • Apr 29, 2025

Builders Table NYC Edition

Thirty hungry builders gathered in one of New York's most iconic penthouses for an evening of spicy conversations about building onchain. These connections and conversations continue to inspire me.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

Putting together a builders-only dinner this Wed before FarCon.

Co-hosting with @iggy_gl in an epic NYC penthouse.

If you’re…
> building something serious onchain
> hungry for high-signal conversations
> willing to share your hardest problems

1–2 spots left
dm if interested

8

2:52 PM • Apr 28, 2025

Iggy

@iggy_gl

Great way to kick-off Farcon with our friends at @TalentProtocol

Thank you to everyone who pulled up

37

2:13 PM • May 2, 2025

FarCon Friends

The density of high-quality builders at FarCon was simply unmatched, and it was great to spend IRL time with friends from all around the world.

Some key takeaways that have me excited:

• Farcaster is making sign-ups free, which opens up possibilities for us to create FC accounts for new Talent Protocol users and build more native social features

• Base is shifting focus to end users with creators with their new Coinbase Wallet app

• Talent Protocol sponsored a bounty for the hackathon, and the in-person feedback we received about our platform was incredibly validating

• The winner of our FarCon bounty built a talent badges mini app that feels worth testing further

• Met founders from Frens and Zapper who are also indexing blockchains, validating our recent technical vision

The energy at FarCon reinforced that we're building in the right direction, with the right community, at exactly the right time.

Four years of Talent Protocol

Four years and counting - still here, still dreaming, still building. The journey continues with even more determination.

pcbo.base.eth

@pcbo

We launched @TalentProtocol on May 1, 2021.

It’s May 1, 2025.

We’re still here. Still building.
Dreaming bigger every day.
4 years of compounding trust, builder by builder.

116

7:06 AM • May 1, 2025

Tolga Dizmen

@tolgadizmen

We celebrated @TalentProtocol 's 4th birthday today Of course I coined it on @zora and you can buy it if you wanna join the celebration.

29

4:38 PM • May 1, 2025

None of this would have happened without our incredible team, partners who believed in our vision, and most importantly: the quiet builders who keep showing up every day.

A massive thank you to everyone involved! Your support, feedback, and belief in our mission make all of this possible.

Let's keep building! 🫡

What was your biggest building achievement in May?

Hit reply and let me know, I read every message.

Even if it feels small, I'd love to hear it. One of my favorite parts of this newsletter is learning what everyone else is building.

Spring is upon us, and as the first quarter of 2025 comes to a close, I thought I'd share some personal reflections on the past three months. It's been a period of rebuilding, reimagining, and pushing boundaries – both professionally and personally.

• Rebuilt Talent Protocol's infrastructure from the ground up, launching Talent Vault, Builder Score V2, and our Base partnership with Builder Rewards

• Made $BUILD a fully decentralized public good with 163B tokens airdropped to 40K+ community members and no more treasury or gatekeepers

• Started Builders Table dinners for high-signal connections and I'll be in New York for the whole spring

The first 3 months of the year were defined by two primary focuses: intense, under the hood building at Talent Protocol and an equally intense commitment to physical activity. I won't lie – there wasn't much room for anything else.

After falling in love with Muay Thai in Thailand late last year, I brought that passion back to Lisbon in January, then continued practicing in New York, where I'm now based until the summer. Between Muay Thai sessions, basketball games, and gym workouts, physical training became almost as much a priority as work itself.

This "work hard, train hard" rhythm has been demanding but energizing. The physical discipline enhances my mental focus, while the professional intensity drives me to push harder physically. I'm learning that consistency in one area of life tends to reinforce discipline in others.

Moving to New York has profoundly impacted both my personal outlook and our direction at Talent Protocol. The city's relentless energy perfectly complements my "intensity mindset." When everyone around you is operating at high frequency, it naturally elevates your own pace.

What I find most fulfilling about New York is the constant stream of ideas, inspiration, and opportunities. Being surrounded by this energy makes work feel less like work – it's more like surfing a perpetual wave of creativity and ambition. I feel excited to be here.

Q1 was our most ambitious engineering quarter yet. We essentially redesigned Talent Protocol's entire infrastructure from the ground up – from how we index and store reputation data to our Builder Score calculation engine. Migrating 10 million builder accounts was no small feat – it felt a lot like rebuilding a plane while flying it.

Rebuilding a system of this scale taught me several lessons:

• It's hard to get the community excited about infrastructure upgrades when benefits aren't immediately visible

• No matter how much you plan, you'll face unexpected challenges

• Progressive releases worked better than big-bang launches

But the results speak for themselves. Our co-founder Pedro even shaved his head to celebrate reaching 10 million indexed accounts (immortalized as an NFT on Zora!), showing the kind of passionate commitment that fueled our team through this rebuild.

This infrastructure revamp enabled several key launches:

Builder Score has become our north star - a simple number that measures impact based on verified data, not marketing or self-promotion. The feedback validated our direction - builders love having objective proof of their work, projects use it to find talent, and protocols (like Base) use it to distribute rewards fairly. So we completely rebuilt it from the ground up with faster updates, more integrations, and a simpler interface. Building a great product isn't about doing everything. It's about doing one thing really well. For us, that's Builder Score.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

We're tired of seeing the loudest voices get all the credit while quiet builders get overlooked.

That's why we're building @TalentProtocol and the Builder Score. So that data can speak louder than words.

142

1:19 PM • Mar 4, 2025

Yesterday marked the official launch of our biggest collaboration with Base to date! Together we're distributing 2 ETH to 100 developers each week. This automated, merit-based rewards system completes our protocol flywheel by automatically rewarding builders based on verifiable work rather than social clout.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

We just announced one of the things I'm most proud of shipping: Builder Rewards

I'm tired of seeing the loudest voices get rewarded while the best builders go unnoticed.

But for @Base builders, that ends today.

Be rewarded based on what you ship, not what you shill.

48

4:15 PM • Mar 31, 2025

Staking $TALENT will become a critical piece of our token economy. Stake your tokens to earn protocol rewards. After some technical hurdles pushed back our launch timeline (smart contracts are no joke!), seeing thousands of tokens flow into the Vault during the first week was a deeply satisfying moment.

pcbo.base.eth

@pcbo

It began with personal tokens.

Now we’re building a flywheel where builder actions create data, unlock value, and drive reputation.

Here’s how @TalentProtocol works

15

11:56 AM • Mar 26, 2025

BUILD is Now a Public Good-Airdropping 163B $BUILD

BUILD is now a public good! 163B $BUILD airdropped to 40K+ members, no treasury, no gatekeepers-fully owned by the community. LFB!

https://paragraph.com

In February, $BUILD reached a major milestone in decentralization. We airdropped 163B tokens to over 40,000 community members, added 16 ETH of liquidity on Uniswap, and burned the remaining 380B $BUILD in the treasury. The result is a 100% community-owned token, with me stepping back to a caretaker role. This transition embodies a core belief: the most powerful things we build are those we're willing to let go of. Sometimes the most impactful leadership move is stepping aside and trusting the community to take something further than you could alone.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

This weekend marked a huge milestone for @buildtokenbase

$BUILD is now a fully decentralized token of appreciation. No treasury, no gatekeepers, 100% community-owned.

Buy it, hold it or use it to support onchain builders.

42

2:37 PM • Feb 3, 2025

"Intensity" became my keyword for Q1. But I've learned that true intensity isn't about burnout or brute force. It's about deliberate focus and disciplined intention – channeling energy precisely where it matters most. It's about distinguishing between busy work and meaningful progress.

I think about this focused intensity like being in the final minutes of a close game. Every pass, every shot, every defensive move counts. You can't afford to relax, but neither can you afford to waste energy on the wrong plays. We're not racing against others, but against time, limited resources, and complexity – and that requires both energy and direction.

Through this intense quarter, I've embraced some core principles that will guide us moving forward:

1. Show, don't tell. The most powerful way to communicate our vision is through working products, not explanations.

2. Make action your default mode. Most of us overthink and underact. It's common to try thinking our way out of problems. But we often don't have a thinking problem; we have an action problem.

3. Ultra-intuitive UX mindset. If someone needs an FAQ, user guide, or tooltip... we've missed the mark. We're aiming for a clarity-first approach that embodies our redux value.

As I look toward Q2, I'm focused on two key evolutions:

With AI advancements, I've been building more of our product directly, reinforcing a key insight: the closer you are to code, the more efficient and impactful you become. Going from idea straight to implementation drastically reduces signal loss and accelerates shipping. This embodies the previous lesson of "making action your default mode" – instead of endless planning and design cycles, everyone (not just engineers) should be able to ship real, working solutions. The signal loss that happens when translating ideas to specs, specs to designs, and designs to code can be enormous. When everyone on the team can ship code (even if it's not perfect), we eliminate the middlemen between ideas and their implementation.

Q1 was very heads-down, focused on product. For Q2, I've launched Builders Table – intimate dinners where 6-8 carefully selected builders bring one problem each to discuss together. I've hosted editions in Denver and NYC already, with another planned for April 30th in New York. The format is simple: small table, spicy conversations, hungry participants. It's my response to an industry drowning in surface-level networking – creating space for the meaningful connections and candid feedback we all actually need.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

What happens when six onchain builders share a table in NYC?
Join the next Builders Table to find out.

63

5:46 AM • Mar 6, 2025

I'm embracing this quote from James Clear that perfectly captures my Q1 experience:

"You have to work hard to discover how to work smart. You won't know the best solutions until you've made nearly all the mistakes."

Building something new means making mistakes, learning from them, and constantly refining your approach. That's been the story of Q1 – intense, challenging, but ultimately rewarding.

As we move into Q2, I'm carrying these lessons forward, determined to build smarter, connect deeper, and create more value for our community of builders.

Keep building,
Filipe

P.S. If you're in New York this spring, let's play some basketball or grab coffee.

• All 40K+ community members who committed tokens in the two previous airdrop rounds will receive 85B $BUILD this Sunday (up to 10M each). Check all airdrop transactions here.

• Full committers receive 2x their total commitment for both rounds.

• Half committers receive back their total commitment from both rounds.

• For the 2.4K builders receiving more than 10M $BUILD, the remainder will vest linearly over 10 months via Sablier (Feb 1 – Nov 30, 2025). Check below the Top 100 BUILD Supporters.

• Example: If I committed 100% of my 5M $BUILD airdrop allocation in Round 1 and 50% of my 20M allocation in Round 2, I will receive a total of 20M (2 × 5M + 0.5 × 20M). Since my total airdrop allocation is 20M, I will receive 10M today, with the remaining 10M vested over 10 months.

• Note: The airdrop was sent to the same wallet you used to commit/claim the tokens of previous airdrops onchain. For some users this might have been their Farcaster custody address.

• We’re adding 16 ETH of liquidity on Uniswap (first swapping ETH for BUILD to create the ETH/BUILD pair) and burning the position NFT.

• We’re burning the remaining 380B $BUILD left in the treasury. Check all details on Dune.

• From now on, $BUILD is fully in the hands of the community, including our new open-source brand, built with FLOC.

• Buy $BUILD to support 100K+ holders—most of whom are verified builders.

• Hold $BUILD to appear in the Top Builder Supporters leaderboard.

• Use $BUILD to fund builder bounties and support new onchain builders.

  • Example: I just posted one bounty to build an Universal Builder Income (UBI) smart contract.

You’re leading $BUILD now.

I’ll stay on as a caretaker—maintaining the website and Twitter, sharing ideas, and creating bounties for things I’d love to see built (and urge everybody to do the same). But the future of $BUILD is now truly in the hands of its community.

LFB! 🫡

TL;DR

• The BUILD community burned 14.1B $BUILD tokens in Round 2, showcasing their commitment to the project's long-term vision.

• Over 90% of Round 2 claimers chose to burn a portion of their tokens, fueling the upcoming Universal Builder Income (UBI) experiment.

• BUILD is shifting its focus to UBI, aiming to provide sustainable and recurring support to all builders and attract more talent onchain.

The Round 2 claiming window for $BUILD tokens closed yesterday, September 30th, marking the end of an exciting chapter for the BUILD community. Let's delve into the final data and what lies ahead for BUILD.

The BUILD Summer Fund aimed at distributing 85B $BUILD tokens, donated by the community on Round 1, until the end of September. Check the full BUILD Summer Fund distribution here.

The bigger portion of the fund, 30B $BUILD, were distributed through the Round 2 Airdrop. Additionally, 24B $BUILD were allocated to collaborations with Base, 9B $BUILD fueled the weekly nominations on rounds.wtf, and approximately 2B $BUILD were invested in smaller experiments (castrdop frame, boost.xyz, IRL tipping with NFC cards) and collaborations (Coop Recs, Funding the Commons).

We are excited to announce that the remaining 20B tokens, initially allocated to Talent Protocol and Superchain, will be used to power a Universal Builder Income (UBI) experiment, coming later this year.

October will be the start of a new journey, as we embark on a major BUILD revamp centered around the concept of Universal Builder Income, coined by Base earlier this summer. BUILD will explore novel approaches to distribute financial incentives efficiently and at scale, empowering more builders to come onchain.

Inspired by Base's pioneering work, BUILD's UBI experiment aims to provide sustainable, recurring, and permissionless support to onchain builders. As I discussed in my recent op-ed on Crypto.News, the web3 ecosystem faces a significant developer shortage, with Web3 developers still roughly 1,000 times fewer than traditional developers. UBI is a crucial tool for ensuring the crypto ecosystem attracts and retains the talent it needs to succeed.

BUILD's UBI experiment will leverage innovative approaches to incentivize and reward builder activity onchain. We believe that by fostering a thriving community of builders, we can unlock the full potential of crypto and create a more equitable and decentralized future.

Stay tuned on Twitter and Farcaster for more updates on BUILD's UBI initiative and the exciting developments on the horizon!

Before we dive into the results, here's a reminder of how the claiming process worked:

• 30 billion $BUILD tokens were allocated for distribution in Round 2.

• To be eligible to claim, builders needed a Talent Passport with a Human Checkmark.

• Builders had a choice: claim all their tokens if they believed BUILD should end as a project, or burn 50% or 90% of their tokens to demonstrate support for BUILD's continued growth and contribute to its sustainability.

• Only 402 people decided to claim all their tokens, meaning that more than 90% of claimers decided to donate a portion of their tokens.

• 4.3K builders (17.2% of all people nominated) stepped up to claim their well-deserved rewards.

• A total of 6.2B $BUILD tokens were claimed (20.7% of the allocated amount).

• An impressive 14.1B $BUILD were burned (47% of the allocated amount), a powerful testament to the community's support for BUILD's continued growth.

• 9.7B $BUILD remain unclaimed (32.3% of the allocated amount). These tokens will be withdrawn from the smart contract and burned during October.

All the Round 2 data is in, so it's time to announce the top 10 BUILD Contributors, who will each receive a custom pair of BUILD sneakers!

Top Contributors are calculated based on: amount committed on Round 1 and Round 2 airdrops, Party App participation, LP Rewards and total $BUILD holdings.

Here are the 10 winners:

1. submerged

2. raz

3. shuo

4. jessepollak

5. limone.eth

6. cryptogirls

7. albiverse.eth

8. dos.eth

9. df

10. sea-otter.eth

If you're one of the winners, please look for a DM from @macedo on Farcaster.

Unfortunately, we did not reach the minimum threshold of 15B $BUILD tokens burned by the community to trigger the raffle we had planned. The ETH prize will remain in the BUILD treasury, awaiting future opportunities to reward the community.

Besides sneakers, we will continue to recognize and reward builders in October, with the weekly nomination on rounds.wtf. Simply cast “nom” or "nominate" in the /build channel, and tag the person you want to nominate (only one nom per cast). The person receiving the nomination will be the one earning the reward, not the owner of the cast. All casts liked by curators will share the weekly reward of 200M $BUILD. Currently, the curators are the top 50 $BUILD holders.

TL;DR

• The Round 2 of BUILD Noms will end on Aug 27th.

• We will allocate 30B $BUILD to all Round 2 participants, after running an anti-bot algorithm to convert BUILD points to tokens. The current Round 2 Leaderboard on build.top is not final.

• Claiming Round 2 tokens starts on Aug 29th and will be another pivotal moment for the community to "vote" with their tokens on the future of BUILD. Choosing to burn tokens will have 3 benefits: enter a raffle, increased Builder Score, and exclusive BUILD sneakers!

• For the next 5 weeks, we will be testing rounds.wtf as the new nominations infrastructure.

The Round 2 of BUILD nominations ends on Tuesday, Aug 27th, at 9am UTC.

Round 2 was initially planned to last until the end of Summer, lasting a total of 10 weeks, but we saw a decline in engagement from builders, so we decided to end it sooner, at week 6.

We will distribute a total of 30B $BUILD to the 25K+ Round 2 participants, which represents 60% of the 50B tokens initially allocated to Round 2 noms, since only 6 of 10 weeks have passed.

The remaining 20B $BUILD tokens will be added back to the BUILD Summer Fund, and distributed using other mechanisms until September 30th.

BUILD is collaborating with multiple communities to distribute tokens to committed builders, including Base, Optimism, Talent Protocol, Rounds, Devfolio, Celo, Coop Recs and Funding the Commons. BUILD also partnered with farcaster channels like /design, /fbi or /yellow.

Check the full BUILD Summer Fund distribution here.

To claim your Round 2 $BUILD tokens, you need a Talent Passport with a Human Checkmark, before Round 2 ends on August 27th.

Claiming Round 2 tokens will be available from August 29th until September 30th.

It's important to note that the current Round 2 Leaderboard is not final. We will still verify all 500K+ nominations, in order to calculate a fair conversion of Build Points into $BUILD tokens.

This verification process involves an anti-bot ranking algorithm to identify trustworthy builders and penalize overly reciprocal nominations. You can read more about the algorithm we developed here.

BUILD Custom Ranking Algorithm

A custom ranking algorithm, based on HITS, to identify trustworthy builders and penalize overly reciprocal nominations.

https://paragraph.xyz

On BUILD Round 1, 96% of the 42K airdrop participants chose to commit to the project by donating half or all of their tokens. Claiming Round 2 tokens will also be a pivotal moment for BUILD, and another chance for community members to show how they feel about the project:

1. Claim all your tokens, if you think we should sunset BUILD before the end of 2024. The option to claim all tokens will only be made available in early September and we’ll exclude your wallet from future BUILD initiatives.

2. If you want BUILD to continue supporting onchain builders, you'll be able to contribute to the project’s sustainability by burning 90% or 50% of your token allocation.

Burning your Round 2 tokens will have 3 benefits:

1. Automatically enters you to a 5 ETH raffle. Every 100K $BUILD burned equals a raffle ticket. The draw will happen in October, after the claiming window ends, and only if a minimum of 15B tokens are burned.

2. Increases your Builder Score and your aggregated BUILD reputation, visible on a public Top Contributors leaderboard. This rank takes into account: $BUILD burned on Round 2, $BUILD committed on Round 1, $BUILD you’re holding, LP rewards, and initial contribution on Party App.

3. Top 10 Contributors on October 1st win a custom pair of BUILD sneakers.

BUILD nominations will continue, but we will test a new format until the end of September. We will test Rounds as the infrastructure for nominations on Farcaster for 5 weeks.

With this approach you don't need to worry about eligibility criteria, weekly budget or build points. You will be able to claim your share of $BUILD tokens at the end of every week.

From Aug 27th until September 30th, simply cast “nom” or "nominate" in the /build channel, and tag the person you want to nominate (only one nom per cast). You don’t need to tag @buildbot anymore.

All casts liked by curators will share the weekly reward of 2B $BUILD. The person receiving the nomination will be the one entitled to the reward, not the owner of the cast.

We will experiment different groups of curators to understand what works best. One possible approach is considering likes from all $BUILD token holders, while more curated approaches could consider only the Top 100 BUILD Contributors or the top 100 followers of the /build Farcaster channel, according to OpenRank.

You can check all nominations in real time at https://rounds.wtf/build.

BUILD is more than just a tipping coin. The vision is building an economy that can empower more builders to come onchain.

Following the footsteps of Base, which coined the term “Universal Builder Income” earlier this month, BUILD will explore novel approaches to distribute financial incentives efficiently and at scale.

With Web3 developers still roughly 1,000 times fewer than traditional developers, UBI is crucial for ensuring the crypto ecosystem has the talent it needs to succeed.

Round 3 of BUILD is expected to go live in October.

TL;DR

1. BUILD noms restart today, July 16th at 8pm UTC, on build.top.

2. Everyone who committed 50% or 100% on Round 1 will receive a budget on Round 2.

3. You have until next Monday to close your nominations. Please be patient if you find any bugs.

4. Round 2 is still part of the Airdrop 1 allocation, and will distribute 50B $BUILD this Summer.

BUILD noms restart today, July 16th, at 8pm UTC. You can nominate your favorite builders on the build.top website. Watch this quick video tutorial.

There are a few more nomination methods planned for the coming days, but we decided it was best to release them one at a time.

In Round 2, nominations work on a weekly cycle, instead of daily one. You have until next Tuesday at 9am UTC to make your weekly nominations. You have unlimited nominations, but your weekly budget of BUILD points will be split evenly between all nominations you make.

If you see anything not working as expected, please report them to @macedo and please be patient. You have until next Monday night to use your first weekly budget. It doesn't matter if you do all of your nominations today, if you do a few everyday, or all of them on Monday.

Read the full FAQ here.

After hearing the BUILD community’s feedback, we decided to also give a Weekly Budget to all users who committed 50% of their Round 1 allocation, and not just the ones that committed 100%.

We also decided to focus more on real builders and quality nominations this time, so we will strongly penalize users with low Builder Scores, and user without a Human Checkmark on Talent Passport.

To receive the Human Checkmark you need to meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Coinbase Verified ID: The user must have a verified account on Coinbase and have completed identity verification (KYC).

2. World ID: The user must have completed the Proof of Personhood verification with Worldcoin.

3. Gitcoin Passport Humanity Score: The user must own a Gitcoin Passport with a score of 15 or higher.

4. Other proof of humanity credentials added to the Talent Passport in the future.

Let’s recap.

To receive a Weekly Budget you need to meet at least one of the following conditions:

1. Committed 100% or 50% of your Round 1 allocation

2. Hold >10M $BUILD in your wallet

3. Having Human Checkmark on your Talent Passport

To check your Weekly Budget for Round 2, go to build.top/stats (after 8pm UTC) and connect your wallet. We recalculate the Weekly Budgets every Monday night.

Claiming tokens will also require a Human Checkmark.

Round 2 is still part of the Airdrop 1 allocation, and will distribute 50B $BUILD this Summer. Round 1 of Airdrop 1 happened in May and lasted ~3 weeks. Airdrop 2 will only start after the Summer.

From the 150B $BUILD allocated to Airdrop 1, ~34B were claimed on Round 1, ~85B were committed back to the treasury, and the remaining ~31B left unclaimed were burned yesterday. You can go deeper on these numbers here.

This means we still have 85B $BUILD to redistributed this Summer, before Airdrop 2 starts. We allocated 50B $BUILD to be distributed using the Round 2 of nominations, and allocated 35B $BUILD to alternative distribution methods, like sponsoring /base-builds or the Buildathon Quadratic Voting.

On July 8th, I talked about $BUILD IRL for the first time, at the Superchain Space in Brussels.

Collect NFT

Farcaster

Filipe Macedo 🔆 on Warpcast

This Friday, at the /builders-brunch event in Brussels, we will be testing IRL nominations and $BUILD tipping with custom NFC cards and QR codes 👀 look for @leal.eth @pcbo or @rubendinis to receive your nom

TL;DR

1. BUILD noms are coming back on July 16th!

2. A total of 50B $BUILD will be distributed by nominations this summer.

3. Only committed builders are allowed to nominate.

4. Unlimited weekly nominations, instead of a maximum of 3 noms per day.

5. BUILD is in Brussels this week, say hi!

We're about to kick off the 2nd round of BUILD nominations. On Tuesday, July 16th, you'll be able to start rewarding your favorite onchain builders again.

For this Summer round of noms, a total of 50B $BUILD will be distributed to all builders that participate, proportionally to the total amount of points they receive.

The tokens to distribute are part of the BUILD Summer Fund, which consists of the $BUILD tokens committed by almost 40K different people.

1. Only committed builders allowed (committed 100% in Airdrop 1 or hold >10M $BUILD).

2. The nomination cycle will be weekly, instead of daily, and will restart every Tuesday.

3. Unlimited weekly nominations, instead of a maximum of 3 noms per day.

4. Your budget is the total amount of BUILD points you distribute per week, to all noms combined.

5. There will be new ways to nominate builders, on Farcaster and other apps.

Anyone with a Farcaster or a Talent Passport account can receive nominations, but making at least 1 nomination will be required to claim tokens in the end of the round.

Sybil protection will be stricter than in Airdrop 1, so to participate you need to either:

1. have committed 100% in Airdrop 1, OR

2. hold >10M $BUILD and have a human checkmark on Talent Passport*

*although a Talent Passport is required to nominate, we create one automatically for all new users who make a nomination on Farcaster or build.top.

All builders receive a weekly budget of BUILD Points.

Your weekly budget is the total amount of BUILD points you will distribute that week when you nominate others.

Your weekly budget is NOT the value of each nomination, so the more people you nominate, the less points each one will receive.

The budget is divided evenly between all your weekly nominations. You don't need to specify an amount, like on $DEGEN for example, you just need to nominate a person. That's it!

The main factors to calculate your weekly budget are:

• Tokens Committed on Airdrop 1

• Builder Score

• $BUILD tokens you hold

The nomination week ends on Mondays, which means both your weekly budget and nominations reset every Monday as well.

We want noms to feel more authentic and thoughtful. Thats why this 2nd round of noms will work on a weekly cycle instead of a daily cycle.

You will have unlimited weekly nominations, instead of max 3 per day. You can't nominate the same person twice in the same week, but you’ll be able to nominate the same builder in different weeks.

The motivation to nominate should be intrinsic, so we're removing 10% points reward for nominating others.

There will be new ways to nominate builders, in Farcaster and in other partner apps. More info about this soon. Subscribe to this publication and follow @buildbot to be notified of future announcements.

If you're in Brussels for EthCC or ETHGlobal, join us on:

https://www.superchain.eco

Superchain Space | Brussels

Connect and explore the future of the Optimism Collective. The space will include breakfasts, round tables, networking opportunities, co-working areas, workshops, a live podcast studio, and meeting spaces.

Don't miss our keynote "BUILDing Crypto’s Most Committed Community" at 14:00.

https://lu.ma

Builders Brunch Club · Luma

Onchain Summer comes to Brussels! Base, BUILD, Eden and Talent Protocol are calling all onchain builders to gather in Brussels, on July 12th, to celebrate...

​​Base, BUILD, Eden and Talent Protocol are calling all onchain builders to celebrate Onchain Summer together, in Brussels.

Farcaster

Filipe Macedo 🔆 on Warpcast

Just arrived in Brussels, and I couldn’t feel more at home 🫡 Excited to meet all you builders at /ethcc /fcc and @ethglobal oh…and we’ll also announce the launch date for 2nd round of noms tonight 👀 https://imagedelivery.net/BXluQx4ige9GuW0Ia56BHw/f3f89ac8-0b20-42cc-107c-b1563e65a900/original

TL;DR

1. The 2nd round of BUILD noms will be announced this Sunday, July 7th.

2. BUILD Airdrop 1 claiming period was extended to July 4th, 4pm UTC.

3. 96% of airdrop participants donated tokens, including 20K+ that committed all their earnings.

4. All builders who committed 100% received a Talent Passport credential.

5. BUILD reinterpreted the Manifesto for Onchain Builders with an inspiring NFT video on Zora.

6. Join the Builders Brunch Club in Brussels, on July 12.

The first BUILD Airdrop had over $1M USD to distribute to onchain builders, based on an innovative distribution system based on peer-to-peer nominations.

Incredibly, 96% of the 42K participants decided to donate their tokens! More than 20K people actually committed all their earnings, with some donating as much as $30K worth of $BUILD tokens, and less than 2K people chose to cash out all tokens.

All ~85B $BUILD tokens committed from Airdrop 1 are now in the BUILD Summer Fund, and will be redistributed to builders during this Summer.

• 50B $BUILD tokens will be allocated to a 2nd round of nominations, to run during the summer

• ~35B $BUILD tokens will be distributed to onchain builders using other mechanisms, for example by sponsoring initiatives like /base-builds

This Sunday, July 7th, we will reveal the start date for the 2nd round of BUILD nominations, as well as some of the changes we plan to introduce this summer.

We extended the claiming period for BUILD Airdrop 1 until July 4th, at 4pm UTC. This extension allowed us to update the airdrop smart contract and solve some tech support issues. You can read more about the Farcaster custody wallet issue in the previous announcement.

If you wish to commit 100% of your $BUILD tokens, but still aren't able to do it onchain, at the build.top website, you can just reply to this cast until July 4th, and we'll add your commit manually to the database. This way you can still get the BUILD credential in the Talent Passport (see below).

All builders who committed 100% of their $BUILD Airdrop 1 token allocation, will see their Builder Score increased. Points received are based on the amount of tokens committed:

• Tier 1: >1B $BUILD committed (20 points)

• Tier 2: >100M $BUILD committed (16 points)

• Tier 3: >10M $BUILD committed (12 points)

• Tier 4: >1M $BUILD committed (8 points)

• Tier 5: >100K $BUILD committed (4 points)

The decision to only give the credential to people who committed 100% (and not to people who committed 50%) is the sole responsibility of Talent Protocol, not BUILD.

The rationale for the decision has to do with the fact that committing 50% was, financially, the smarter choice. Claiming all tokens meant you lost the multiplier, so in most cases you would get less tokens when compared to committing 50%.

Farcaster

Talent Protocol on Warpcast

Introducing the Talent Passport BUILD Credential 💫 All builders, who committed 100% of their $BUILD Airdrop 1 token allocation, will see their Builder Score increased. https://imagedelivery.net/BXluQx4ige9GuW0Ia56BHw/cc38bcb3-2e75-4daf-d3fd-d30f6e3aba00/original

Tolga Dizmen and Jondar both did a great job of keeping track of BUILD data throughout Airdrop 1. And, thanks to Tolga's dashboard, it's super easy to visualize what happened during this airdrop. Read more about how Airdrop 1 worked in this announcement.

Some Airdrop 1 numbers I want to highlight (as of July 3rd) are:

• 41,397 users, which represent 49% of all eligible wallets, already claimed or committed ~87% of the Airdrop 1 total token allocation

• From those 41K users: 50% committed all their tokens back to BUILD, 46% committed half and claimed the other half, and only 4% chose to claim all tokens.

• The BUILD Summer Fund currently has 85B+ $BUILD tokens, to be redistributed to builders until the end of this summer.

• Almost 34B $BUILD tokens were claimed by builders worldwide, and there are currently 48,786 $BUILD token holders.

• All tokens earned by non-eligible users and tokens forfeited by users you chose to claim all tokens (because they lost their multiplier) will be burned, to start decreasing the supply of $BUILD. We expect the total amount of tokens burned to be between 15 to 20% of Airdrop 1's total allocation of 150B $BUILD.

Building is a lot about learning: you build, get feedback, learn, and build again.

Given all the overwhelming support and positive vibes we got from builders worldwide, I want to share some of our learnings publicly:

1. Using multiple systems for authentication and eligibility (Farcaster, Talent Passport, ENS, Gitcoin), made it very complex to aggregate unique identities at the start, and to calculate Airdrop 1 allocation. For the coming nom rounds we plan to use the Talent Passport ID has the primary identifier, making it possible to aggregate multiple wallets.

2. The word "commit" is powerful and super relevant for our community, but it wasn't clear for everyone what “committing” meant: staking or donating?

3. Instead of asking people to commit 100% of their tokens, we could've asked them to commit 80 or 90%, so they also receive some tokens and have skin in the game.

4. The leaderboard gave the top 50 a lot of visibility and a considerable advantage. If we had alternative methods for discovering people to nominate would help spread nominations out more evenly and bring attention to less well known builders

5. We used Gitcoin Passport's Humanity Score for sybil protection, but a lot of people (understandably) confuse Humanity Score and Builder Score, and Gitcoin Passport and Talent Passport.

6. Our airdrop claim/commit system wasn’t very effective at separating people that were somewhat committed to the project from people that were trying to maximize their earnings, because "Claiming 50%" of tokens was actually the smartest financial move.

7. It wasn't clear where community members should go for official announcements. The official channels are: /build, @buildbot and @buildtokenbase

8. It's super important to share often what the BUILD community is about, our vibe, and our longer-term goals.

BUILD was one of the sponsors of the Onchain Summer Buildathon by Base. Our June bounty asked participants to recognize and reward the best builders on Base, and had prizes for the most creative use cases using the BUILD token or API. More info about the bounty here.

Congratulations to @yanvictorsn.eth and @samuellhuber for winning the bounty!

We plan to continue promoting more BUILD composability, by improving the BUILD API and creating more public bounties. If you have ideas, reach out to @juampi on Farcaster for more information about the BUILD API and other technical or product questions.

On May 1st, Talent Protocol and dozens of partners launched the Manifesto for Onchain Builders. On the 1st of every month, they continue to celebrate onchain builders and their quiet contributions to a better tomorrow.

For the July edition, Talent Protocol asked the BUILD community to reinterpret the manifesto. I worked with @courinha to create this inspiring video and word play.

Join the movement to support onchain builders by minting the NFT.

Collect NFT

BUILD partnered with Base and Talent Protocol to provide an hacking space for Buildathon participants. A space to build together and support each other during the 2 final days of this month-long virtual hackathon. Here's some pictures:

​

​​Base, BUILD, Eden and Talent Protocol are calling all onchain builders to gather in Brussels, on July 12th, to celebrate Onchain Summer together. ​​Whether you're already building the future internet, or if you just want to find out more about building onchain, this delicious Belgian brunch is for you.

https://lu.ma

Builders Brunch Club · Luma

Onchain Summer comes to Brussels! Base, BUILD, Eden and Talent Protocol are calling all onchain builders to gather in Brussels, on July 12th, to celebrate...

TL;DR

• Airdrop 1 is fully unlocked: eligible users can now claim their entire token 1 allocation.

• If you don't commit any $BUILD tokens, your allocation multiplier will not be considered.

• Some users are having an issue claiming, but there's a workaround.

• We’re moving funds and governance decisions from party.app to Safe multi-sigs.

• We are doing a first round of payments to contributors, to cover their costs.

It’s now possible for eligible users to claim their entire Airdrop 1 token allocation (if they haven’t claimed or committed already). The token claiming period will be open until June 30th.

Remember that, if you choose not to commit any $BUILD tokens, your allocation multiplier will not be considered and your BUILD budget for the next airdrops will be much lower.

BUILD is only sustainable if we continue to pay it forward, so we strongly encourage you to commit at least 50% to the BUILD Summer Fund (more details here). "Committing" means you're donating your $BUILD tokens to be distributed to builders in the next airdrop.

You can check all the Airdrop 1 data in this Dune dashboard, created by Tolga.

Some users are getting a "Transaction failed!" error when claiming. This error likely means that your airdrop was allocated to your Farcaster custody address (an address created for you when you created your account, to register your FID).

If this is happening to you, you can find a workaround for it here.

We don't have another solution at the moment. If you don’t want to use this workaround, please fill this form below, so we can help you after June 30th. 

Most users have multiple wallet addresses associated with their Talent Passport or Farcaster account. In preparation for Airdrop 1 we had to select one address to whitelist for the airdrop. We used $BUILD tokens as a criteria to identify the main wallet of each user. But, for a few Farcaster users that didn’t hold any $BUILD tokens at the time of the snapshot, the whitelisted address might have been their Farcaster custody address instead of their EOA. Future airdrops won't have this issue.

We decide to sunset our presence on party.app moving forward. Besides still having the name BOSS, most of the conversation has moved to Farcaster, so we will be discontinuing communications and decision-making on party.app, and transferring funds to Safe multi-sig wallets.

The app and the entire PartyDAO team were fundamental for the successful launch of BUILD, but the project is now in a different stage, that requires a different set of communication and governance tools.

We’re creating 2 Safe wallets: one for Airdrop 1 ops (15% supply), and another for the remaining treasury (55%).

We already transferred 150B $BUILD tokens (15%) to the Airdrop 1 Safe (read more about this transaction here), which was then sent to the airdrop smart contract.

We will transfer the remaining funds ($BUILD and ETH) from party.app to the BUILD Treasury Safe before the end of June. This Safe will require 5 out of 9 signers to confirm transactions, which include the original 4 party hosts.

You can check the Safe addresses and who the signers are here.

As mentioned in the tokenomics, 10% of the total supply of $BUILD is reserved for ecosystem grants. This will be a key incentive for the long-term success of BUILD, so we want to have time to decide what’s the best system to distribute them. But we also want to for project contributors to feel valued and motivated, and there's some past costs and contributions we will pay now.

We will not use the Ecosystem Grants allocation to cover these costs. Instead, they will be covered by the trading fees (ETH) earned from the Uniswap Liquidity Pool (until we launch the Ecosystem Grants program).

Check this page for the full list of costs incurred up to May 31, 2024.

TL;DR

1. BUILD is more than a memecoin. It's an onchain builder economy, with a fair-launched token, a decentralized community and a powerful brand.

2. Visit build.top/airdrop1 to see your potential $BUILD token allocation. Claiming $BUILD tokens will open on June 12th, for most eligible users, and stay open until June 30th. No need to rush.

3. Let's push for a collective commitment of >50% on Airdrop 1 and keep building. We're just getting started. If we all commit, BUILD can really succeed!

4. All tokens committed go to the BUILD Summer Fund, and will be redistributed to builders during Onchain Summer, while we work on Airdrop 2.

Building is hard and should be nurtured. That's why BUILD exists, to help discover and reward onchain builders with both social and financial capital.

But what's a builder?

We believe that anyone can be a builder, but becoming one requires courage, creativity and commitment:

• Courage: taking risks, accepting challenges and pushing boundaries.

• Creativity: curiosity, optimism and creating value.

• Commitment: effort, accountability and the resilience to keep building.

If your vibe is generosity, collaboration, and finding new builders to connect with, the BUILD community is for you. Builder is an attitude, not a skill or a role.

Don't forget to mint the Manifesto for Onchain Builders.

BUILD is more than a memecoin, it's an onchain builder economy, that includes a fair-launched token, a decentralized community and a powerful brand.

We believe all builders deserve some recognition, but most builders are still unknown, while popular builders get most of the credit. BUILD Airdrop 1 was our answer to this problem, and aimed at reaching as many builders as possible and setting a baseline reputation for the BUILD community. The airdrop was a successful first experiment, allowing us to reach 200K+ people.

BUILD Airdrop 2 will be about building a sustainable and decentralized builder economy. We plan to run experiments around UBI (Universal Builder Income), that can reward committed builders with both social and financial capital. Because even a small reward can motivate builders to keep building.

The BUILD economy runs on nominations to redistribute value, and is designed to power more builder activity onchain. Funds enter the economy from organizations and sponsors that want to appeal to builders, and also from individuals that want to give back to a new generation of builders.

Airdrop 1 was a successful first experiment, but BUILD is just getting started. Now the community has a choice: we either commit or quit.

We can commit to grow BUILD into a real onchain builder economy 🫡 
Or we can all claim our $BUILD tokens and quit this experiment 🪦

A collective commitment of >50% from Airdrop 1 (75B $BUILD), will be a very strong signal for the team to keep building during Onchain Summer, and to start preparing Airdrop 2 for September.

1. BUILD is only sustainable if we continue to pay it forward.

2. All $BUILD committed goes to the BUILD Summer Fund (details below).

3. The more $BUILD you commit, the more reputation you are building

Visit build.top/airdrop1 to see your potential $BUILD token allocation for Airdrop 1. Claiming $BUILD tokens will open on June 12th, for most eligible users, and stay open until June 30th, so no need to rush.

In the claiming flow, you will be presented with 3 options:

Tokens committed from Airdrop 1 will be redistributed to builders during the summer, using new variations of the nominations game. This will give the team time to prepare a great Airdrop 2 experience. It's important to move fast, but also not to rush things.

Currently, our summer priorities are:

• Make nominations more natural and intrinsic-driven, for example by tagging @buildbot on Farcaster to nominate.

• Receive notifications via Farcaster Direct Casts and XMTP.

• Promote more composability, by improving the BUILD API and creating more public bounties to integrate with BUILD.

• Kick-off ecosystem grants, to reward builders that are actively contributint to make BUILD better.

• Create fun ways to spend $BUILD tokens and points, for example merch or lotteries.

• Organize or sponsor IRL meetups. There's 2 already events planned, one for Lisbon (June 29-30) and another for Brussels (July 12).

Will you quit or commit?

TL;DR

1. In 20 days, 100K participants made at least 1 nomination, and an average of 18 nominations.

2. From the 100K that played the game, 88.5K wallet addresses are eligible to claim $BUILD.

3. 150B $BUILD will be sent from party.app to a Safe multisig for the Airdrop 1 claiming process.

4. There were at least 15 projects built on top of BUILD during the 3 weeks of Airdrop 1.

5. @macedo is the most public voice, but there are many more builders behind BUILD.

On Jun 4th, 9pm UTC, we officially ended Airdrop 1 and took a data snapshot. A total of 170K wallets connected on build.top before this deadline.

We then excluded all wallets that didn’t make any nomination, ending up with 100K participants that made at least one nomination. They also made an average of 18 nominations during the 20 days of the game.

From this group of 100K that played, 88.5K are eligible for Airdrop 1, according to the eligibility criteria.

The next step is removing all nominations from the 11.5K non-eligible users, and the respective BUILD Points they distributed. During this step we’re also removing all non-compliant nominations (example: people that were able to nominate 4 people in one day). At this point, we have a final count of total nominations and BUILD points distributed during Airdrop 1.

The final step is assigning each participant a multiplier, based on selected Talent Passport credentials, $BUILD token owned and manual curation. This is a critical step to reward the real builders and true supporters of BUILD.

After all this, we’re finally in a position to calculate the individual allocation for each participant, and distribute the 150B $BUILD tokens (15% of the total supply) allocated to Airdrop 1.

The tokens will be sent from the party.app wallet to a new Safe multisig wallet, dedicated to Airdrop 1 operations and claiming process. This Safe will have five multisig signers: the 4 original party hosts (@macedo, @leal.eth, @limone.eth, @simo) and @tolgadizmen (the contributor leading all finance and ops for BUILD). We will require 3 out of 5 signatures to confirm transactions.

Any unclaimed $BUILD tokens from Airdrop 1 will remain in this wallet, and will be considered part of our “BUILD Summer Fund”, to support builders during Onchain Summer. More news about the BUILD Summer Fund in the next announcement.

BUILD was born on May 1st. On this day we launched the “Born to Build”, the Manifesto for Onchain Builders and a crowdfunding campaign on party.app, to raise initial LP funds for the token.

https://mirror.xyz

Born to Build: A Manifesto for Onchain Builders

A manifesto dedicated to all onchain builders. The visionaries of a new era, the rebels shaping the new internet.

In a matter of days, almost 10k people minted the manifesto and 700+ people joined the crowdfund, raising a total of 72.6 ETH!

https://base.party.app

BOSS | Party

BOSS is using Ethereum in multiplayer

A funny story is that BUILD was originally called BOSS, but after some debates with the community at Farcon, about the true potential of the project, we decided to call it BUILD, the token for all onchain builders. You can peek the early days of BUILD here.

The $BUILD token was launched on May 13th, and the BUILD Nominations game started on May 15th.

It’s impossible to name everyone that supported BUILD during its first month of existence, starting with the 876 members on party.app, but some deserve the public recognition.

Thank you to all that gave their time, skills and ideas to build BUILD: @leal.eth, @limone.eth, @simo, @pcbo, @tolgadizmen, @rudnevsky, @juampi, @rubendinis, pupo, @df, @albiverse, @raz, @carlos, @bianc8, @vibern, @orbulo and @jessepollak.

Thank you also to the community members that had the initiative to build things on top: @samuellhuber (for the cast action), @courinha (for the 2 Onchain Summer NFTs), @darph (for making new designs for the frame), @jondar (for building a Dune dashboard), @dos.eth (for the amazing gif), @mx1000 (for the new Manifesto NFT), @kevinmfer (for The Ultimate Based Builders video), @kos (for a cool design), @ryya, @nikhil66 and @fluffheadchaser for winning the ideas bounty.

The best part about BUILD is the builder activity it incentivize and the cool builds it unlocks. Here’s a list of a few things the BUILD community built in 3 weeks:

1. Coinvise launched a campaign.

2. /farcaster-index was super quick to list $BUILD.

3. Airstack added $BUILD to their swap frame.

4. @sayangel helped you find builders to nominate via /bot-or-not frame.

5. @perl included $BUILD in a couple of its games.

6. @simo and /blurredfuture launched 3 super cool t-shirts.

7. @pirosb3 and @bountycaster added support to $BUILD.

8. @husson.eth and Eden launched Builders Brunch Club, on top of BUILD.

9. @shortcake and @castdrop made frame to claim 3,000 $BUILD, if you minted the "Manifesto for Onchain Builders" NFT.

10. @kompreni added $BUILD to rebase.finance and personally staked 1B $BUILD.

11. @jackjack.eth launched a sticker pack with support for $BUILD.

12. @robrecht and @paybot make it possible to send $BUILD tokens on Farcaster.

13. @spenser and @swaye included $BUILD in their Memecoin Madness challenge.

14. @harpaljadeja made a prototype of BUILD Bracelets to tip hackers IRL at hackathons.

15. We shipped the first version of the BUILD API, and there’s already a bunch of people working on it.

The 3 most nominated builders that didn’t join the game were @dwr.eth (991 nominations), @vitalik.eth (974 nominations), and @jacek (747 nominations).

Since June 4th, 40K additional wallets connected to the website to check for Airdrop eligibility, adding up to a total of 210K unique wallets. These wallets are, of course, not eligible because they made no nominations, but still an interesting metric to share.

TL;DR

• BUILD Airdrop 1 ends on June 4th, at 9pm UTC, with a data snapshot.

• With 150K+ users and 1.5M+ nominations, our social graph is large enough to move forward.

• Nominations will be paused for a week, while we verify airdrop eligibility and nomination data.

• You need an FID or ENS older than May 15th, or a Proof of Humanity credential to be eligible.

• The Airdrop 1 token claiming period is June 11th to July 1st.

• Eligible users will be able to convert BUILD Points to $BUILD Tokens (ratio to be calculated)

• New announcement, later this week, about the exciting stuff happening this summer!

In 20 days, more than 150K Farcaster and Talent Protocol users made 1.5M+ nominations. Not all of them are onchain builders, but the main goal of this 1st game was to reach as many builders as possible, even if we got some bots in the mix.

As a community-owned project, we want to avoid any type of censorship, which means all eligible users will be able to claim tokens (check eligibility criteria below).

But BUILD is about creating value and giving back, not about taking advantage. So we will reward verifiable builders (via selected Talent Passport credentials and manual review) with a token allocation multiplier of up to 10x. For transparency, each user will see their multiplier when claiming tokens.

Only users who nominated someone are eligible to claim tokens. Users who didn’t play the BUILD game, before it ended on June 4th 9pm UTC, are not eligible.

Additionally, and to prevent sybils abusing the system, all Farcaster or ENS accounts created after the BUILD launch (May 15th 23:59 UTC), will NOT be eligible to claim tokens.

Players are free to create new Talent Passport accounts after this date (so that they can increase their Builder Score), but their Talent Passport needs to hold at least one of these 3 credentials:

1. Farcaster Credential with FID owned by your wallet before May 15th, or

2. ENS Credential with a Primary Name owned by your wallet before May 15th, or

3. Proof of Humanity Credential (currently, Gitcoin Passport and World ID are available)

We’ll take a snapshot of all participants’ Talent Passport before the Airdrop 1 campaign ends.

You can’t participate in the Airdrop 1 campaign with different wallets. You can have multiple wallets connected to your Talent Passport and Farcaster account, but only one wallet will be eligible to claim $BUILD tokens (the exact claiming flow will be shared soon). This means that each FID will only be able to claim tokens once, with one wallet. The same for Talent Passport.

Information about the eligibility criteria is public, on the BUILD FAQ, since BUILD launched on May 14th. Initially, Proof of Humanity was mandatory, but after hearing the community’s feedback, we decided to loosen the criteria, and also allow for FIDs or ENS names older than May 15th to also be eligible to claim tokens from Airdrop 1.

If you’re not eligible, you have until June 4th, at 9pm UTC to add a Gitcoin Passport credential or a World ID credential to your Talent Passport.

On June 4th, at 9pm UTC, we will take a snapshot of all users, new nominations will be disabled and BUILD Points and Daily Budget will be locked, until a new game starts.

Users will be able to claim their Airdrop 1 $BUILD tokens between June 11th and July 1st.

During the down time, between June 4th and June 11th, we will:

1. check eligibility of all users, verify nomination data, and flag abusive behavior

2. remove all nominations and points distributed by non-eligible accounts

3. recalculate the total amount of points distributed during Airdrop 1

4. calculate the ratio to convert the total amount of points distributed, to the 150B $BUILD tokens allocated to Airdrop 1 (pro rata, not 1:1)

5. add the token allocation multiplier to all verifiable builders

6. develop smart contracts to claim tokens and update the build.top website

7. do infrastructure upgrades

New announcement, later this week, with more details about the claiming process and the exciting stuff happening this summer!

We’re humbled by all the support and positive feedback we received so far. But we’re also working hard to make nominations more effective at recognising active builders.

Here’s 5 things we’re currently doing:

1. Update to the “Daily Budget” formula, in order to give an higher budget to active builders.

2. To claim $BUILD tokens, you need an FID or ENS older than May 15th or a Proof of Humanity.

3. Experiment: hiding everyone without a Farcaster Power Badge from build.top leaderboards.

4. We’re upgrading our infra and rolling out an API for BUILD. Cast to @macedo for early access

5. Request for ideas: 6M $build bounty for the 3 best answers, until May 29th.

We updated the formula that calculates your Daily Budget in order to give an higher budget to more active builders. This update won’t affect past nominations, only future ones. The exact formula is kept private to avoid abuse. Your Daily Budget might increase, decrease or stay the same after this update.

To prevent sybils abusing the system, all Farcaster or ENS accounts created after the BUILD launch, on May 15th, will NOT be eligible to claim tokens.

Players are free to create new Talent Passport accounts after this date (so that they can increase their Builder Score), but their Talent Passport needs to hold at least one of these 3 credentials:

1. Farcaster Credential with FID registered before May 15th, or

2. ENS Credential with a Primary Name registered or transferred before May 15th, or

3. Proof of Humanity Credential (currently, Gitcoin Passport and World ID are available)

We’ll take a snapshot of all participants’ Talent Passport before the Airdrop 1 campaign ends.

You can’t participate in the Airdrop 1 campaign with different wallets. You can have multiple wallets connected to your Talent Passport and Farcaster account, but only one wallet will be eligible to claim $BUILD tokens (the exact claiming flow will be shared soon). This means that each FID will only be able to claim tokens once, with one wallet. The same for Talent Passport.

After some research, the Farcaster Power Badge appears to be a simple way to separate quality Farcaster users from spam. We will run a “Power Badge” experiment by temporarily hiding everyone who doesn’t have a Power Badge from the public leaderboards on build.top. For now, the Power Badge will not affect Daily Budget, Build Points or Rank.

For participants that only have a Talent Passport account, we will also show everyone with a Builder Score over 50 on the public leaderboards.

We’re rolling out an API for BUILD. It’s only available for selected builders while we test it, but we will do a public roll out soon. If you want early access, tag @macedo and mention what you want to build.

This week we’re also upgrading infrastructure providers and doing some maintenance tasks, to adjust for the increase in demand we expect the API will bring. You might experience some downtime this Friday. It shouldn’t impact end users, but giving a heads up to be on the safe side.

How can we make the BUILD nominations game more effective at recognising active onchain builders? Top 3 answers get 2M $BUILD each.

Post your idea in the /build channel and tag @macedo to be eligible. Expires on May 29th.