Attracting developers has never been easier, especially now that AI tools let anyone start building. The hard part is keeping the right ones engaged long enough to ship something meaningful.

We spoke with ecosystem leads, DevRel, and Growth teams across Base, Celo, BNB Chain, Fuel, AAVE, Avail, Privy, Starknet, and others, drawing on years of hands-on experience running builder programs at Talent. Everywhere we looked, the same tension kept coming up: reach versus quality.

Networks need to reach many builders to discover great talent, but they also need to focus on the best contributors to create lasting impact. To give a sense of that scale: Base alone tracks over 40,000 builders, but only about 500 are rewarded in a given month. That ratio says a lot.

This article distills what we learned into a practical guide for anyone designing programs that need to find, support, and retain technical talent. It explores what actually works, what keeps failing, and how to build programs that retain builders instead of churning through them.

Money Attracts Builders. But Not Always the Right Ones

This was the single most repeated insight across every conversation: grants, bounties, and incentive programs can attract builders, but they just as easily attract people optimized for short-term rewards rather than long-term commitment.

The result is high variance. Some funded builders ship great products. Others collect the check and disappear. Programs then invest more in vetting, onboarding, and support, while still struggling to retain participants once the money runs out.

As one DevRel lead at Hyperlane put it: "The biggest issue is attracting quick-money builders who show up for the payout and leave before anything ships."

Spending more gets you reach, not quality. It brings more builders through the door, but without something else in place to separate signal from noise (behavioral gates, progress checks, output-based distribution), more money often just means more churn.

The rest of this article builds on that idea. Incentives work, but only when there's structure around them.

What "Quality" Actually Means

Ask ten different program leads what a "quality builder" looks like and you'll get ten different answers. But dig deeper and patterns emerge.

Some use hard gates. One chain requires projects to be live on mainnet before they can access serious BD support. Others treat quality as something that reveals itself over time, through repeated interaction and follow-through.

The clearest shared insight was that quality reveals itself over time through what builders actually do once they’re in. Motivation, consistency, and skin in the game (things like regular updates, visible progress, and demonstrated commitment) matter far more than hackathon attendance or grant applications.

This creates the central tension we kept hearing:

Ecosystems need reach to discover quality, but they need quality to create compounding outcomes.

Programs that optimize only for reach create noise.

Programs that optimize only for quality can't scale.

The winners build systems that turn broad reach into reliable signal.

The Patterns and the Framework

Six themes kept surfacing across interviews:

• Retention is the universal bottleneck, not acquisition.

• Quality shows up in behavior, not credentials.

• Incentives only work when tied to real output.

• Activation friction kills builders before any reward can kick in.

• GTM is the cliff most builders hit right after shipping.

• What gets measured shapes everything that follows.

These patterns map onto a natural progression every builder goes through when entering an ecosystem. None of the people we spoke with use a formal framework, but their tactics consistently follow five stages:

Acquire is how builders first find the ecosystem. Events, partnerships, content, inbound interest. Breaks when channels produce audience instead of builders.

Activate is how builders reach their first real win. Good docs, templates, credits, fast paths to shipping. Breaks when friction creates drop-off before anything gets built.

Retain is how builders keep building after that first touch. Ongoing support, progressive programs, local communities, longer build arcs. Cited again and again as the hardest step.

Reward is how incentives are structured. Grants, bounties, quests, retroactive rewards. Breaks when reward design isn't tied to output.

Amplify is how programs turn output into more output. Showcasing winners, distribution, co-marketing, case studies. Breaks when winners don't get visibility and nothing compounds.

The framework is simple. Executing it is not.

Across our interviews, we kept hearing about the same mistakes at every stage, often from people who understood the funnel perfectly but still fell into predictable traps.

What's Not Working (And How to Fix It)

Hackathon Theater

You get submissions and hype, but very few teams keep building once the event ends. The ecosystem confuses activity with retention. As a default strategy, hackathons are expensive, low-signal, and weak on compounding.

What works instead: Tie hackathons to a product moment, like launching an SDK, with strong support materials. Avail's ETHOnline push generated over 100 submissions because it gave builders something new and concrete to build with. Not a generic prompt, but a specific product to integrate.

For sustained output, replace weekend sprints with longer build arcs, like Crecimiento’s startup program.

Grants as the Product

When grants become the funnel instead of the outcome, you attract builders optimizing for "getting the grant" rather than shipping long-term. Aave's grants DAO shows both sides: grants can fund key infrastructure, but the spending can also exceed the value created.

What works instead: Use progressive filtering as a pre-grant layer. PUSH intentionally starts without grants, requiring weekly updates to progress. As the co-founder described it: "If you hand out money first, you attract people who want money first. If you ask for consistency first, the ones who stay are the ones who actually want to build." Behavior becomes the gate, not applications.

For ongoing incentives, shift to impact-based builder rewards that track activity across onchain and GitHub and distribute proportionally to contribution. Base, Celo, and Stacks run variations of this model, rewarding builders who already proved sustained output rather than paying upfront for promises.

"Free Pizza" Events

Poorly targeted events pull audiences who are there for social value, not building. Conversion from these events is close to zero.

What works instead: Replace untargeted events with ambassador and local community loops. Stellar Development Foundation built a global ambassador network that expanded across multiple regions, creating consistent local presence and quality filtering at the regional level. The key difference is continuity: ambassadors maintain presence, while one-off events disappear.

Over-Complex Incentives

Even great ideas fail when the integration path is too complex. Privy's experience with gas sponsorship is a clean example: it sounded helpful but added friction instead of removing it. This is especially common for tooling companies where onboarding is already the hardest bottleneck.

What works instead: Focus on low-friction quests for activation. Base calls these out as a specific success because they're informal and don't feel heavy or bureaucratic. The goal is a fast first win with minimal overhead. If builders can't reach that first win easily, no incentive structure on top will fix it.

Vanity Metrics

Some teams track useful numbers like production usage and requests per week. Others reported tracking nothing at all, which makes it impossible to justify spend or iterate with rigor.

What works instead: Measure production as the real KPI. Privy tracks developers moving from dev mode to production mode, giving them a clean signal of real adoption versus experimentation. Infrastructure companies should track developers reaching production. Protocols should track usage. Ecosystem foundations should track active builders, shipped apps, and retention over time.

DevRel as a Support Desk

Some programs turn into a help desk. DevRel ends up answering questions all day. Builders still make progress, but only when the team steps in. As a growth lead at Fuel Network warned: "The problem is when you're still doing all of the work for every builder. That doesn't scale." Quick help is useful, but it doesn’t create momentum.

What works instead: Keep the door open, but add a few simple rules. Ask builders to post one short update every week. Give them a template for updates and demos. Run a weekly check-in so people don’t disappear. And pay rewards for what ships, not for who asks the most questions.

Scaling Without a Filter

When an ecosystem grows its builder base but doesn't have a way to tell who's actually contributing, everyone gets the same slice of attention and rewards. Top builders feel invisible, low-effort participants stick around for easy payouts, and program leads can't point to real wins.

What works instead: Add a data-driven quality layer. Track what builders actually do (code shipped, contracts deployed, open-source contributions) and reward proportionally. This works like a retroactive filter: builders earn rewards because they already proved they're building, not because they applied.

Some ecosystems already publish this kind of tracking in regular reports. For example, WalletConnect shares ecosystem reports that track builders and real outputs across GitHub repos (integrations, activity, and what shipped).

The takeaway isn’t “stop doing builder programs.” It’s that builder programs only compound when you add structure: clear signals, clear incentives, and clear paths to shipping.

What Comes Next

AI tools have made it possible for anyone with an idea to ship a working app in days, not months. The barrier to building has never been lower. People who would never have called themselves developers two years ago are now shipping real products. The builder pool is growing, and its composition is changing fast.

This changes everything about how programs should be designed. The traditional developer audience was narrow, technical, and relatively easy to identify. The new builder population is broader, faster, and harder to filter using old signals like GitHub history or hackathon resumes.

AI is also dissolving one of the oldest friction points in the space: documentation. Docs that were once dense, outdated, or hard to navigate can now be written, maintained, and understood more easily than ever.

Activation friction, which kills so many builder journeys before they start, is becoming a solvable problem rather than a structural one.

But the core challenge this article describes doesn't go away. It gets harder. More builders entering the funnel means more noise unless you have the systems to surface signal.

Things to do now

If you take one thing from this article, make it these three:

1. Pick one production KPI and start tracking it this week.

2. Audit your current incentives: are they rewarding output or attendance?

3. Publish your builder data. Transparency compounds.

The networks that recognize this shift and design their programs for a broader, AI-native builder population will have a significant advantage. They'll get there by being more deliberate: smaller programs, sharper filters, rewards that compound. Not by spending more.

The ones that figure this out won't just survive the current cycle. They'll be the ones that define the next one.

Talent runs builder reward programs and reports for ecosystems. This article is based on independent interviews and internal data. No ecosystem reviewed or approved the content.

We're continuing this research and talking to more ecosystem teams. If you run a builder program and want to compare notes, reach out

But talking about their products — traction, milestones, and progress — hasn’t increased at the same pace.

The real constraint today is distribution: getting products in front of users, investors, and ecosystem partners.

Over the last year, we’ve been working closely with builders and ecosystems through reward programs on talent.app. In total, we distributed almost $600K to builders across ecosystems like Base, Celo, Stacks, WalletConnect, and Syndicate.

Along the way, we learned something important.

Metrics alone don’t tell the story

We could track commits, transactions, fees generated, and other impact metrics.

But metrics alone don’t explain what’s actually being built.

Without seeing the product itself — the app, the agent, the protocol — the data lacks context.

So we built Projects.

Your App’s Traction Page

Projects connect the key parts of your app — its website, repositories, smart contracts, contributors, and more.

Instead of manually updating pitch decks, spreadsheets, or dashboards, your Project page reflects the progress of your app in real time.

talent

@TalentProtocol

ICYMI: we launched Projects.

A better way to show what you're building.

 See the analytics behind your project's activity and impact
Get discovered on leaderboards and talent.app
Become eligible for Builder Rewards

41

17:31 • 9 мар. 2026 г.

Every connection requires proof of ownership, making Projects a verifiable source of truth about what you're building.

It becomes a live view of your product’s traction — a single page you can share with users, investors, and ecosystem partners.

Rewards Powered by Projects

Projects are already receiving strong feedback from ecosystems like Base, Celo, and Stacks.

The first Builder Rewards campaign using this new format is now live.

$3,500 will be distributed to the most impactful projects this month.

Getting started takes just a few minutes:

1. Add and verify your project on talent.app

2. Attach at least one Stacks smart contract

Start earning 👇

talent

@TalentProtocol

Talent is a builder network that ranks and rewards the best onchain builders.

Not based on how much they yap, but on what they actually ship.

Here’s how we’re fixing builder recognition

141

5:46 PM • Dec 22, 2025

All types of recognition can be valuable. But I believe money is still the highest form of recognition for builders. Getting paid for building is the ultimate vote of confidence. That's what most builders work towards, and what we help them unlock.

Our product vision is to track the entire builder journey, from first hackathon to seed round, so:

• builders can convert reputation into capital

• ecosystems and investors can fund future founders

• companies can hire quality builders

What We’re Seeing

Everyone's looking for founders. Ecosystems say they want "builders" but they're really hoping those builders become founders who build profitable apps that drive TVL and usage. Investors obviously want founders to invest in. And retail traders will more likely “bet on builders” if they're future founders.

But builders need capital at every stage, not just when they're raising. Small rewards validate early work. Grants fund exploration. Bigger checks come later. The journey matters.

Tracking builders early is how you find future founders. Some ecosystems are shifting from broad grants to more concentrated bets (ex.: accelerator model), but they still lack the tools to identify quality builders early. Investors face a similar problem. The alpha is in early builder signal.

Quality Builders Are Invisible Until They're Funded

Builder activity is fragmented across hackathon platforms, grant programs, GitHub, socials, accelerators. Each sees a slice, no one sees the full picture.

There's no one tracking the builder journey end-to-end. So by the time a builder becomes "fundable," everyone's already seen them and the opportunity is gone.

The Case For Talent App

Talent helps ecosystems and investors find quality builders before they're obvious. Because we've been tracking them since their very first commit.

We see builders and their projects across chains, giving a complete picture no single ecosystem can see.

Ecosystems are moving toward a more integrated view of the builder journey. Base, for example, made their 2026 priority clear: "helping onchain builders raise onchain capital" by connecting "high-conviction investors with high-quality builders and their assets."

Xen

@XenBH

The mission is simple: support builders and connect them with high-conviction capital.

If you’re a builder issuing a token or an investor looking for quality, drop a reply below.

397

3:41 PM • Jan 23, 2026

Our product vision maps directly to this: we provide the quality signal that enables long-term conviction.

Talent is becoming the builder department for ecosystems that really care about builder success.

From Weekend Builder to Startup Founder

We're not just tracking builders. We're replacing the fragmented tools ecosystems use today with one full-stack platform.

Top Funnel → Attract Weekend Builders

• Focus: Weekend builders are the ones building side projects, learning, exploring. The goal is to bring them in and start collecting signal.

• Builder promise: "Get rewarded for building."

• How: Builder rewards, project registration (even side projects get registered so we start tracking early), badges, and gamification. Or even exploring an opportunity board to aggregate hackathons, grants, and bounties in one place.

talent

@TalentProtocol

The Top 500 builders on @base just received their share of 5 ETH.

New month. New leaderboard.

Build on Base this January and compete for another 5 ETH

446

6:22 PM • Jan 2, 2026

Middle Funnel → Qualify Serious Builders (the 1%)

• Focus: Builders shipping consistently, with solid track records. Serial builders.

• Promise to builders: "Level up through competition and community."

• How: Project tracking and weekly rankings (we measure how projects evolve over time, their growth and impact). Challenges and async incubator programs. Peer endorsements. IRL community through Talent House and Builders Table dinners.

talent

@TalentProtocol

Mini apps have been taking over Farcaster and Base this past year. So what’s next?

In this interview, @limone_eth breaks down how to build consumer-first experiences and where the ecosystem is heading.

Juampi.eth

@HooCrypto

Builder Talks #2 - Is Farcaster dead? (ft. @limone_eth)

We interviewed one of the best mini app builders, and talked about the latest @farcaster_xyz acquisition and what this means for the whole consumer space.

00:00 - Intro
01:40 - @builders_garden and shipping mini apps

25

1:55 PM • Jan 29, 2026

Bottom Funnel → Surface the Best Builders (the 0.1%)

• Focus: The best builders either become founders (solo/startup) or get hired by top teams. Both outcomes require the same thing: being discovered by the right people.

• Promise to builders: "Get discovered by the people who fund startups and hire top talent."

• How: Talent Pro (an AI-powered search tool to find the best builders). Watchlists for tracking builders. Sourcing for investors/accelerators. Eventually, a betting layer via personal tokens.

  

  Simão

  @simao_etc

  AI has changed recruitment.
  
  The best developers build more, ship faster, and most of their work never shows up on a resume. Talent Pro searches through 30+ data sources and surfaces engineers ranked by their verified activity so that you ALWAYS want to hire the first profile on

  

  19

  1:28 PM • Feb 9, 2026

What We're Shipping

We just shipped better rankings that measure real impact, not vanity metrics. Builder earnings are now the main driver of reputation: up to 50% of the Builder Rank. If you're getting paid to build, that's the signal that matters most.

$macedo

@0xmacedo

x.com/i/article/2014…

49

4:36 PM • Jan 23, 2026

Next up: Projects. All activity and impact data will flow through registered projects, not individual profiles. This creates proprietary data (project attribution, builder graph) while reducing costs and increasing engagement.

What We're Betting On

Capital, not just recognition. We used to say "give builders recognition." Now we're saying "help builders get capital." Capital is the best recognition.

Founders, not just builders. Not all builders are equal. The goal is tracking the 1% who become fundable.

Projects, not just profiles. Projects are what gets funded. We track the builder, the project, and eventually the token.

Programs, not just data. Challenges and competitions find future founders. Passive data tracking isn't enough.

If you're running grants or an accelerator, we can help you find quality builders before they're obvious. If you're a builder, go to talent.app and check where you stand.

talent

@TalentProtocol

The new Talent app just got a fresh update

You can now hit Cmd + K to instantly discover campaigns, data points, and top builders.

We also upgraded the Earn page with clearer guidance on how to maximize your rewards.

76

2:16 PM • Jan 13, 2026

If you're wondering where your score went or what happened to some of your data points, keep reading.

Spoiler: score becomes the builder rank and credentials will become badges

The problem with scores

For a lot of people, the Builder Score was just an arbitrary number. You'd see "247" and have no idea if that was good, bad, or average. Without context, a score is meaningless.

What actually matters is where you stand relative to other builders. That's why we made a fundamental shift: Builder Rank is now the primary metric you see. The score itself is internal.

Instead of "your builder score is 347," you will see "you're ranked #863 out of 2.1M builders." That's something you can actually interpret.

What changed in the formula

We're rebuilding the way we track builder reputation:

• We now track 20 meaningful data points instead of the 60 from last year

• Total Builder Earnings* is now the main driver your reputation, contributing up to 50% of your score

• The remaining data points focus on hackathons, events, and achievements that have some form of manual curation and are hard to game

We want the Builder Rank on talent.app to reflect real impact, not just activity. And earnings are the clearest signal that someone is building things people value.

* Total Builder Earnings represent the sum of all rewards and earnings that originate from building software onchain

Backend cleanup

We're also doing significant housekeeping:

• Deleting 70+ outdated data points (keeping 155 total)

• Trimming the profiles we actively track from 20M to ~5M potential builder accounts

• These changes mean faster updates and significantly lower infrastructure costs

UI changes

The profile page is getting a refresh to match this new approach, and the first updates are already live:

• We just replaced the "Scores" tab with a "Data" tab, which includes 6 core metrics and the full breakdown of data points affecting your rank

• The data point breakdown will not show points anymore. You see your rank, not the underlying score

• All tables across the talent.app are sorted by the Builder Rank by default

You can expect more updates to the profile page soon.

What to do now

Go to your dashboard. You'll see a new checklist with action items: things you can do to improve your rank and increase your chances to earn rewards.

This list is personalized based on what's missing from your profile and what would actually move the needle.

What about my missing credentials?

As I mentioned earlier, we're removing 40 data points from the scoring algorithm. But they're not gone, they're becoming Badges.

Badges are collectible achievements you can display on your profile to signal credibility, share socially, and eventually mint onchain. They won't affect your rank, but they're status symbols and filters for talent discovery.

More details coming soon.

The bottom line

This update is part of a broader shift: we're building reputation infrastructure that measures real impact, not vanity metrics.

We're recalculating millions of Builder Ranks this weekend.

Go to talent.app and check where you stand.

If we win, $TALENT holders win with us.

LinkedIn might be the world's largest professional network, but it runs mostly on self-reported credentials. Talent works differently. We curate and index real building activity and turn it into reputation you can't fake.

The builders at the top of our leaderboards aren't there because they posted "What running a marathon taught me about B2B sales." They're there because they shipped.

This post covers three things:

1. What Talent is today

2. What's next

3. How $TALENT holders win if we win

Let's get into it.

What's Talent Today

We're building a builder network

Our mission is simple: give builders the recognition they deserve.

Builder recognition is broken. The loudest voices on Twitter aren't always the best builders. The most-followed accounts aren't necessarily shipping the most important work. And when ecosystems want to find and reward their top contributors, they're often flying blind, relying on "InfoFi", or whoever shows up in their Discord.

We fix that. Talent is a builder network that ranks and rewards the best builders. Not based on follower counts or self-promotion, but based on verified activity. What you build, where you contribute, how consistently you ship.

Without a real reputation layer, the merit promise stays hollow. Ecosystems can't find their best builders. Builders can't prove their track record. And liquidity flows to the loudest, not the best.

How the builder network works

Talent is a system with two layers.

Talent Protocol is the engine under the hood. It indexes and verifies builder activity across 100+ data points (GitHub commits, onchain deployments, ecosystem rewards) and turns that into programmable reputation: scores, rankings, and credentials. The protocol powers discovery and search, and exposes reputation data via the Talent API to external apps like Basenames or Etherscan.

Talent App is our interface on top of the protocol. Builders showcase verified activity. Ecosystems run growth campaigns to reward their top contributors. Leaderboards surface who's shipping the most. Project pages give context to what builders are working on. And search tools let anyone find proven builders filtered by skills, activity, and reputation.

How we got here

The path to building a builder network took us through several phases, each with its own hard lessons.

Phase 1 — Diverge (2021–2023)

We tried many things: career tokens, betting on goals, Talent Houses. The market wasn't ready. We learned, survived, and became better builders because of it.

Two hard lessons from this phase. First, when the market isn't there, product barely matters. Second, token incentives created an illusion of product-market fit.

Phase 2 — Converge (2024–2025)

We narrowed our focus to one idea: programmable reputation. We built the Builder Score, the Creator Score, the Talent API. Not flashy products, but primitives. The fundamental building blocks for everything that would come later. This phase taught us patience. B2B sales cycles are long, and product-market fit isn't a single moment. We're still learning what resonates most with customers.

Talent Protocol

@TalentProtocol

Talent Passport goes onchain

Mint yours to:
Boost your Builder Score by 3 points
Unlock exclusive perks coming soon
Make your reputation verifiable & accessible to everyone

passport.talentprotocol.com

278

6:40 PM • Oct 15, 2024

Phase 3 — Grow (2025–present)

Initial traction arrived. We closed our first B2B deals with Base, Celo, WalletConnect, and Stacks. And we distributed almost 600K USD to builders since Q2 2025.

We’ve also simplified our domain from talentprotocol.com to talent.app. Simpler name, mainstream positioning, same values. We're building for builders anywhere, not just the CT bubble.

What's Coming Next

We're long-term focused but we don't publish long roadmaps full of features we might never build. We've learned our lesson the hard way. Instead, we're sharing our short-term priorities for the coming months. This is what we're actually working on.

Primary focus: Connecting builders and ecosystems

Priority 1: Make the builder network sticky

We want builders checking Talent regularly because it's useful, but not just because there's money on the table. That means increasing weekly active users (WAU) and creating habit loops that don't depend solely on external incentives.

How we're doing it: investing in a flawless user experience, building shareable campaigns and leaderboards driven by the builder score, and adding gamification and progression systems that make engagement feel rewarding even without token rewards.

We're also exploring open standards like ERC-8021 and ERC-8092 to make builder reputation interoperable.

Thomas🛡️

@torok_tomi

A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined this even in my wildest dreams: I’m now in the top 100 builders on Talent Protocol. Currently sitting at #73, which honestly feels a bit unreal. 2025 was challenging in the best possible way. Building continues. talent.app/tamastorok.eth

18

1:53 PM • Dec 15, 2025

Priority 2: Turn engagement into revenue

Engagement without revenue is a vanity metric.

On the ecosystem side, we're helping teams deliver a clear “why build with us.” to a quality builder audience.

On the builder side, we're growing Talent+ subscriptions by adding real value for subscribers: increased visibility in search results, access to exclusive reward campaigns, and detailed profile analytics.

Talent Protocol

@TalentProtocol

Builders are the core of every chain, infra, or tool.

Watch how to get qBuilder attention on the example of @WalletConnect.

113

1:56 PM • Nov 27, 2025

Parallel bets: traders + professionals

These are smaller explorations running alongside our main focus.

Bet #1: Betting on builders

We're exploring cool new ways for traders to discover and bet on builder tokens directly within talent.app. The revenue potential seems significant, but it only works if we have engaged builders first. You can't build a market around people no one's paying attention to, right? So we're making sure we have a strong builder network under the trading layer.

Juampi.eth

@HooCrypto

Want to find the next gem creator coin?

The new Talent app lets you search a database of +12M accounts to spot the best builders and creators with multiple filters, and buy their @zora coin.

Powered by @Uniswap.

15

3:51 PM • Dec 12, 2025

Bet #2: Best builder search tool

We have the largest network of verified builders. That's valuable for recruiters and teams trying to hire. We're exploring advanced search tools like AI-powered queries and granular filtering, to let professionals tap into this supply.

Simão

@simao_etc

Find the builder you NEED to hire. Powered by AI. Launching soon on Talent.

1

8:34 PM • Dec 16, 2025

Our Commitment to $TALENT Holders

We're in this together

In most onchain businesses, token holders are treated as second-class citizens. Tokens exist mostly for liquidity and marketing, but when it comes to actual ownership, equity holders come first.

We made a different choice. Talent is a DAO LLC and has no equity.

$TALENT holders are the real owners of the ecosystem. We made a structural decision on the day we were born: May 1st, 2021.

When Talent wins, $TALENT holders win. There's no one else in line ahead of you.

Token utility today

Holding $TALENT already gets you:

• Earning boosts in selected reward campaigns

• Heavy discounts on Talent+ subscriptions

• Access to Vault V1, with Vault V2 coming soon

Profit first

No hype or fake promises. We get profitable first.

Then we share value back with long-term holders.

Until then: full focus on building a builder network that makes us net positive.

Bet on Builders

Four years of building. Countless pivots, hard lessons, and moments where it would have been easier to quit.

But we didn't.

And now, something feels different. The pieces are falling into place. We have a product that builders and ecosystems actually use. We have a token structure that means when we win, our token holders win with us.

The core team is energized, focused, and more confident than we've ever been. Not because we've figured everything out, but because we've survived long enough to know we can handle whatever comes next.

macedo.eth

@0xmacedo

historic week for @TalentProtocol:

we shipped a new talent.app and all 9 core team members met IRL for the first time in buenos aires

we spent the week learning from top onchain builders, closing new partnerships and hacking together on new ideas

the best team

62

2:37 PM • Nov 25, 2025

If you believe in us and our mission, here's how you can help:

• Tell your builder friends about talent.app

• Refer ecosystems that want to grow their builder community

• Build with the Talent API to integrate reputation data in your app

Bet on builders.

If we win, you win with us.

Let's do this 🫡

To celebrate the launch, we're distributing retroactive rewards to the top 200 creators on September 1st. Join us as a sponsor or a creator to celebrate onchain creativity.

Reputation System for Onchain Creators

Creator Score is a reputation system that recognizes and rewards impactful onchain content. It analyzes dozens of data points from creator-driven platforms such as Zora, Base, Farcaster, Paragraph, Noice, Phi, and Pods. These include signals from mints and earnings, to engagement and publishing streaks.

As you create content onchain, whether it's art, writing, music, memes, or something else, these signals are evaluated and transformed into a single, transparent score that increases as you grow as a creator.

• For creators, it’s a way to earn recognition based on real impact, not just follower count.

• For ecosystems, it offers a shared standard to identify and reward the most impactful creators.

Creator Score is organized into levels that help creators understand where they stand. The higher the level, the more influence and recognition you've earned through consistent creative work.

Creator Rewards: Create Onchain. Earn Rewards

What if your Creator Score could earn you USD? To kick things off, we are rolling out a retroactive Creator Rewards campaign that distributes rewards based on your Creator Score.

Rewards will be distributed automatically in September to the top 200 leaderboard creators, proportionally to their Creator Score. There is no need to apply or claim.

The rewards pool continues to grow as new sponsors join. We invite partners who want to support onchain creators to contribute to the rewards pool. Get involved here.

Join the Onchain Creator Economy

Creator Score is now live as a Farcaster Mini App and is gradually rolling out to everyone as an MVP.

• If you work with creators, become a sponsor to grow the rewards pool and support onchain creativity.

• If you are a creator, check your Creator Score, follow Talent Protocol on X and Farcaster for daily updates, and start climbing the leaderboard today!

Welcome to the Summer League☀️

Last spring, we launched Base Builder Rewards to automatically recognize and reward the best builders on Base. We’ve already distributed over 25 ETH to 400+ unique builders. No applications, no manual reviews, just public recognition for the great work they're already doing.

This summer, we’re kicking off a new cycle of Builder Rewards, with new features, reward boosters, stats reset, smarter scoring, and 20 ETH in rewards. There’s never been a better time to start building!

Calling All Builders 👇

Starting today, we’ll be distributing 2 ETH per week to the most active builders on Base, for 10 weeks straight.

Your weekly rewards will be based on:

• Activity on verified contracts deployed on Base by you

• Quality contributions to public GitHub repos

• Top 50 Weekly Farcaster Mini Apps

The weekly prize pool resets every Monday at 12 PM UTC and is split across three tiers based on impact and activity:

• Tier 1: Top 10 builders share 1 ETH

• Tier 2: Next 25 builders share 0.5 ETH

• Tier 3: Next 65 builders share 0.5 ETH

Summer League Upgrades 🌴

We’re making Builder Rewards even more fun and rewarding with new features:

New Rules

1. We’ve made it easier to qualify for Base Builder Rewards. You only need: a Basename, Builder Score ≥ 40.

2. Improved system to detect and exclude low-impact GitHub contributions.

3. Rewards are calculated every Monday and sent to your Farcaster primary wallet (if no primary wallet is set on Farcaster, the first wallet connected to Talent Protocol will be used instead).

Hall Of Fame

Builders who earn 1 ETH or more during the Summer League will be added to the Hall of Fame and will no longer be eligible for weekly rewards until the end of this league.

1 ETH rewards cap ensures fair distribution of rewards across the entire builder community. Hall of Fame builders continue to be recognized on the leaderboard for their outstanding contributions.

Reward Boosters

Builders can get reward boosters if they fall into one of the following categories:

🆕 New Builder – if you have never received rewards before

🔵 Base Builder - if you have any of the following data points in your Talent Profile:

• Buildathon Participant

• Base Learn

• Basecamp Attendee

• /base-builds rewards

🫡 Verified Builder - if you’re included in the Verified Registry of Onchain Builders

Upgraded Mini App

The Builder Rewards mini app was revamped from the ground up to let builders track their progress, view their reward history, improve their score, and much more.

Already live at builderscore.xyz.

Start Building Today 🛠️

If you’re already building on Base, keep going — your work is being recognized. If you’re new to the ecosystem, now’s the time to get onchain and start earning.

Track your rewards at builderscore.xyz, follow Talent Protocol on X and Farcaster for daily updates, and start climbing the leaderboard today.

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 became a monument to the unsung heroes building the new internet.

On this day, onchain builders got the recognition they deserve.

Talent Protocol

@TalentProtocol

Happy Builders Day!

On May 1st we celebrate the ones building the new internet.

This year, we're going big:
Launching the first Registry of Onchain Builders
Putting the names of 2K builders on Times Square

278

9:00 AM • May 1, 2025

From Words to Worldwide Recognition

It all started one year ago with the Manifesto for Onchain Builders, which coined May 1st as a day to celebrate the ones building a better tomorrow. The manifesto was minted as an NFT by thousands of people and organizations, creating the first-ever Builders Day.

But manifestos are just words unless followed by action. For 2025, we wanted to go bigger and build something with lasting impact. While Times Square captures attention, the real monument we're unveiling today will outlast any billboard: the first Verified Registry of Onchain Builders.

Introducing the Builder Registry

Onchain Builder Registry

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

https://www.onchainbuilders.org

In a space where anyone can claim to be a "builder," the Builder Registry offers something invaluable: onchain verification by trusted protocols, companies, and communities who can attest that someone is genuinely building.

This isn't just another list. It's an open primitive (built using Ethereum Attestation Service) that anyone can leverage to find, recognize, and reward the people actually adding value.

Discovering real builders shouldn't be this hard. The most valuable contributors aren't always the loudest voices. The Builder Registry transforms "builder" from a self-claimed title into a meaningful, verified credential.

Verified by the Community

None of this would be possible without the partners who stepped up to identify and verify builders in their communities:

• Airstack

• Alchemy

• Arrakis Finance

• Base

• Blockscout

• Celo

• CeloPG

• Crypto Nomads

• Devfolio

• EAS

• EigenLayer

• ENS

• Etherscan

• ETHGlobal

• ETHLisbon

• Farcaster

• FBI (Farcaster Builders International)

• Filecoin

• Force Prime

• Icebreaker

• Lens

• Moonwell

• Myosin.xyz

• OpenZeppelin

• Phi

• Protocol Labs

• Reclaim Protocol

• reown

• Scout Game

• Subvisual

• Superchain Eco

• Syndicate

• TAIKAI

• Talent Protocol

• The Crypto Recruiter

• The Graph

• urbe.eth

• World

• XION (Burnt)

• Zerion

These partners did the critical work of verifying almost 4K builder addresses in less than 2 weeks, ensuring their names appeared on Times Square to celebrate Builders Day. And they'll continue verifying more builders, growing this registry into an essential resource for the entire ecosystem.

Join the Builder Registry

Times Square was just the hook—a spectacular one, but still just the beginning. The real value of Builders Day is creating this shared registry where anyone can now find real builders, across communities and chains.

If your organization works with builders, we invite you to become a verification partner. By identifying and verifying real builders in your community, you help them gain recognition while contributing to an essential public good for the entire ecosystem.

Apply to become a verification partner here.

We will keep working to ensure all builders get the recognition they deserve. Because when builders are rewarded, everyone wins.

See you again on May 1st, 2026.

Until then, let's keep building!

Starting March 31st, some of the most active builders on Base will automatically earn a share of the weekly rewards pool in ETH. No applications, no manual reviews, just public recognition for the great work you're already doing.

Shipping > Shilling

Building is hard work. It takes time, dedication, and an insane amount of resilience. And yet, some of the best builders go unrecognized, not because they aren’t contributing, but because they’re too busy shipping to promote themselves.

That’s where Builder Rewards comes in.

Builder Rewards is an automated, data-driven approach that rewards real contributions and not self-promotion. Sponsored by Base and powered by Talent Protocol's reputation engine and incentives technology, this program surfaces builders who might otherwise fly under the radar.

jesse.base.eth

@jessepollak

build and we will be rewarded

1,275

5:45 PM • Nov 29, 2024

How It Works

The program kicks off on March 31st. Each week, we'll distribute 2 ETH to active builders based on their verified onchain and open-source contributions. The more participation we see, the longer we’ll keep rewarding builders. The weekly prize pool resets every Monday at 12pm UTC and is distributed across three tiers:

• Tier 1: Top 10 builders share 1 ETH, proportionally to their activity and impact

• Tier 2: Next 25 builders share 0.5 ETH, proportionally to their activity and impact

• Tier 3: Next 65 builders share 0.5 ETH, proportionally to their activity and impact

The best part? You don't need to apply or even claim your rewards. If you're building on Base, and meet the requirements below, we'll find and reward you.

Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for the Builder Rewards program, you'll need:

1. A Basename, your onchain identity on Base

2. A Builder Score ≥ 40, calculated by Talent Protocol based on onchain and open-source activity

3. A Human Checkmark verification, available through the Talent Protocol App

Your weekly rewards are determined by 3 separate factors:

1. Verified contributions to public crypto repositories during that week

2. Activity on verified contracts you've deployed on Base during that week

3. Your Builder Score

All participants will undergo automatic OFAC wallet screening and IP verification to ensure compliance with sanctions regulations.

See Where You Stand

Check your position on the weekly leaderboard at builderscore.xyz or through our Farcaster mini app. The leaderboard updates once every 24h, so you can track your progress and see how your contributions are being recognized. The leaderboard ranking is calculated based on the amount of rewards Builders earn, with the Builder Score being used as the tie-breaker.

No Friction. Just Recognition.

Both Base and Talent Protocol are committed to making it easier for builders to do what they do best—build. That means reducing unnecessary friction at every step. With Builder Rewards:

• No forms to fill out

• No submissions required

• No waiting around for grants

Ship. Earn. Repeat. It’s as simple as that.

Why This Matters

Traditional credentials often fail to capture real impact. By leveraging Talent Protocol's reputation technology, we can use verified data points rather than self-reported claims to determine who's making the biggest difference in our ecosystem.

This program is about more than just distributing ETH — it's about creating new forms of value distribution that weren't possible before. It's about recognizing those who are too busy building to promote themselves.

This program is designed as an evolving experiment in community-driven value distribution. As participation increases and the quality of contributions grows, we'll evaluate extending the rewards. More builders, better projects, and greater impact could lead to expanded rewards in the future.

Start Building Today

If you're already building on Base, keep doing what you're doing. Your contributions are being recognized. If you're new to the ecosystem, there's never been a better time to start. Your work matters, and now there's a program that automatically rewards it.

Check your Builder Rewards at builderscore.xyz and start climbing the leaderboard today.

Need help getting started? Check out our FAQ and Quick Start Guide that walks you through getting your Basename, creating your Talent Protocol account, verifying your humanity, and easy ways to boost your Builder Score above 40.

For full program eligibility details and legal requirements, please review our Terms and Conditions before participating.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of builders have been verifying their reputation data to stand out in a noisy industry, while protocols like Base and Etherscan have integrated Builder Score to add reputation context to their apps. It's becoming both a tool for builders to prove their value and a standard for protocols to identify real builders.

A Growing Protocol

In less than a year, Builder Score has become the standard for builder reputation onchain:

• Over 7 million accounts indexed

• 60+ ecosystem apps integrating our API

• 30K+ paying users

• 70K+ token holders believing in our vision

These numbers tell a story of rapid adoption, but we knew Builder Score could be better, so we went back to the drawing board.

We reimagined the Builder Score from the ground up, refining its scoring accuracy, making it more transparent, and ensuring it scales as we grow. Our goal? To make Builder Score 100x better than LinkedIn at identifying real builders.

Today, we're excited to announce Builder Score V2 – our biggest protocol upgrade to date. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be gradually rolling out the new Builder Score, alongside a revamped profile UI, new data points, and upgraded API endpoints.

Why a Builder Score Revamp?

The first version of the Builder Score was a strong proof of concept, but we heard loud and clear from our users that it had some issues:

• It was confusing—many assumed it was a 0-100 scale.

• It wasn’t intuitive—points didn't always add up.

• It didn’t provide enough context—was my score ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

• It was too static—scores didn’t update frequently enough.

• It didn’t go deep enough, especially data points like GitHub and smart contracts.

What's Changing?

If you're already using the Builder Score, here's what you need to know:

1. More Accurate Scores: We're making the scoring system more precise and harder to game. This helps the Builder Score better reflect genuine building activity.

2. Easier to Understand: We've completely redesigned how scores are calculated. Now you'll be able to see exactly how each contribution affects your score, making it easier to understand and improve over time.

3. Deeper Analysis: We're going deeper into GitHub and smart contract data, making it easier to distinguish good builders from great ones. More granular data means more accurate representation of your capabilities.

4. New Categories: We've reorganized how we classify reputation data for better clarity:

   1. Added "Credibility" as a new category to capture general indicators of trust and influence

   2. Removed category caps to let your score truly reflect your building activity

   3. Refocused our "Skills" category to specifically track “Developer” contributions for now

   4. In 2025, we'll be expanding “Skills” to include new builder types, starting with “Creators”. Whether you're building through code, content, or community, your contributions should count toward your reputation.

Under the Hood

For our power users who love the technical details, here are the major architectural changes:

• From Credentials to Data Points: We're separating the objective data we import (Data Points) from the subjective scoring we apply to it (Scoring Systems), making the whole system more transparent and composable.

• Standardized Scoring: To calculate a Data Point’s score, we use three components: signal strength, multiplier, and max score. This makes the scoring system more structured and easier to understand.

• Event-based System: We are introducing Events to track how reputation changes over time, giving users better insights into their progress. Think of it like Etherscan for the Builder Score: users will be able to see not just their current reputation state, but the complete history of how they got there.

• Human Checkmark: A new protocol primitive that helps identify real humans. It aggregates verified PoH and KYC data from trusted sources into a simple binary signal: verified or not. At launch, we're accepting verifications from Binance, Coinbase, Galxe Passport, human.tech, and World ID. The best part? This primitive is accessible to any developer through our API, making human verification a building block for the entire ecosystem.

Want to dive deeper? Check out our new documentation for all the technical details.

What's Not Changing

Some key principles remain the same:

• Builder Score remains uncapped – keep building, keep growing.

• No time decay – your past contributions still matter.

• No negative scoring – we focus on what you've built, not what you haven't.

What's Next: Powering the Protocol Economy

With Builder Score V2's foundation in place, we're getting ready to introduce $TALENT as the native currency of our protocol economy. Here's how it will work:

• API Access: Builders will be able to use $TALENT to access reputation data through our API, operating on a credits system.

• Advanced Features: Pro users will be able to build custom scoring systems and unlock increased rate limits with $TALENT.

• Protocol Rewards: part of the protocol revenue will be used to buy-back $TALENT from the market and flow it back to $TALENT stakers, creating a sustainable ecosystem where $TALENT believers benefit from the protocol's growth.

Think of it as a circular economy:

• builders verify their data and earn recognition,

• customers access verified builder data through the Talent API,

• and value flows back to the ecosystem through $TALENT.

This creates a self-sustaining system where everyone's incentives align.

Thank You, Builders 🫡

None of these improvements would have been possible without our incredible community of builders. Your feedback, suggestions, and sometimes frustrated messages helped us understand what needed to change.

Builder Score V2 is more than just an upgrade – it's a statement about the future of onchain reputation:

• Based on verified data, not self-reported achievements.

• Owned by builders, not platforms.

• Transparent in its calculation.

• Portable across the internet.

LFB!

This collaboration brings together two powerful tools—Talent Passport and Stack Score—to highlight users' onchain contributions and reputation more effectively.

Stack Scores are now recognized credentials on Talent Protocol - if you have a Stack Score, it will appear as a credential in your Talent Passport.

Similarly, creators on Stack can optionally add Talent Passport badges to their leaderboards to easily discover and learn more about Talent Passport holders.

Both Stack and Talent Protocol are on a mission to recognize and celebrate the incredible individuals driving the onchain economy forward.

With this partnership, we are putting users first by creating new ways to showcase their reputation and identities in more places.

What is Stack Score?

Stack Score is a dynamic, soulbound reputation score that evolves as you engage with the onchain economy, celebrating your unique contributions and helping you climb user-created leaderboards on Stack. Claim your Stack Score here.

What is Talent Passport?

Talent Passport aggregates thousands of verified achievements and activity indicators, to calculate your reputation as a builder. Mint your Talent Passport here.

Stack

Recognize and reward the relationships that matter

https://www.stack.so

Talent Protocol

Reach and reward the top builders and creators in crypto.

https://talentprotocol.com

Funding Rounds

We used Sablier for distributing tokens allocated to our backers.

Sablier is a powerful and user-friendly onchain tool for token distribution and claiming. Streaming tokens instead of implementing "unlocks" on specific dates helps prevent token supply spikes. Backers can claim their tokens using the Talent Passport app.

We are planning to add the amount of unlocked tokens (i.e., tokens streamed via Sablier) to the above. Unfortunately, this data isn't directly available onchain and requires some complex calculations, which we’ll work on soon.

Ecosystem and Community Growth

The ecosystem allocation has five sub-categories. While we used Sablier for the Talent Protocol V1: Social Tokens, we deployed our own distribution smart contracts for the remaining ones.

It’s worth mentioning the token burning mechanisms we implemented for certain sub-categories:

• Ecosystem Rewards: Users must claim their unlocked $TALENT weekly. If they fail to do so, 2,000 $TALENT from the weekly unlocked tokens are automatically burned.

• Road to TGE Growth Campaign and Summer Builderdrop: Users have 30 days after TGE to claim their tokens. Any unclaimed tokens are automatically burned.

Core Team and Contributors

We also used Sablier to create streams for the following allocations.

Liquidity

We allocated 80M $TALENT for liquidity on DEXs and CEXs. We are collaborating with market makers for CEX liquidity. For the Uniswap pool, we partnered with Arrakis to manage liquidity. On Aerodrome, we’ve set up a pool but are still exploring the best tools/protocols to manage liquidity.

When $TALENT is listed on additional CEXs or new pools are created on DEXs, we’ll continue allocating tokens from this liquidity reserve.

What About the Rest of the Tokens?

To answer this, let’s rewind to the beginning: What did we do after deploying the $TALENT token on Base?

First, we created a multisig wallet controlled by the core team and transferred the total supply (600M $TALENT) there. We creatively named it the $TALENT Distributor Multisig. From there, we followed these steps:

1. Transferred tokens for the aforementioned allocations to the appropriate distribution smart contracts.

2. Transferred liquidity tokens to another multisig (Liquidity Multisig) controlled by the core team.

3. Created a new multisig for the Reserve, allocating tokens there through a Sablier stream in line with the vesting conditions outlined in our tokenomics.

4. Established another multisig for Ecosystem & Community Growth. Unallocated tokens from this category were streamed to this multisig.

The table below shows the amounts allocated to each multisig and the amounts claimed so far:

Why Are Tokens Still in the Distributor Multisig?

Some tokens remain in the $TALENT Distributor Multisig for a few reasons:

• Backers and community allocations: Certain tokens have not been distributed yet. Once token holders complete required processes (e.g., KYC), these tokens will be distributed according to the applicable vesting conditions.

• Core team allocations: Some tokens reserved for the core team remain undistributed, eg. they can be used to hire new builders for the core team.

Future Distributions

The distributions outlined in this post fall under the "Allocations on TGE." As time progresses, more $TALENT tokens will be gradually distributed.

For example, tokens earned in the OKX campaign will soon be distributed, using tokens from the Ecosystem and Community Growth multisig. However, these future distributions won’t appear in the current tables, but we’ll share updated data and tables covering post-TGE distributions in the coming weeks.

Final Notes

1. This post focuses solely on explaining how tokens are distributed. The data presented here is not financial advice.

2. The post is accurate as of November 25, 2024. For the latest data, please refer to the $TALENT Dune Dashboard.

3. We didn’t dive into the details of vesting conditions here. For that, check out the tokenomics blog post.

Still day one. Keep building.

Talent Protocol Is Officially Based

After a year of building together, Talent Protocol and Base are making it official. 🔗 With a strategic investment from the Base Ecosystem Fund, led by Coinbase Ventures, and with $TALENT launching on Base, we're one step closer to bringing more builders onchain. 🔵 But it's still day one. Stay based.

https://zora.co

The Base Ecosystem Fund

The Base Ecosystem Fund was created to support exceptional projects and founders who share Coinbase's vision of increasing economic freedom worldwide. We're honored to be working closer together and are eager to leverage this opportunity to accelerate our growth.

For Talent Protocol, strengthening our partnership with Base reinforces our commitment to building a vibrant builder economy where $TALENT, now officially live on Base, becomes a key asset in empowering professional growth and economic opportunity for all builders.

Talent Protocol’s Based Journey

Our collaboration with Base didn’t happen overnight—it’s a journey shaped by key milestones and a shared belief in the onchain economy.

Here’s a look at how this journey has evolved:

1. Builderfi

https://mirror.xyz/talentprotocol.eth/dSkw_mNNOgs6GZEjZ3GTJMt0uJ5DjpWGkX3rncF1OD8

2. Talent Protocol V2 Launch on Base

https://mirror.xyz/talentprotocol.eth/383-Wv_mlE9qBIq4LPdHctUEoWfh4z0Q6DDv154NSj0

3. The Born to Build Manifesto

https://mirror.xyz/talentprotocol.eth/2miuIeU0Uq_uHIj_NzH0gk1Cdcc-06s_zyqo6iwO768

4. BUILD Token and Noms

https://build.top/about

5. Buildathon Partnership

https://base.mirror.xyz/iYQH5yxgH976gUmrYfoeyVpe5SJtiR8r2t10Psr1_-U

6. IRL at Basecamp

https://base.mirror.xyz/GL6dd2CfZuG3dVd_jZAZJLjYP8h7NRk0falVV6O7RqQ

7. Basenames x Builder Score

https://mirror.xyz/talentprotocol.eth/bjbZJMZSyfRO2nmhUmzQRl6vurjhaANpFBjq6cJ9d60

Looking ahead

Our partnership with Base is a crucial step in realizing our vision for Talent Protocol.

We're grateful for the continued support of our community and are excited to embark on this next chapter of growth. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to build the future together.

Still day one. Keep building.

In this blog post we take a deep dive into the $TALENT use cases we will build next.

Talent Protocol’s Vision

WHY: Make reputation visible online and verifiable onchain.

Help the world transition from self-reported resumes to verifiable reputation, so that the next generation of talent can find meaningful work and succeed in their careers.

HOW: Verified and curated data, open to all.

A professional reputation ecosystem, that only accepts verified data, filters out irrelevant signals, and makes it accessible under one aggregated user identity.

WHAT: The smart resume for the new internet.

Verifiable reputation, interoperable across the web, is a 10x improvement over today’s self-reported professional profiles, and can bring millions of builders onchain.

Read more about Talent Protocol’s core components here.

Token Utility

Dream, Build, Repeat

We’re builders, not researchers. We believe in learning through action, not long-term planning. The ideas we have for $TALENT’s utility are just that—ideas. They’re hypothesis we’ll test in real-world conditions, adapt, and refine as we go.

We’re not fans of long whitepapers, we prefer to focus on building practical, adaptable solutions that solve real problems for our community. No fluff, just progress.

Here are the 3 main token use cases we will be actively exploring:

1. Deposit or spend $TALENT to increase trust and visibility of talent.

2. Spend $TALENT to pay for data operations.

3. Earn $TALENT for adding verified data to the protocol.

To make it concrete, here’s a few examples of experiments we will build and test.

1. Increase trust and visibility.

• Deposit to boost Builder Score: users can deposit tokens to increase their Builder Score (up to 4 points) and access paid features for free.

• Pay for Talent Names: users can get a custom Talent username (name.tal.id), that is both a website and a wallet address, compatible with both DNS and ENS.

• Pay to Collect Builders: anyone will be able to invest in the next generation of builders. Scout hidden talent or collect your builder heroes. Past experiments include BUILD Nominations (2024), builderfi (2023) and social tokens (2021/22).

2. Pay for data operations.

• Mint your Talent Passport Onchain: users can put their Builder Score and Credentials onchain to access exclusive Builder Perks. More info here.

• Pay for the Talent API plans: devs can use $TALENT as a credit system for Talent API usage, and access data from millions of onchain users.

• Pay for Talent Pro plans: orgs and recruiters can use $TALENT as a credit system for Talent Pro usage, where they can identify top talent more effectively and reduce hiring risks.

3. Earn for adding verified data.

• Earn for referring quality users: a referral system that rewards both users and apps for bringing new users to the protocol (onchain). The amount they receive can vary according to Builder Score levels.

• Earn based on your popularity: revenue share with Talent, based on Talent Pro searches, paid by recruiters. This creates the incentives for talent to keep adding more verified personal data and keep it updated.

• Earn for building new credentials: devs can build their custom credentials, and receive a revenue share if their credentials are frequently used.

• Earn for verifying private data: small incentives for users to use zkTLS to verify private reputation data. zkTLS Credentials can be a huge unlock in terms of unique reputation data, but they require a bit more effort on the user side.

Our Experiment Plan*

• Q4 2024

  • Pay to mint your Talent Passport Onchain (users)

  • Deposit to boost Builder Score (users)

  • Earn for referring quality users (users, apps)

• Q1 2025

  • Pay for Talent Names (users)

  • Pay for the Talent API plans (devs)

  • Earn based on your popularity (users)

• Q2 2025

  • Pay to Collect Builders (users)

  • Pay for Talent Pro plans (orgs)

  • Earn for building new credentials (devs)

  • Earn for verifying private data (users)

*this plan is likely to change over time, as we get new information and learnings.

To learn more about the Talent Protocol ecosystem, check out our tokenomics and documentation.

In this post, we will take a deep dive into $TALENT distribution and vesting schedules. Read more about Talent Protocol and its core components here.

Token Information

Let’s start with the basics:

• Ticker: TALENT

• Network: Base

• Contract Address: 0x9a33406165f562E16C3abD82fd1185482E01b49a

• Max Supply: 600,000,000

Check the token on CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, and go deeper on live onchain data in the Talent Token Dune Dashboard.

Where to Get $TALENT

• Aerodrome

• Uniswap

• Gate.io

• MEXC

Token Allocation

Stakeholders

The token distribution has been designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project, while rewarding early contributors.

• Ecosystem & Community Growth: 165M tokens (27.5% of the total supply) are allocated to initiatives that incentivize sustainable growth, including airdrops, grants, partnerships, and other user and developer acquisition strategies.

• Core Team & Contributors: 175M tokens (29.2% of supply) are set aside for Talent Protocol’s core team, contributors and advisors, vested over a period of 3 years. Additionally, the core team has a 1-year cliff to align incentives with long-term project success.

• Funding Rounds: 136.3M tokens (22.7% of the supply) has been allocated to early-stage investors who have supported the project’s development in multiple rounds.

• Reserve: 43.7M $TALENT tokens (7.3% of the supply) are allocated to the protocol’s treasury, which are safe-kept for future development and strategic partnerships (pending on future decision-making from token holders).

• Liquidity: 80M tokens (13.3% of the supply) are reserved for providing liquidity on both centralized and decentralized exchanges, ensuring smooth trading for $TALENT holders.

Funding Rounds

To build a reliable reputation ecosystem, Talent Protocol counts with the support of several key partners, including: Base, Coinbase, Protocol Labs, Alliance, Celo, ENS, ETHGlobal, World, Safe, Cyber, just to name some.

Token Release Schedule

$TALENT token will be distributed over the following token release schedule:

We invite all builders, recruiters, and investors to join us on this growth journey.

Legal Disclaimer

This is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase any $TALENT tokens, and is not an offering, advertisement, solicitation, confirmation, statement or any financial promotion that can be construed as an invitation or inducement to engage in any investment activity or similar. You should not rely on the content herein for advice of any kind, including legal, investment, financial, tax or other professional advice, and such content is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional.

We're excited to partner with stack.so to launch the Talent Protocol Community Leaderboard, a new way to recognize our most active members, going back to our early days in 2021. It gathers valuable actions across the Talent Protocol ecosystem to highlight those who help drive our community/protocol forward.

What’s the Community Leaderboard?

This points-based leaderboard aggregates the contributions and actions that our community members make on various platforms. Whether it's engaging with Talent Protocol content, minting articles, or supporting the broader ecosystem, every action counts.

It’s important to note that points are not redeemable, but your position on the leaderboard might just open doors to perks and rewards — both from us and our partners.

This leaderboard is separate from the Builder Score (which measures talent and skills). Instead, the Community Leaderboard measures how supportive and engaged you are in the Talent Protocol community. You can learn more about the Builder Score here.

How Can You Earn Points?

The leaderboard tracks both past and present actions that demonstrate commitment to Talent Protocol. Some of these actions are ongoing, while others have already been imported based on your previous contributions.

Ongoing Actions (still available):

1. Minting your Passport Onchain.

2. Holding a Talent Mate NFT.

3. Follow @talent on Farcaster.

4. Mint articles on Mirror (refreshed monthly).

5. Mint content on Zora (refreshed monthly).

Past Actions (already imported):

1. The number of Talent Tokens* you purchased.

2. The number of your Talent Tokens* that were sold.

3. How much $TALENT you spent voting* for scholarships.

4. How much $TALENT you spent betting* on career goals.

5. Collecting POAPs from past events and community calls.

*Note: Talent Tokens, votings and betting on career goals are legacy features that were part of Talent Protocol's earlier phases, and have now been discontinued.

The Leaderboard Going Forward

As we evolve, so will the leaderboard. We’ll continue adding new actions that will allow you to score points and gain recognition for your involvement in shaping Talent Protocol’s success.

Ongoing actions will be dynamically tracked, while past actions will only be imported once. Points can always be reviewed and adjusted manually, and Talent Protocol reserves the right to exclude anyone from the leaderboard if necessary.

Why Are We Doing This?

Talent Protocol has always been about community. With this leaderboard, we want to recognize those who go above and beyond to support our mission and help us grow. It’s our way of saying thank you and making sure your dedication doesn’t go unnoticed.

Whether you’re new to Talent Protocol or have been with us since the beginning, there’s a place for you to earn recognition, and we’re excited to see how you’ll shape the future with us!

A Summer of Celebration and Rewards

Our “Summer of Talent” campaign was designed to celebrate and reward both onchain builders and early believers. Through the Builderdrop, we distributed 30M $TALENT tokens to those who have consistently put skin in the game.

Participants received up to 3x rewards in $TALENT, depending on their Builder Score, encouraging more engagement with our ecosystem.

But this campaign wasn’t just about the numbers—it was about bringing together a growing community of builders to share in Talent Protocol’s journey and mission.

https://mirror.xyz/talentprotocol.eth/nJ-DwOR3kwRMdurqNtHAGUO-ppd-EY36-5Eir8NP9bc

A Summer of Fast Growth

We’ve seen remarkable growth across all key areas, over the past months:

• 1.1M+ onchain builders are now tracked through Talent Protocol, with more than half already issued Talent Passports.

• Our growth has averaged 25% month-over-month, demonstrating the steady rise in builders using and benefiting from our ecosystem.

• We’ve expanded 40+ data integrations, enabling more precise tracking and reputation building.

• More than 20 apps have already integrated with our Talent API to power their products.

• We’ve reached a combined 300K+ followers across all our social channels (Twitter, Farcaster, Discord, Telegram).

This upward trajectory reaffirms our belief that the market is hungry for a professional reputation system that’s open, verifiable, and focused on builders.

Curious about the total number of Talent Passports? Check out our live stats on Dune.

Lessons from the Builderdrop

Our Builderdrop was the highlight of the summer, distributing 30M $TALENT to both onchain builders and early supporters. While it was a success, we learned valuable lessons along the way:

1. Don’t promise what you can’t fully control – The market sets the scene, and it's important to manage expectations accordingly.

2. Clarity is key – We realized the eligibility criteria and $TALENT allocation could’ve been communicated more clearly to ensure everyone was on the same page.

3. A public leaderboard could’ve boosted engagement – A shared community leaderboard would’ve added an extra layer of transparency and competition, making the campaign even more engaging.

Other Summer Memories

Besides the Builderdrop, we’ve had other memorable moments this summer:

• Talent Protocol awarded 10 scholarships for EthCC in Brussels.

• We partnered with Base and BUILD for the Onchain Summer Buildathon, rewarding builders for their participation.

• We had the honor of attending Basecamp, Base’s first IRL gathering in California.

• Lastly, we made the strategic decision to sunset Builderfi, to ensure our focus remains on our core mission. You can read more about it here.

What’s Next: $TALENT TGE

Talent Protocol

@TalentProtocol

$TALENT is launching in October, unlocking a new era for onchain reputation.

Here’s why we’re so bullish:
 1M+ Talent Passports already issued.
40+ data integrations.
 Leading the web3 talent space for 3+ years.

Get involved below

970

9:44 AM • Sep 24, 2024

As we wrap up the Summer of Talent, we’re excited to share that the $TALENT Token Generation Event (TGE) is confirmed for late October.

After 3+ years of hard work, Talent Protocol is in its strongest position ever. With over 1.1M+ Talent Passports issued and growing partnerships with major players, we’re just getting started. The TGE will be a critical milestone in building an open, verifiable professional reputation system for the new internet.

Stay tuned for more updates as we approach this next phase!

• $TALENT is launching in late October, unlocking a new era for onchain reputation.

• Talent Protocol is setting the standard for onchain professional reputation, with integrations with Base and Etherscan, and over 1M+ Talent Passports issued.

• Expect exciting product updates, new integrations, and community activities in the coming weeks.

• Join us on Twitter or Telegram to be the first to know the exact token launch date.

Setting the Standard for Onchain Professional Reputation

After 3+ years of hard work, Talent Protocol is in its strongest position ever. With over 1M+ passports issued, we are quickly becoming the industry standard, adopted by major players like Base and Etherscan, even catching the attention of Coinbase's CEO. But we’re just getting started.

Brian Armstrong

@brian_armstrong

2,548

6:53 PM • Aug 22, 2024

We’re building an open, verifiable professional reputation system for the new internet. Within the past months, the protocol already reached 30+ data integrations (see image below), and 20+ ecosystem apps actively using the Talent API.

These recent successes prove the market’s strong demand for what we’re building. We see a massive opportunity to capitalize on this momentum to establish Talent Protocol as an essential part of the future of onchain reputation.

A $25 Billion Market Desperate for a Revolution

In a world of AI-generated noise and inefficient hiring processes, finding meaningful work has never been harder. Job hunting is one of the most stressful events of our lives, and most talent still has to submit hundreds of applications before landing a role.

Our professional reputation is so scattered that recruiters need to look at 5+ different platforms to get enough context about a given candidate. Talented candidates often go unnoticed, with most feeling their resumes don’t fully reflect their abilities.

The HR market was valued at approximately $25.53 billion in 2023, and expected to grow +10% annually until 2032, but that’s only a fraction of the impact we envision.

While our immediate focus is on transforming HR for the better, the truth is, Talent Protocol has the potential to revolutionize professional reputation across any industry. From tech to finance to creative sectors, every industry needs a more efficient, transparent way to recognize and reward talent.

jesse.base.eth

@jessepollak

one of the things I'd like to see on @base is credit + undercollateralized lending built on the fast growing suite of identity primitives like basenames, @TalentProtocol, and @farcaster_xyz.

this is an essential primitive we need to bring the world onchain and now is the time.

471

10:53 AM • Sep 17, 2024

So We Built Talent Protocol

The world’s most open and verifiable professional reputation system – a thoughtfully designed onchain protocol for finding and rewarding top talent in an AI-driven world.

We empower talent to verify their achievements and capabilities, and provide a reputation score and verifiable credentials to those looking for great talent.

Reputation data shouldn’t be gate-kept by platforms or intermediaries, so that everyone has sovereignty over their own professional identity. Online, a few big platforms make all the rules, and take nearly all the profit. Onchain, talent makes the rules.

Talent Protocol

Reach and reward the top builders and creators in crypto.

https://talentprotocol.com

Crypto Needs Talent

$TALENT is designed to create a trustworthy and high-quality professional reputation ecosystem.

You can use it to access reputation data of 1M+ builders, but also to get paid for verifying new data, from yourself or others. Here's how $TALENT benefits the ecosystem and it's participants:

• High quality data at scale: The protocol filters out low-quality data, as participants have a financial incentive to provide accurate, verifiable data. This is particularly valuable for companies and recruiters, helping them identify top talent efficiently and reduce hiring risks.

• Increased trust: $TALENT fosters a culture of integrity and accountability, as dishonest actors risk losing their locked tokens. Participants lock $TALENT to show their commitment and increase their Builder Score.

• Aligned incentives: $TALENT aligns the interests of builders, recruiters, ecosystem apps, and anyone seeking accurate reputation data. It ensures that all participants are working together for the long-term success of Talent Protocol.

In short, here’s why it’s useful to own $TALENT:

• If you’re an organization or an app developer, $TALENT gives you better access to reputation data from over 1M+ onchain builders.

• If you’re a talent, $TALENT can boost your Builder Score so you can stand out in a competitive job market.

• And if you believe crypto needs more talent to succeed, join one of the most credible projects in the space. The demand for accurate reputation data is already skyrocketing.

Momentum is Building: Don’t Miss Out

To keep the momentum going, we’ll be shipping updates across several fronts, and we invite you to get involved:

• $TALENT Distribution: expect improvements to the Wallet tab in the Passport app, making vestings and token unlocks more structured and easier to track. We’re also auditing the $TALENT smart contracts to ensure they’re ready for the TGE day.

• New Credentials: we’ll be releasing new data integrations to improve the accuracy of Builder Score. We heard your feedback, so this includes new Identity credentials from Binance and OKX, giving you more ways to obtain the Human Checkmark.

• New Partnerships: several apps are actively integrating the Builder Score and Talent Passport into their products. Expect more opportunities to leverage your Builder Score in the coming weeks.

• Community Activities: we’ll be hosting special community activities with exclusive perks and rewards for onchain builders. We’ll also host sync Q&A sessions to answer your questions. Join our upcoming Twitter Spaces with the core team, to learn all about the TGE.

• $TALENT Listings: while we can’t reveal any names just yet, we're in the final negotiation stages with a few CEXs. We're locking down a TGE date for the end of October, and more precise details will be shared in the coming weeks.

For now, hang tight and share your excitement—retweet the tweet below if you think crypto needs more talent!

$TALENT marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Talent Protocol. We're not just launching a token; we're unlocking a new stage of growth for our community and the entire builder ecosystem. $TALENT is a cornerstone of what’s to come, but it's only the start of a long-term journey we’re committed to building together. The future is bright, and we’re just getting started.

Join the discussion on our socials to stay up-to-date: Warpcast | X | Discord | Telegram

As you know, the Talent Protocol core team previously announced the decision to sunset Builder.fi on Farcaster and Twitter. Today, we’re writing to provide a final update as we approach the closure of the app.

Our Journey Together

Builder.fi was more than just a Q&A marketplace — it was a place where users builders could discover each other, build their reputation, and monetize their knowledge, all built on top of the Farcaster and Base foundations. Since our award-winning launch at ETH Singapore in 2023, that Builder.fi has been an incredible journey.

• Total users registered : 15,768

• Total questions asked: 3,646

• Total answers given: 336

• Total transaction volume: 5.9 ETH

• Highest TVL: 2.5 ETH

Why It’s Time to Move Forward

Good builders know when to say no, and after careful reflection, we decided to focus all our energy on Talent Protocol and the Builder Score. Closing Builder.fi isn’t a difficult choice; it’s a strategic one that aligns with our commitment to staying lean and shipping fast. This decision reflects our confidence in the future of Talent Protocol and our dedication to building even more impactful tools for our community.

Final Closure Details

Builder.fi is officially closing on August 31st, 2024. If you still have funds in your Privy embedded wallet, please ensure you withdraw them before this date. After August 31st, access to the platform will be discontinued, and all services will be terminated.

For those who miss the withdrawal deadline, please open a support ticket in the Talent Protocol Discord server after August 31st.

A Heartfelt Thank You

This is our final communication as the builder.fi team, and we want to express our deep gratitude to everyone who has been a part of this journey. Builder.fi was our first product built on Base and Farcaster, and we’ve learned so much along the way. We extend our sincere thanks to the Base, Privy, and Airstack teams for their support throughout this project.

As we move forward, we’re excited about the future of Talent Protocol and hope you’ll continue to be part of our community as we innovate and create new opportunities.

Thank you for building with us.

In the past weeks, we’ve been working on an update to our credentials and scoring system, in order to improve the accuracy of the Builder Score.

Key changes include:

• how the Builder Score is calculated,

• introducing Credential categories,

• sunsetting some Credentials,

• and allowing users to bring their Builder Score and Credentials onchain.

What is the Builder Score?

Talent Protocol aggregates a wide range of reputation data points (Credentials), and calculates a Builder Score that represents a user's reputation as an onchain builder.

A Builder Score is calculated for every Talent Passport holder, and its main goal is to distinguish builders from other types of crypto users.

Read more about how the Builder Score is calculated and why it is useful in our Docs.

What does "builder" mean for Talent Protocol?

Our current definition is that “building” means investing time and effort to add value, therefore an onchain builder is anyone creating shared value onchain.

But, as a small team still fighting hard to find PMF and a sustainable business model, we believe the best strategy is focusing on a specific, well-defined audience.

The first segment of builders we are prioritizing are Base Developers.

Base has been super supportive of Talent Protocol (see the recent integration between Basenames and the Builder Score), so it makes sense to give back to this ecosystem.

And focusing on developers doesn’t mean that we will exclude other builder segments. It just means that, when a product decision needs to be made, we will prioritize what can help us identify developers. Once we have a strong user base and compelling value proposition for devs, we will progressively expand to other builder segments, like artists, designers, writers and marketers.

Talent Passport Goes Fully Onchain

You will soon be able to put your Builder Score and Credentials onchain. Bringing your Talent Passport onchain creates a tamper-proof record of your Credentials and Builder Score, and makes Talent Protocol even more interoperable. The Builder Score is stored in a custom smart contract, whereas the Credentials are an attestation with a snapshot of your Talent Passport.

Putting your Talent Passport onchain costs 0.001 ETH.

Paying to bring your professional reputation onchain can be interpreted as an additional signal of commitment and trust, so it will also earn you a new credential and increase your Builder Score.

A new “Talent Passport” Credential will verify that a user has created a Talent Passport account, and will give additional points if the user puts their Talent Passport onchain.

This operation essentially creates a one-time snapshot of your Talent Protocol onchain. To update your reputation data onchain, you will need to repeat the same operation and pay another 0.001 ETH. As an alternative, the Talent Protocol API will always provide the must up to date Builder Score and Credentials.

Credential Categories

The number of credentials on the Talent Passport is expected to continue growing, so it’s important to give them some structure.

We’re introducing 3 categories of credentials (Identity, Activity and Skills), each representing a different type of reputation data:

1. Identity credentials help separate humans from sybils, bots and fake accounts. The sum of all Identity credentials will contribute a maximum of 20 points to a user’s Builder Score. If a user’s Identity credentials reach a score of 20 or higher, we will now show a Human Checkmark on their profile.

2. Activity credentials help identify trusted actors and value-add members, distinguishing them from farmers and users only capturing value. Activity credentials are also capped, but at 40 points maximum.

3. Finally, Skills credentials highlight onchain builders and their specific areas of expertise. This unique layer of reputation is a key feature of Talent Protocol. Skills credentials have no cap, all will count towards your Builder Score.

Each Credential can only belong to one 1 category.

See the full list of credentials per category here.

Why are we capping Identity and Activity credentials? These 2 types of credentials help to create a baseline reputation for all types of onchain actors, but they are not specific for builders. There should be multiple options for a user to prove their identity and activity onchain, but we don't want high builders scores just because a user can prove their identity in multiple ways.

Example: a user that holds the following 3 Identity credentials: Coinbase Verified ID (12 points), World ID (8 points) and ENS (4 points), will only add a total of 20 points to their Builder Score.

Other Credential Updates

As previously announced, we sunsetted 2 credentials: “Talent Tokens” and “builder.fi”. Both represent legacy apps, no longer supported or available to new users.

We’re also sunsetting the “Warpcast” credential today, given that the Power Badge will be discontinued. The majority of Power Badge holders have FIDs lower than 20k, which means they are already getting extra points with their Farcaster credential. On top of that, the Social Capital Rank credential also rewards top Farcaster users.

We’ve been adding new credentials almost on a weekly basis. The most recent credentials made available represent our strong commitment to the Base ecosystem:

1. Basenames

2. /base-builds

3. BaseCamp

We periodically review existing credentials, which means your Builder Score will also change regularly.

Users now have the ability to hide a credential from their Talent Passport. If a user chooses to do so, the credential will be ignored by Talent Protocol, it won’t show on your Talent Passport and it also won’t be considered for the Builder Score.

Builder Score Tiers

In this update, we also reviewed the Builder Score tiers:

• score 0-24 "Newbie”

• score 25-49 "Beginner"

• score 50-74 "Competent"

• score 75-99 "Proficient"

• score over 100 "Expert”

Recalculating your Builder Score

When a user creates a Talent Passport, we check all available Credentials and calculate their Builder Score. We repeat the same global recalculation, for every user, every 14 days. This is a costly computation process that shouldn't be done too frequently.

The Credentials can be updated manually by the user, by clicking on the "Check" button (max 1 check/hour). There's also a "Refresh" button in the Profile Settings, that refreshes your profile data, but doesn't recalculate the Builder Score.