Community Coin Contest Returns in Q2 2024

8 min readApr 9, 2024

Folks Finance teams up with partner DEXs to grow Algorand’s trading scene, with 100,000 ALGO to win.

Welcome, folks — we’re glad to announce the return of the Community Coin Contest!

Following a successful first run in Q1 ’24, the community, partner DEXs, and Folks’ team agreed that continuation of the Community Coin Contest (CCC) was a worthwhile endeavor. That means 100,000 ALGO will once again be up-for-grabs to be won as liquidity incentives for your favorite Community Coin!

Community Coin Contest Rules and Summary

The CCC is an event which aims to increase the liquidity of Community Coins on the primary Decentralized Exchanges of Algorand. Increasing liquidity facilitates larger trades and serves as a catalyst for growth and potential price discovery. Deeper liquidity is a net-positive for all assets in the ecosystem.

Rules and Guidelines

The goal of the CCC is to create the largest liquidity pool using your favorite Community Coin and gALGO — for example: tokenX/gALGO or tokenY/gALGO.
The communities of each coin can choose to pool on one of two participating DEXs — Tinyman or Pact — the two primary exchanges on Algorand.
The CCC will be split into Round 1 and Round 2, each of which have a 1–2 week preparation period followed by a 4-week distribution period.
Three coins will win per-DEX, per-round, meaning there will be six unique coins that win during each round. Coins will be ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd based on the size of the liquidity pool on the DEX.
The same coin cannot win on both DEXs during one round. For example, tokenX cannot win 1st on Tinyman and 3rd on Pact during Round 1.
If there happens to be more than one pool, the larger pool for that specific coin will be prioritized and counted.
Between rounds, communities can decide internally if they want to remain on the same DEX or change to the other.

Note: One additional adjustment in this iteration of the CCC is the discontinuation of the registration form. It provided no tangible benefit to the organization of the event.

100,000 ALGO Prize Pool

The prize pool will be split equally between both rounds — 50,000 ALGO in prizes for each.

Within each round, the 50,000 ALGO will be split equally between both DEXs — 25k for Tinyman, 25k for Pact.

Within the DEXs, the 25k will be allocated in two ways — partially in reward-chunks, and partially proportionally. This will ensure that the pools with the most size will be rewarded as they grow.

Here’s an example of how the prizes will be split in a single round for one DEX. It will be the same on both DEXs.

DEX “A”, Round 1–25,000 ALGO in total

15,000 ALGO to be distributed in reward-chunks.
7,500 to 1st place
5,000 to 2nd place
2,500 to 3rd place
10,000 ALGO proportionally.

By finding the sum of the TVL of each pool on the DEX, we can find the percentage of that sum which each pool constitutes. This percentage will directly correlate with how much of the 10,000 ALGO they will receive.

Let’s use the results of Tinyman, from the CCC Round 2 of Q1, as an example:

COOP: $72,189
CHIP: $55,356
AKTA: $49,140

The sum of these values is $176,694. Of this sum, below are the proportions each coin constitutes, rounded to the nearest whole number:

COOP: 41% — earning 4,100 ALGO of 10,000.
CHIP: 31% — earning 3,100 ALGO of 10,000.
AKTA: 28% — earning 2,800 ALGO of 10,000

Now, let’s find the total rewards for each coin using the new system:

COOP: 11,600 ALGO = 7,500 + 4100
CHIP: 8,100 ALGO = 5,000 + 3,100
AKTA: 5,300 ALGO = 2,500 + 2,800

Defining a Community Coin

The term “Community Coin” is flexible and doesn’t have a concrete definition. However, much feedback was received from the community regarding participants in Q1, so we have adjusted the guidelines to provide clarity for the definition of a Community Coin.

No stablecoins/flatcoins (USDC/USDT/Gold/Silver/etc.)
Tokens and projects which have received grants or funding are ineligible.
No Venture, Angel investment, or presale can be tied to the origins of the token.
Token should have a bootstrapped, organic community (example: COOP, BARB).
The creators of the competition hold the right to disqualify tokens if the integrity of the competition is broken with any sort of manipulation tactic, and we suggest communities engage with us in order to identify manipulations.
Token was originally created for recreational and community-building reasons.

Giving utility post-launch is acceptable, but the coin should not have been made with utility in-mind.
Coins created with the intention of utility are moreso utility/governance tokens.
Coins created with no purpose beside a joke/meme/experiment are generally considered “Community Coins”. All meme coins are community coins, but not all community coins are necessarily meme coins.

The rules for what defines a “Community Coin” are somewhat flexible and we encourage community members to come forward and describe any disagreements they have during the preparation period.

Rule 6 is an important addition, and we will use two participating tokens from Q1 as an example to highlight the new differentiation.

COOP ✅

Originated as a meme coin from a popular content creator in the Algorand ecosystem. All tokens were given away and the COOP community grew organically. This would qualify as a Community Coin. Utility for COOP was built by community post-launch but was not planned or intended upon creation.

CHIP 🚫

Created with intention to be utilized as part of the Algorand Casino gaming app. Although CHIP qualified under Q1’s rules, it would not qualify under Q2’s rules, due to Rule 6 — Token was originally created for recreational and community-building reasons.

Two more examples for more context:

ORA ✅

Created with intention to boost TPS metrics for Algorand. No utility was planned for the ORA token beside being a reward for “juicing” ORA (see oranges.meme for more information). The origin of the name “ORA” also comes from a meme in the Algorand ecosystem. This coin was made for Community, and qualifies.

NIKO 🚫

NIKO is “the in-game currency for the virtual world rxelms”. Created by a team for a specific purpose, this would not qualify as a Community Coin.

Results of the CCC in Q1

The first edition of the CCC proved successful in terms of growing the liquidity of Community Coins and increasing usage of gALGO. As gALGO is one of the key assets in Algorand DeFi, the ecosystem thrives when gALGO is heavily utilized — it’s better to be working in a DEX Liquidity Pool than idle in a wallet.

Before the CCC, gALGO liquidity was paired almost exclusively with major assets like USDC, ALGO, and goBTC, while pools of gALGO with Community Coins were essentially nonexistent. By putting up 100,000 ALGO in liquidity incentives for those pools, we saw pools of gALGO with Community Coins rise to over $300,000 in TVL by the start of Round 2, which began in mid-February, 2024.

The goal is to surpass this number and set a new high-water-mark in Q2. We anticipate the increased liquidity will continue to foster activity within the trading scene on Algorand and lead to more transactions, more DeFi users, and growth of the overall Algorand community.

Key Dates and Times

All dates below are in the year 2024.

Sunday, March 31st, 12:00 PM (noon) EDT — gALGO Redeem Window Opens

This is when you can redeem gALGO from previous quarters for the committed ALGO, an important step for compounding your rewards from the previous Governance Period.
The Redeem Window generally lasts one week — it is not recommended to wait until the last day, as you may miss the deadline to redeem and would need to wait until the following Governance Period for another opportunity. gALGO will only earn rewards if it was minted in the currently active quarter.
When you Redeem, you have an option to pre-mint for the next quarter. This is the easiest way to ensure your continuity with gALGO in G11.

Click here to go to the Folks App and Redeem.

Sunday, April 7th, 11:00 AM EDT — gALGO Redeem Window Closes, Minting Window Opens

After the Redeem Window closes, there is one week to mint gALGO for the quarter. As stated above, rewards will only be distributed to gALGO which was minted in the active quarter. To earn rewards from gALGO in G11, you have to mint gALGO in this window beginning April 7th.

Click here to go to the Folks App and Mint.

Monday, April 15th, 12:00 PM (noon) EDT — gALGO Minting Window Closes

Beyond this point, no more gALGO can be minted in G11.

Sunday, April 21st, 12:00 PM (noon) EDT — CCC Round 1 Lock-In

At this time, the TVLs of the gALGO/Community Coin pools will be recorded. The 3 largest qualified pools on each DEX will win.
Rewards will begin to be distributed by each DEX in the days following.

Week of Monday, April 22nd — Week of Monday May 13th

DEXs will aim to distribute the rewards to winning LPs over a four-week period.

Sunday, May 26th, 12:00 PM (noon) EDT — CCC Round 2 Lock-In

At this time, the TVLs of the gALGO/Community Coin pools will be recorded. The 3 largest qualified pools on each DEX will win.
Rewards will begin to be distributed by each DEX in the days following.

Week of Monday, May 27th — Week of Monday June 17th

DEXs will aim to distribute the rewards to winning LPs over a four-week period.

TL;DR — CCC in G11

Here’s a brief summary of the above article.

The CCC is returning once again with a few changes. Now, there are two DEXs instead of three — Tinyman and Pact — with six unique winners; three on each DEX. Tokens can only win a spot on one DEX per-round. 100,000 ALGO is again available to win, and rewards will be distributed partly in reward-chunks and partly proportionally. Guidelines for what determines a Community Coin have been given more detail, and the registration form has been discontinued.

Thank you for reading. We can’t wait to see how the CCC will play out this time!

Stay locked in on Folks’ social channels to keep updated on all the news.

About Folks Finance

Folks Finance is a leading DeFi platform providing innovative tools for lending, borrowing, trading and managing digital assets, all in one place. Folks Finance streamlines the DeFi experience with a UI and UX competitive to centralized exchanges, all while running on permissionless smart contract technology.