Contribute to the Avalanche ecosystem

Retro9000

Build publicly, ship on mainnet and get rewarded. The Avalanche community can vote for the duration of any given round and help inform retroactive grants from the Avalanche Foundation.

Register for Early Access

Rounds

Discover builders and/or apply to participate and be rewarded.

Upcoming Rounds

1

Round 1: Avalanche9000 Testnet

Participate in the Avalanche9000 testnet by deploying a permissioned or permissionless Layer 1 blockchain or building related developer tooling. Rank up on the leaderboard by receiving community votes and sharing regular updates.

Up to

$40M worth of AVAX

How it works

Start now

Build on Avalanche to

Enter a Round

All submissions are public by default. Check if you are eligible before applying for a round. Connect your socials and submit regular updates and milestones.

Real-time updates on the

Social Feed

A unified live feed aggregates project milestones and updates as well as social posts, helping inform community votes.

Rank up on the

Leaderboard

The Avalanche community can allocate votes to their favorite projects during an active round. Projects are ranked on a public leaderboard. Your Chill Factor determines your voting power for each round.

Frequently asked questions

Learn more about Retro9000 and its process here. You can search for questions or just browse.

General Questions

Who is eligible to apply?

Each round will have its own individual eligibility criteria.
‍
For the inaugural Retro9000 round (Avalanche 9000 Testnet), builders will be required to build one of the following during the testnet phase:

Layer 1 blockchains: This includes building a new, innovative L1s that leverages the enhanced capabilities of Avalanche’s L1 composability and interoperability. While permissioned L1s are eligible for funding once they deploy on mainnet, the majority of the funding will be allocated to permissionless L1s and disbursed once this milestone is achieved.

Who is eligible to vote?

Anyone is eligible to vote, but your voting budget is determined by your Chill Factor. Your Chill Factor is subject to changing in the future and may be swapped out for other metrics and calculated differently.
‍
You only receive your budget once per round and can spend it on any amount of projects, voting at any time as long as the round is open. We recommend not spending it all at once and waiting to see project updates, milestones and progress during the round.

When will the applications close?

Each round will be open for a different amount of time, the deadline may or may not be announced in advance. You can submit a new application for the entire duration of a round. The inaugural round, Avalanche 9000 Testnet, will be open at least until the mainnet activation of Avalanche9000 and may be left open for a longer period.

When are the rewards paid out?

The rewards will be disbursed upon achievement of specific milestones. For the Avalanche 9000 Testnet round, you will be required to deploy your Layer 1 (or related developer tooling) on mainnet in order to qualify for disbursement. There might be subsequent milestones to unlock the full amount of funding.

How do I rank up on the leaderboard?

You will need to post updates and be active during the round in order to receive community votes. Your ranking combined rankingThe rank and combined with the amount of community votes will help inform retroactive grants from the Avalanche Foundation.

What do I need to submit in my application?

Each round will have unique application questions. Be prepared to submit a detailed roadmap of what you aim to achieve for the duration of the round, as well as more information on the team and project.

In order to appear on the social feed and leaderboard, you will need to connect your social accounts: X, Github and the Arena.

How do I post updates to the social feed?

You can either return to your application and post milestones which will be displayed on the feed, or post on socials (X, the Arena) under a specific round-specific hashtag to be featured (you will need to use the same account you connected when submitting the application).

Rewards And Milestones

When are the rewards paid out?

The rewards will be disbursed upon achievement of specific milestones. For the Avalanche 9000 Testnet round, you will be required to deploy your Layer 1 (or related developer tooling) on mainnet in order to qualify for disbursement. There might be subsequent milestones to unlock the full amount of funding.

How do I post updates to the social feed?

You can either return to your application and post milestones which will be displayed on the feed, or post on socials (X, the Arena) under a specific round-specific hashtag to be featured (you will need to use the same account you connected when submitting the application).

Voting and Leaderboard

Who is eligible to vote?

Anyone is eligible to vote, but your voting budget is determined by your Chill Factor. Your Chill Factor is subject to changing in the future and may be swapped out for other metrics and calculated differently.
‍
You only receive your budget once per round and can spend it on any amount of projects, voting at any time as long as the round is open. We recommend not spending it all at once and waiting to see project updates, milestones and progress during the round.

How do I rank up on the leaderboard?

You will need to post updates and be active during the round in order to receive community votes. Your ranking combined rankingThe rank and combined with the amount of community votes will help inform retroactive grants from the Avalanche Foundation.

Eligibility & Requirements

Who is eligible to apply?

Each round will have its own individual eligibility criteria.
‍
For the inaugural Retro9000 round (Avalanche 9000 Testnet), builders will be required to build one of the following during the testnet phase:

Layer 1 blockchains: This includes building a new, innovative L1s that leverages the enhanced capabilities of Avalanche’s L1 composability and interoperability. While permissioned L1s are eligible for funding once they deploy on mainnet, the majority of the funding will be allocated to permissionless L1s and disbursed once this milestone is achieved.

When will the applications close?

Each round will be open for a different amount of time, the deadline may or may not be announced in advance. You can submit a new application for the entire duration of a round. The inaugural round, Avalanche 9000 Testnet, will be open at least until the mainnet activation of Avalanche9000 and may be left open for a longer period.

What do I need to submit in my application?

Each round will have unique application questions. Be prepared to submit a detailed roadmap of what you aim to achieve for the duration of the round, as well as more information on the team and project.

In order to appear on the social feed and leaderboard, you will need to connect your social accounts: X, Github and the Arena.