Update: The Chainlink Builders Program has concluded. Check out the Chainlink Developer Experts program to find out how you can support the Chainlink ecosystem and receive exclusive access to Chainlink events and opportunities.

We’d like to thank our passionate community of developers who have put in amazing work to expand and strengthen the Chainlink Network. Chainlink is the most widely-used blockchain oracle because of your efforts building out the decentralized network. Our talented community is key to helping develop the infrastructure, use cases, and documentation that make smart contracts the dominant form of digital agreements. Because of this, we’re announcing the Chainlink Builders Program to recognize and thank developers in the Chainlink community for building, documenting, and helping others.

The Builders Program has three tiers of badges that community members can earn and collect. The program uses the proof-of-attendance protocol POAP to help track badges that are redeemable for swag, exclusive NFTs, and other community-based rewards.

How to Earn Builders Program Badges

Level 1

Earn Tier 1 badges by completing the following tasks:

• Use Chainlink in a hackathon
• Write a Chainlink-related technical blog post
• Build a testnet smart contract using Chainlink
• Ask a legitimate technical question on Discord*

*Respond with Thank you @name when someone helps answer your question

Level 2

Earn Tier 2 badges by completing the following tasks:

• Build a smart contract with Chainlink VRF on testnet
• Build a mainnet smart contract using Chainlink
• Answer technical questions on Discord**
• Answer questions on Stack Overflow
• Build a new External Adapter from a new data source, post it on market.link, and have it hosted on a node that has made a call to it
• Find an NFT Chainlink Easter Egg

**Must be mentioned @name in Discord

Level 3

Earn Tier 3 badges by completing the following tasks:

• Build a DeFi protocol with $1M Total Value Locked (TVL) using Chainlink
• Build a smart contract with VRF + over 1K VRF calls
• Build a mainnet smart contract + over 1K API calls

The Chainlink Builders Program will add additional tiers and Ecosystem Challenges over time. These are the initial tiers to begin the program, but we are developing many more activities and rewards for the future.

To submit your work, please fill out this Builders Program submission form. For any questions, email [email protected].

Redeem Your Badges for Rewards

Community members who earn and collect Builders Program Badges can redeem their badges for a variety of rewards, such as swag, NFTs, and first access to Chainlink community events.

Developer Pack: 3 Badges from any Tier

• Original Swag Pack with Blue Chainlink T-shirt + Stickers
• “Developer” tag on Discord

Builder Pack: 6 Badges From Any Tier (Including at Least Two From Level 2)

• Builders tag and private channel on Discord
• Invite to a monthly special presentation specifically for Builders
• First priority access to new Ecosystem Challenges
• Exclusive Builder Swag
• Exclusive NFT

Additional Rewards Packs to Come

Our community team will work with Builders to distribute rewards and keep the challenges interesting. There are also some hidden badges that you can collect—you’ll just have to watch out for clues in the Chainlink developer documentation.

Ecosystem Challenges

The Builders Program will also sponsor intermittent challenges in collaboration with Chainlink ecosystem projects. These challenges will be announced in the Chainlink developer Discord and on Chainlink social media channels.

The First Ecosystem Challenge – Offered by LinkPool

LinkPool is offering the first Ecosystem Challenge:

“Developers are the very heart of the Chainlink Network and will be increasingly critical to the adoption of externally connected smart contracts as our industry evolves. At LinkPool, we support developers with products and tools like market.link and Bridges, but we want to do more.

We’re pleased to join the Chainlink Builders Program and make our Chainlink infrastructure available to two developers who have demonstrated their commitment to the ecosystem by building Adapters and listing them at market.link. To encourage continued External Adapter development, each recipient will receive three months access to a Chainlink node on the supported network of their choice, hosted in LinkPool’s enterprise grade infrastructure.”

Two developers will earn the Ecosystem Challenge Badges and LinkPool’s three-month Chainlink node reward by completing the following challenge:

• Build a smart contract on testnet with plans to go to mainnet
• Add 2x External Adapters over the course of Linkpool Node access
• Monthly check-in with LinkPool team

Get Started Earning Rewards

If you’ve already completed some of the tasks from the different tiers above and want to redeem  badges, we are retroactively awarding badges for tasks completed since the end of the most recent Chainlink Virtual Hackathon on September 27th, 2020. To submit your community contributions for consideration, please fill out this Builders Program submission form. For any questions, email [email protected].

We will continue to add rewards and challenges to the Builders Program to ensure the community has room to grow. If the Chainlink community has taught us anything, it’s that we’re always excited to see what you build next.

The best way to get started is to join the technical discussion in Discord. If you’re already in Discord, visit the developer documentation and get started connecting your app to Chainlink Price Feeds, Chainlink VRF, or any external API.

You can also visit chain.link, subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter, and follow @chainlink on Twitter.