Grass Explained: Tokenomics & Airdrop

What is Grass?

Grass is a Layer 2 rollup that helps solve the current AI data collection problem. It lets people share their unused internet bandwidth through an app or browser extension for ethical and unbiased web scraping, with contributors earning points for the GRASS token airdrop.

Grass uses Validators, Routers, and Grass Nodes to prove that the data it collects is authentic and secure, ensuring trust in the data. The project is built on Solana and creates a "data rollup" that stores verified web data in a transparent way for AI developers.

Users can passively earn rewards or actively help by tagging or cleaning up data, making it easy for anyone to participate. Grass’s goal is to become the main source of high-quality data for AI while giving users control and rewards for their contributions.

‍

How Does Grass Work?

Grass works by combining user-contributed internet bandwidth, blockchain verification, and a decentralized network to collect, verify, and distribute web data for AI applications.

• User Contributions: Individuals install a browser extension or app to share their unused internet bandwidth, routing web requests through their residential IP addresses.
• Decentralized Scraping: Grass nodes collect web data from various sources, ensuring an unbiased view of the internet.
• Data Verification: Web scraping sessions are logged on Grass’s Sovereign Data Rollup (built on Solana), providing proof of data authenticity and preventing tampering.
• Rewards System: Contributors earn points (and potentially tokens in the future) for sharing bandwidth or actively helping annotate and clean data.
• Data Distribution: Verified data is made available for AI training, fine-tuning, and real-time model use, supporting developers and organizations.
• Governance: Grass’s decentralized infrastructure allows users and communities to influence scraping priorities and build applications on top of the network.

Essentially, Grass acts as a Layer 2 chain, a Decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) protocol and an AI crypto project at the same time.

‍

Grass Technology

Grass's technology relies on a Sovereign Data Rollup which provides AI with verified, structured web data by leveraging a globally distributed network of nodes and blockchain technology.

Here is a breakdown of Grass's technological architecture:

• Grass Nodes: Users run lightweight nodes that utilize unused bandwidth to scrape public web data. Node operators earn rewards based on the data they relay.
• Router: Routers connect nodes to the rollup, ensuring accountability and bandwidth relay. They are rewarded in proportion to the data they process.
• Validator: Validators batch web transactions, verify them, and generate ZK (zero-knowledge) proofs that anchor session data on-chain. This ensures data provenance and traceability.
• ZK Processor: Processes session proofs into efficient batches and submits them to a Layer 1 blockchain, creating an immutable record of scraping activity.
• Grass Data Ledger: Acts as the repository linking scraped datasets to their on-chain proofs, ensuring the origin and integrity of AI training data.
• Edge Embedding Models: Transform raw web data into structured formats by cleaning, normalizing, and organizing it for AI model requirements.

‍

How Do I Use Grass?

Using Grass is simple and involves just a few steps:

1. Sign Up: Create a Grass account with your username, email, and password.
2. Download the Grass App: Install the app on your device to start contributing.
3. Connect and Contribute: Launch the app to connect to the network and start sharing bandwidth.
4. Track Rewards: Earn GRASS tokens based on your device's uptime and bandwidth. Track rewards directly in the app.
5. Monitor and Manage: Use the app to track performance, adjust settings, and manage contributions.
6. Referral Program: Invite others using your referral link. Earn 20% of referred user's points, 10% from their referrals, and 5% from third-level referrals.

Additionally, new referrals earn a 5,000-point bonus after 100 hours of uptime, while referrers receive 2,500 points for each referral meeting the same milestone.

The program also includes a tiered system, where higher referral counts unlock ranks from Iron to Titan, offering increasing rewards and bonuses, with top-tier participants earning up to 250,000 points.

‍

Grass Tokenomics

Grass Tokenomics describes the economic structure of the GRASS token, including distribution, utility, and incentives. The total supply of GRASS is fixed at 1 billion and the token is used for rewards, staking, and governance. Here is the detailed allocation:

• Community Incentives: 300 million tokens (30%) for community rewards, including 170 million for future incentives and 100 million for Airdrop One.
• Early Investors: 252 million tokens (25.2%) allocated to early investors, with a 1-year cliff, then 1-year vesting.
• Foundation & Ecosystem Growth: 228 million tokens (22.8%) for governance-led initiatives, partnerships, and ecosystem growth.
• Contributors: 220 million tokens (22%) for core contributors, with a 1-year cliff and 3-year vesting.

Since launching, GRASS has reached a maket cap of over $770 million and has been listed on all major exchanges including Bitget, OKX, Bybit, Kucoin, and even Hyperliquid.

Additionally, users can stake GRASS for a current APR of 47.43%, keeping in mind that there is a 7-day unstaking period. So far 25.29M tokens have been staked on the Grass network.

‍

Grass Airdrop Points Program

The Grass Airdrop Points Program rewards early adopters and community members who contribute to the Grass Network. Users earn Grass Points through participation in the Network Snapshot and a multi-level referral system.

Airdrop One allocated 100 million GRASS tokens with no lockup or vesting with 9% to Network Snapshot participants, 0.5% to GigaBuds NFT holders, and 0.5% to users who installed a Desktop Node or the Saga Application by October 11, 2024.

Eligible users needed to have earned at least 500 Grass Points before October 14, 2024, to participate, and tokens could be claimed starting October 28, 2024. The claiming window for GRASS will end on January 15, 2025.

As of late 2024, 88.36% of the airdrop, or 69,169,903 tokens have been claimed by 2,057,791 people. At a current GRASS price of $3.01, that equals about $208.21 million in value. There are still 20% of the total total supply left for future airdrops, but they will also include lockup periods.

‍

Grass Founders

Grass was founded in 2023 by Andrej Radonjic, Connor White, and Chris Gordon, focusing on democratizing web data collection through decentralized technology. The founders are dedicated to transparency and user ownership, making Grass a pioneering force in decentralized AI.

Their company, Wynd Labs, has raised $1 million in a pre-seed round in July 2023, followed by $3.5 million in seed funding in December 2023. Most recently completed a Series A in September 2024 led by HackVC with an undisclosed amount. Investors include Polychain Capital, Tribe Capital, Delphi Ventures, Lattice, Brevan Howard Digital, and others.

‍

Bottom Line

Grass is one of the few recent crypto projects that can truly claim the title of a revolutionary tech as it solves one of the biggest problems of AI, while utilizing blockchain and rewarding a huge base of users.

Under the leadership of Andrej Radonjic, Grass has achieved important milestones, including scraping over 100 TB of data daily and facilitating one of the largest airdrops on Solana, with GRASS tokens claimed by more than 2 million unique wallets.

As the project moves into Stage 2, 2025 will be big for Grass, with novel additions like Live Context Retrieval (LCR) and the anticipated launch of a native mobile app. We’ll be closely following these developments and their impact.