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August - The Finals

Six finalists, three finals.

Two finalists per track, three finals, run in the last week of August. The board closed on August 16 and the six are named. Each pair agrees its own date. The 500 USDC pool is split between the six of them.

Season 1 Finals - how it actually ends.

Two finalists per track advance. Six people finish the season: two artists, two builders, two creators. The finals run as head-to-head battles on live WaveWarZ community battles. There is no WaveWarZ-Base prediction market and no weekly-task month - both were earlier plans and neither is running. The write-up further down this page is kept only as a record of what was considered.

Each track gets its own finals, run in the last week of August. The six finalists pick their own dates inside that week - you are not being handed a slot, you are agreeing one with the people you are finishing alongside.

The six are named: dee-13 and n3m in artist, jdwalka and ghostmintops in builder, presdency.eth and uniquebeing404 in creator. See the August page for the full field and the reasoning.

The prize is the 500 USDC pool, split between the six finalists. Nothing else is promised.

Why a market, not a vote - SUPERSEDED

The original plan was a one-person-one-vote Respect ballot. Clean but abstract - a click is a low-commitment signal. A wallet putting money on a build is a different commitment entirely, and the market price aggregates a lot more information than a poll.

Switching to WaveWarZ-Base gives the Finals four things at once: a real economic signal for "would I actually use this build", mass participation (anyone with a Base wallet can trade, not just Respect-holders), built-in revenue for builders (1% trade cut flows forever), and a real launch event for the WaveWarZ-Base agentic build Sam is shipping.

Full architectural decision in Doc 720. Cross-linked from Doc 701 Part 12.

How the Finals run

THE SEASON - CLOSED

15 entered, 30 projects

All 15 entrants competed on the board at /leaderboard, in the track they entered. Points came from showing up: the zm stream at 5pm EST, the weekly challenge, shipping an update.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 16 - THE BOARD CLOSED

Six got picked

Zaal picked six finalists, two from each track. It was a decision, not a tally - the board was one of the things he read, not the thing that decided.

THE SIX AGREE THE DATES

Three battles, August 24 to 30

The six finalists agree the dates between themselves rather than being handed a slot. Three separate battles, one per track.

BATTLE NIGHT - EACH TRACK

Two finalists go head to head

The two finalists in that track battle live on WaveWarZ. The crowd trades the battle onchain, and the champion comes from a combined score: the market result and a judges' panel among the factors. Anyone can watch.

THE RESULT

Three winners, one per track

One winner comes out of each track - artist, builder and creator. Three winners in total across the three nights.

THE PRIZE

500 USDC, tiered so everyone gets paid

The pool is sponsored by the ZAO festivals team and splits three ways. 100 USDC to each track champion and 50 to each runner-up, then a further 50 USDC to whichever of the six draws the highest trading volume across the whole season, decided after all three battles. 500 exactly. Every finalist is paid, and winning your track pays double losing it.

AFTER

The work stays yours

You keep the repo and everything you built, and the 1% WaveWarZ trade cut keeps paying after August.

What Respect is (and is not)

Respect is The ZAO's governance signal. Soulbound, illiquid, non-transferable - you cannot sell it or trade it. It is what you earn by participating in the ecosystem.

During ZABAL Gamez: up to 1000 Respect points are earnable per active participant. Current ZAO holders determine who counts as active (workshop attendance, July submissions, August Finals participation, ecosystem contribution beyond just showing up). Respect maps to governance weight, not cash.

Voter eligibility: 1000+ Respect points = eligible to vote in Finals settlement. This threshold may shift as the event unfolds. The 1000+ cohort also serves as the meta-governance body - they can vote (66%+ majority) to change the governance system itself.

How Respect plays into the Finals: Respect-holders have a voice in settlement. The specific weight mechanism (how Respect interacts with the WaveWarZ-Base market) is being designed alongside the protocol and will be locked before the August Finals.

Builders get more than the prize pool

  • A share of the $500 USDC pool for every finalist, tiered by battle result and trade volume. Nobody finishes on zero.
  • 1% of all trade volume on your battle entry, forever. Per WaveWarZ protocol. The battle entry stays live post-Finals; new trades keep flowing 1% to you.
  • Finalists present their own projects on the night. The 1% WaveWarZ trade cut keeps paying after August.
  • Respect earned during the event itself.
  • Distribution amplification from ZAO accounts across Farcaster, X, Telegram, newsletter.
  • The open-source repo + the 24h live-coding footage as content assets.

Prize pool sponsor: The ZAO festivals team

The $500 USDC v0 (Season 1) prize pool is donated by the ZAO festivals team. Looking for more sponsors to grow the v1 prize pool or add support to v0. Reach: info@thezao.com

The tech timeline (June -> August)

SUPERSEDED

The market roadmap below was not adopted

Kept for the record. Season 1 runs as three finals nights with six presenters and three winners - no market, no voter set, no settlement window.

JULY

Mainnet + smoke test

WaveWarZ-Base on Base mainnet (post-audit). Smoke-test battle runs - one of the 8 adoptable projects becomes a fake finalist for end-to-end testing. Project #09 (Wire WaveWarZ-Base into the Finals surface) gets adopted by a July builder.

AUGUST

The real Finals run

5-8 finalists, 30-80 Respect-holder pre-funded voters, market open for 72h, settlement at T+72h. The Finals becomes the V1 launch event for WaveWarZ-Base.

If something slips - the fallback

Superseded. The Finals are a demo night, not a judged contest, so no judging instrument is needed. Kept for the record: the earlier fallback was Respect-earning members voting 1-person-1-vote (Snapshot or ZAO governance), with WaveWarZ on Solana as a parallel viewer-signal a la Doc 646's Clanker mechanic. Same prize tier, same collectibles, same recognition - just a different judging instrument.

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