Empty for now. Fills the moment the August Finals settle. ZABAL Gamez Season 1: top 8 finalists share a $500 USDC pool, top 16 get $ZABAL token rewards on top, plus a Champion commemorative collectible (on Magnetiq) to the top 3, and a Finisher commemorative collectible to every Finalist. Specific per-finalist allocation confirmed before Finals.
Voting protocol: WaveWarZ-Base hybrid (Doc 720). Market price + Respect-holder baseline allocation across a 72h trade window. Sam + Arthur ship the Base contracts in June, mainnet July, real Finals August.
Prize pool sponsor: The ZAO festivals team. Want to grow v1 or support v0? info@thezao.com
The Champion commemorative collectible, the largest USDC slices from the pool, the recurring mentor slot in Season 2.
Awaiting Finals.
Awaiting Finals.
Awaiting Finals.
USDC slice from the $500 pool + $ZABAL token rewards + Finisher commemorative collectible (on Magnetiq). Every Finalist who ships in the 24h Finals build window keeps the Finisher collectible permanently. Specific per-finalist allocation confirmed before Finals.
$ZABAL token rewards. No USDC, but token-stack stacks with Empire Builder boosters for ongoing distribution.
Each Finalist becomes a tradable battle entry on WaveWarZ-Base. The market trades for 72h on real signal (live demo + repo + cast quality). Final ranking = market price weighted with judge-agent rubric scores. Live settlement readout fires at T+72h on /finals/live.
Respect (soulbound, non-transferable governance signal) has a voice in the settlement. The specific Respect-weight mechanism is being designed by Sam + Arthur with the WaveWarZ-Base contracts and locked before the August Finals.
Respect is illiquid. Cannot be sold, transferred, or traded. It is The ZAO's governance signal - you earn it by participating in the ecosystem.
During ZABAL Gamez: up to 1000 Respect points earnable per active participant. Current ZAO holders determine who counts as active (workshop attendance, July submissions, August Finals participation, ecosystem contribution).
Voter eligibility: 1000+ Respect points = eligible to vote in Finals settlement. Threshold may shift as the event unfolds. The 1000+ cohort can also vote (66%+ majority) to change the governance system itself.
Top-3 champions get an open invitation to mentor in Season 2. The format compounds - the people who win one Season become the teachers in the next. That is how the body of work grows year over year.
Want to be on this list? Apply as a workshop lead for June, or submit a build in July. Every spot on this page started as one of those two paths.