Token Engineering Academy (TEA) is a community-driven education platform for the design, verification, and optimization of token systems. TE Academy’s mission is to establish token engineering as a recognized professional discipline and to grow the number of skilled token engineers in crypto. To help its more than 2000 enrolled students prove their knowledge on-chain for collaboration and job opportunities, TEA sought a non-transferable NFT solution. Previously, TEA had experimented with regular NFTs, but these were transferable and thus not well suited for the task of representing and proving an individual’s expertise in the field.
TEA utilizes Otterspace for the creation and distribution of its proof-of-knowledge Badges. With Otterspace, TEA could reduce its implementation risk and increase roll-out speed. Given the higher cost, time investment, and risk of building non-transferable NFTs in-house, TEA opted against this alternative. Using Otterspace TEA was able to set up a smooth Badge claiming experience for its students, and build the fundaments for a long-term, trustworthy infrastructure for token engineering proofs of expertise.
"In 2020, only a select few cryptoeconomic researchers and builders were forging ahead in the field. Today, thousands of students are studying token engineering, contributing to a growing knowledge pool and greatly expanding hands-on experience in the field. So far, 750+ certificates have been minted for successful students of TE Fundamentals. These proofs of knowledge are just the first step in the reputation system that we envision. The goal is to create a system of NFT proofs that acknowledges and rewards various contributions that are relevant to building this new engineering field.”
- Angela Kreitenweis, Founder TE Academy
Students can access course materials and complete exams for each module in TEA’s comprehensive learning and development platform. Once students have linked their wallets to their student accounts and completed a module, along with the corresponding exam, they are eligible to receive their proof-of-knowledge Badge, which is presented as a non-transferable NFT certificate**.**
“We’ve enjoyed working with the Otterspace team, they have a clear roadmap and are determined to deliver on it. As beta users, we could share improvements and feature requests early on. The team’s drive to deliver product-market-fit gives us confidence that we are building on a great and sustainable product, which is critical for credentails, likes certificates, to be used long-term.”
- Angela Kreitenweise, Founder TE Academy
TE Academy, and its implementation partner General Magic, has directly integrated Otterspace's protocol into its platform. Meaning that claiming a Badge within TEA’s learning platform triggers the same smart contract functions as it would if you were to claim another community’s Badge within the Otterspace app. Using the protocol directly enabled TEA to customize the look and feel of the interaction to fit its specific app.
Over 90% of eligible students have claimed their Badge so far, indicating high demand for on-chain proof-of-knowledge and a high-quality user experience. Beyond supporting them in securing a role in Token Engineering, the Badges also provide an opportunity for students to get involved in the governance of the Token Engineering ecosystem. In the upcoming first Token Engineering Grants round led by TE Commons, the owners of TE Academy Badges will receive a voting boost, based on their validated expertise. This measure is aimed at increasing the quality of decision outcomes and enhancing sybil resistance in on-chain votes.
By leveraging Otterspace's capabilities, TEA has enabled its students to build their record of expertise on-chain and contribute to the development of a more robust and secure token engineering ecosystem. TEA has recently integrated new pricing for its courses and effectively combined Otterspace’s protocol with third-party payment providers to develop paid on-chain education credentials.
If you're interested in using Otterspace Badges to build education credentials, a community member experience, or integrating Badges into your app via the Otterspace protocol, you can book an intro call with us here. We’ve got a lot of exciting product updates including faster & easier Badge distribution, as well as, multi-chain support coming up, so stay tuned.