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Gonka Integration Grant for AI Startups and Products (GNK Rewards)

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Author: Evgenii Maksimenkov Created: 2026-04-25 06:46 UTC Closes: 2026-07-24 06:45 UTC Language: EN Votes: 3 Avg. Bid: 50.0K GNK

Grant program in GNK for AI startups that integrate Gonka inference into their production product. Fixed grant tiers, milestone-based payouts, mandatory technical and visibility requirements.

Full Proposal

Context

Gonka offers an OpenAI-compatible decentralized inference API (currently serving Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507-FP8) at competitive cost vs. centralized providers. To accelerate Developer adoption, this grant program rewards AI startups and products that integrate Gonka as a production inference backend with grants paid in GNK tokens.

This is a non-dilutive grant — Gonka takes no equity, no revenue share, no IP rights. The only obligations are technical integration and agreed visibility requirements.

2. Who Can Apply

Eligible applicants are companies or teams that:

  1. Operate an AI-powered product (live or in active development) that uses LLM inference as a core component.
  2. Have a working product or functional MVP at time of application — concept-only pitches are NOT eligible.
  3. Have a registered legal entity (any jurisdiction permitted by Gonka compliance).
  4. Pass basic KYB (Know-Your-Business) checks.

Examples of eligible products: AI chat apps, agent frameworks, RAG products, AI coding tools, AI customer-support platforms, AI content tools, vertical AI SaaS (legal/medical/finance), AI infrastructure tools.

NOT eligible: pure research projects without product, hobby projects without users, products that resell raw inference, pump-and-dump token projects, projects competing directly with Gonka (other decentralized inference networks).

3. Grant Tiers

Tier Grant Amount (GNK equivalent in USD) For
Starter $5,000 Pre-revenue products, <1K MAU, integration of Gonka as one of multiple backends
Growth $25,000 Revenue-generating or >5K MAU, Gonka as primary backend for ≥30% of inference traffic
Scale $100,000 $500K+ ARR or >50K MAU, Gonka as primary backend for ≥70% of inference traffic
Strategic $100,000+ (negotiated) Category-defining integrations, custom case-by-case

GNK is paid at the 7-day TWAP at the date of each milestone payout. Recipients are responsible for their own tax treatment.

4. Team Requirements

Applicants MUST demonstrate:

  1. Technical capability: at least 1 founder or core team member with verifiable engineering background (GitHub profile, prior shipped product, or equivalent). LinkedIn alone is not sufficient.
  2. Working product: live URL, app store listing, or demo video showing the product in actual use. Mockups and Figma files are not accepted.
  3. Real users or pilot customers: minimum 50 active users OR 1 paying customer OR 3 signed LOIs at time of application.
  4. No anonymous teams for Growth tier and above. Starter tier permits pseudonymous teams with established crypto reputation.
  5. Clean track record: no prior fraud, rug pulls, or unresolved legal issues against the team or company.
  6. English communication: at least one team member able to communicate fluently in English for technical and reporting purposes.

5. Technical Integration Requirements

To qualify for grant payout, the integration MUST meet ALL of the following:

5.1. Production Integration

  • Gonka MUST be wired into the production codepath of the product, not a sandbox or feature-flagged demo.
  • Integration MUST use the OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions endpoint (or other supported Gonka APIs) with proper ECDSA request signing as specified in the Gonka Developer Docs.
  • Production traffic share served by Gonka MUST meet the tier minimum (see §3) and be verifiable via on-chain inference records.

5.2. Reliability and Fallback

  • Implementation MUST handle Gonka network errors gracefully (retries with exponential backoff, optional fallback to a secondary provider).
  • Implementation MUST NOT route only failed/degraded requests to Gonka. Routing logic MUST be either deterministic (e.g., percentage split) or unbiased.

5.3. Code Quality

  • Integration code MUST be reviewable. For closed-source products, the relevant integration module MUST be shared privately with the Gonka grants team for verification.
  • Open-source integrations are encouraged and MAY receive a 10% bonus on the grant amount.

5.4. Telemetry

  • Recipient MUST share basic usage telemetry with Gonka monthly: total inference calls routed to Gonka, total tokens, error rate, p95 latency observed. Aggregate numbers only — no end-user data required.

6. Visibility Requirements

To qualify for grant payout, the recipient MUST complete ALL of the following:

6.1. Website

  • "Powered by Gonka" badge displayed on the product website (footer or about/tech page acceptable). Badge assets provided by Gonka.
  • One sentence in the product's stack/technology section naming Gonka as the inference provider, linked to gonka.ai.

6.2. Public Announcement

  • One public announcement post on the recipient's primary channel (X, blog, or LinkedIn) announcing the integration. Minimum reach: the recipient's actual organic following — no requirement to buy reach.
  • Post MUST tag @gonka_ai (or current official handle) and MUST be coordinated with the Gonka marketing team for timing (not content approval — recipient retains editorial control).

6.3. Case Study Cooperation

  • Recipient agrees to participate in one case study (written interview, 60–90 min total time commitment) within 6 months of grant completion. Gonka produces and publishes the case study; recipient reviews for accuracy before publication.

6.4. Logo Use

  • Recipient grants Gonka the right to use the recipient's name and logo in:
  • Gonka's website (Developers / Customers section)
  • Gonka's pitch decks and marketing materials
  • Gonka's social channels in the context of this integration
  • This right is non-exclusive, royalty-free, and revocable on 30 days' notice if the integration is discontinued.

6.5. Optional (Bonus)

  • Conference talk, podcast appearance, or YouTube video featuring the integration: +5% grant bonus.
  • Open-source release of the integration (with permissive license): +10% grant bonus (already mentioned in §5.3).
  • Maximum cumulative bonus: 20%.

7. Milestone-Based Payout Structure

Grants are paid in 3 milestones, NOT upfront:

Milestone % of Grant Trigger
M1: Integration Live 30% Production integration deployed, Gonka traffic share verified on-chain at tier minimum, "Powered by Gonka" badge visible on website
M2: 60-Day Sustained Usage 40% Tier-minimum traffic share maintained for 60 consecutive days, monthly telemetry submitted, public announcement post published
M3: 6-Month Retention + Case Study 30% Tier-minimum traffic share maintained at month 6, case study completed

If a recipient drops below the tier minimum: - For >14 days: M2 or M3 payout is paused until restored. - For >60 days: remaining unpaid milestones are forfeited (already-paid milestones are NOT clawed back unless fraud is detected).

8. Fraud Prevention

  • Synthetic traffic, bot-generated inference calls, or any artificial inflation of usage metrics triggers immediate forfeiture and clawback of all paid milestones.
  • Gonka reserves the right to audit on-chain inference patterns and request reasonable verification (e.g., correlation with public product usage metrics).
  • Multiple grant applications from related entities (same team, same product under different names) are not permitted.

9. Application Requirements

Applicants MUST submit:

  1. Company info: legal entity, jurisdiction, founding date, team size.
  2. Product info: live URL, current MAU/ARR (if applicable), inference volume estimate (calls/month, tokens/month).
  3. Team info: founders' names, GitHub/LinkedIn, prior products shipped.
  4. Integration plan: which Gonka model(s) will be used, expected traffic share, integration timeline, fallback strategy.
  5. Tier requested with justification.
  6. Visibility commitment: confirmation of §6 obligations.
  7. Wallet address (Gonka-compatible bech32) for grant payout.

10. Out of Scope

  • Equity investment, SAFE, token warrants — this is a non-dilutive grant only.
  • Co-marketing budget beyond the case study and announcement (separate marketing partnerships handled outside this program).
  • Custom model deployment on Gonka network (separate process).
  • Free inference credits beyond what the grant amount can purchase at standard rates.

Votes (3)

Voter Amount Date
gonka1gm...gzg6ry 50.0K GNK 2026-04-25 06:46
gonka109...wdesy6 50.0K GNK 2026-05-03 14:36
gonka1rw...dftj3l 50.0K GNK 2026-04-25 15:53

Comments (1)

💬 Alex Sharoiko Александр Шаройко

2026-04-26 20:48 · 👍 1 · 👎 0

Нужно установить требования еще по количеству инференса, который они будут использовать.

А то я уже использую инференс Гонка для своих проектов. Но при этом я не думаю, что мне за это нужно платить ))

View on gonka.vote