Tea is the first blockchain built to reward and sustainably fund open source.

Open-source software powers nearly every phone, website, and DeFi protocol, forming an economy estimated at $8.8 trillion — yet its creators still work for free. Today, global infrastructure depends on a fragile base of unpaid volunteers — the so-called Nebraska problem, where a single neglected OSS package can disrupt billions in downstream value. Tea solves this by continuously rewarding verified maintainers, making OSS resilient, neutral, and investable.

Tea Network, a custom Optimism-based Layer 2 now in testnet, gives code an economy through CHAI, which ranks over 3M OSS packages by usage and rewards contributors directly to their GPG keys. TEA serves as gas, staking, and governance for teaDAO, with early stakers securing the OSS graph, earning emissions, and guiding policy.

Founded by Max Howell (creator of Homebrew, used by 100M+ developers worldwide) and Timothy Lewis (Ikigai), Tea combines unmatched OSS credibility with Web3 expertise to return value to developers. Its goal: replace closed app stores with a transparent, verifiable, and rewarding Universal App Store for secure, neutral innovation.

Rather than rushing to market with hype and no substance, Tea has been built through a deliberate journey; learning from deep community engagement, iterating on real-world testnet usage, and pivoting thoughtfully to meet the prevailing challenges of the open-source ecosystem.

Massive Testnet Traction

• Tea’s Assam and Sepolia testnets have processed over 320 million transactions across 11 million+ unique accounts, with peak volumes exceeding 5 million transactions per day—making Tea one of the most active Ethereum L2 testnets ever.

Thousands of Repositories Pre-Registered

• OSS developers are already engaging with the network, with thousands of open-source packages registered ahead of mainnet—including top-ranked repos from NPM, Homebrew, Debian, and PKGX.

Built-in Rewards for OSS

• Tea’s CHAI protocol autonomously ranks and rewards OSS maintainers based on real usage, with Sybil-resistant attribution and no need for wallet setup or token claims.

Zero-Setup GPG Wallets

• Claim and use TEA with your existing GPG key—no browser extension or MetaMask required. This gives us native access to millions of real developer identities across global open source.

First-Class GPG Identity Layer

• Tea’s Ethereum precompile makes it the first blockchain to natively support GPG signatures, turning signed commits into smart contract-controlled accounts—bridging OSS cryptography with on-chain functionality.

TEA is the Core Protocol Utility

• TEA fuels all activity on the network: it’s used for gas, governance, emissions, repo onboarding, and fee routing to micro-DAO treasuries.

On the path to the Universal App Store

• Tea’s identity (GPG), immutable package registry, and CHAI rewards form the building blocks for a permissionless, cross-OS app distribution layer (planned; not live at TGE).

TEA is minted at 100B tokens. A DAO-controlled ≤2% annual inflation valve—which can be offset by burns—keeps rewards flowing without runaway supply. Roughly 19% circulates at TGE; the rest unlocks over multi-year schedules to align every stakeholder with long-term success.

Inflation, burns, and treasury spending are subject to governance decisions by the teaDAO community, composed of network participants who have staked TEA to support the network’s ongoing development and security.

TEA exists to empower developers, users, and stakeholders to actively contribute to the functioning, governance, and security of the network. Its utility is embedded directly into every interaction with the protocol.

• Fueling all on-chain transactions (gas)
• Securing the network through protocol-wide staking
• Governing upgrades and grant flows via teaDAO
• Making onboarding frictionless via GPG wallets
• Enabling repo-level sub-tokens and fee flows (future roadmap)

Planned, subject to governance:

• App listing + distribution fees routed in TEA
• Verifiable app signatures tied to GPG identities
• Repo/app-level staking to curate, secure, and surface software

Core Principles 

Tea is built on principles that make the future of software distribution secure, transparent, and fair. Every package and app is verifiable, every developer is tied to a real identity, and every interaction routes value back to the people and projects that keep open source alive.

• Open by default: No black boxes—packages and apps are signed and auditable.
• Identity-native: GPG keys = developer accounts, not throwaway wallets.
• Aligned incentives: Usage fees, staking, and signed commits route value to maintainers, contributors, and dependencies.

Real Demand, Day One

• Gas: Every transaction on Tea’s OP-Stack chain consumes TEA, rewarding the Open Source stack and tying token demand to network activity.
• Staking (Protocol-Wide v1): Anyone can stake TEA into a single pool that backs the entire OSS graph, earning daily emissions and voting rights in teaDAO.
• Governance: Staked TEA = power to upgrade the protocol, tune inflation, and fund grants.
• Reward Wallets: Thanks to custom GPG + secp256r1 precompiles, developers can receive and even execute TEA transactions using nothing but their existing GPG key or hardware-secure r1 key—making onboarding instant for millions of coders.
• Zero-Knowledge ID Proofs: Tea integrates ZKPass attestations (verified through top exchanges) so rewards flow only to verified humans—real proof, zero spam.
• Future Repo-Level Staking: Road-mapped to let communities mint sub-tokens, govern treasuries, and funnel protocol rewards directly to their favorite projects via Brew.fun’s launchpad.

TEA's investors have embraced cliff and vesting schedules — a commitment that underscores their conviction in building a sustainable, long-term utility asset. 

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