tea, the protocol powering a reward economy for open-source software, today announced the availability of its token on CoinList (coinlist.co/tea), marking a key step toward building a sustainable and secure future for open-source development in the AI era.
The tea token enables a new open-source economy where developers are compensated for their contributions and security is built into the software supply chain.
As artificial intelligence accelerates application creation, the software ecosystem faces unprecedented strain. Daily app submissions are projected to surge from ~2,000 to more than 100,000. Traditional gatekeepers like Google and Apple are not designed to review this volume while maintaining strong security standards.
At the same time, open-source developers the builders of the foundational code that underpins modern technology remain underfunded, even as cloud giants generate billions from their work. The tea token directly addresses this imbalance by enabling developers to be rewarded for their contributions while strengthening the security and transparency of the global software supply chain.
"Anyone can now spin up an app over a weekend with AI, but security is too often an afterthought," said Timothy Lewis, CEO of pkgx. "tea ensures that open-source creators are fairly compensated for the value they provide, while giving end users confidence in the provenance of the software they rely on."
Proven Developer and User Demand
The tea protocol has already demonstrated strong traction through its testnet phases:
- Assam Testnet: 385 million wallets generated, followed by KYC verification in subsequent phases.
- Sepolia Testnet: 177,000 KYC-verified addresses and over 11 million wallets created in just eight weeks.
- 1 million+ estimated real users actively engaged across phases.
Developer participation in package reward staking has validated tea's approach and created momentum for the next stage of growth.
Building a New Open-Source Economy
At launch, open-source developers will be able to earn TEA tokens directly through the platform. Key features include:
- teaRank: A dynamic scoring system that rewards developers based on adoption and impact.
- Cryptographic Payments: Native GPG signature support enables direct rewards to developers' keys without intermediaries.
- BounTea: An incentive mechanism that allows maintainers to attach TEA rewards to issues and pull requests across many Git environments; including GitHub, GitLab, and other popular versions, and creating direct incentives for contributors to resolve bugs, add features, and improve code quality.
By tying rewards directly to developer provenance and contributions, tea establishes economic incentives for ongoing innovation and ensures long-term sustainability in the open-source ecosystem.
Market Timing and Ecosystem Focus
The token launch comes at a favorable moment, as clearer regulatory frameworks in the United States encourage blockchain innovation. tea is well positioned to benefit from this environment, alongside the rapid growth of Ethereum-based infrastructure and the rising demand for decentralized application distribution models.
About tea
tea is building the foundational infrastructure for secure, transparent application distribution in the AI era. Founded by Max Howell, creator of Homebrew (100M+ users, billions of installs), and Tim Lewis (Ikigai Asset Management, DEVxDAO), tea has created a real-time dependency graph mapping the open-source ecosystem. By addressing the "Nebraska Problem", the unpaid and unrewarded developers whose work powers today's digital economy, tea enables open-source creators to monetize their contributions while ensuring security and transparency for end users.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding tea's development plans, token distribution, and market expectations. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250925269201/en/
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