This year is significant for us, and we’re kicking it off with a bang by launching our first Take Off scholarship program of 2024, this time fully sponsored by Talent Protocol. We will return to a familiar place, where we were very happy last year: ETHDenver.

What is Take Off?

Take Off, our flagship scholarship initiative, continues to serve as the golden ticket for web3 builders worldwide, opening doors to their inaugural IRL hackathon experience.

The Take Off scholarship includes:

• ✈️ A flight refund of up to $750 (paid in USDT)

• 🏠 Shared accommodation for the duration of the program

• 🧑🏻‍🎓 Exclusive access to the Take Off alumni community

It’s more than attending an event; it’s about immersing yourself in an ecosystem, connecting with other brilliant minds, and accelerating professional growth. With 100+ individuals benefiting from our previous editions, we're more excited than ever for what's next.

Touchdown in Denver

Our next stop? The mile-high city of Denver. Participants will be part of the highly anticipated ETHDenver, where they can experience one of the biggest hackathons of the year, submit a project, and attend numerous talks by experts in the ecosystem.

How to Apply

Ready to be part of this transformative journey? Applications are officially open until January 16th. For a detailed step-by-step guide on the application process, head over to our “How to Apply Guide”:

Don’t delay — submit your application today. The earlier, the better.

How Does the Selection Work?

We're once again empowering our community to vote for their favorite Take Off candidates.

Principles of Community Voting:

1. Voting as a cost: a small financial cost can help prevent bots and fake votes, ensuring an engaged and motivated voter base.

2. Dynamic pricing: not all votes cost the same; voting on popular candidates, who are more likely to win, should cost more than voting on hidden gems.

3. Voting cost increases linearly: the first vote costs 1 $TAL, the second 2 $TAL, the third 3 $TAL, and so on.

We're on a mission to make the process more democratic and engaging, and to explore new utilities for the $TAL token.

Voting will open on January 9th and close on the 18th at 11:59. Check how to vote in our full guide: Take Off — How To Vote Guide

Why Should I Pay to Vote?

Voting isn't just a process; it's an experience. Voting shouldn't only be fair, but also fun and rewarding (both financially and emotionally).

The cost of a vote is very little, but it can mean the world to the person you’re helping. This should be your main motivation to vote...but there's more. If you've got a knack for spotting winners, there's a $TAL bonus waiting for you.

All $TAL spent on votes goes into a prize pool. After a 10% protocol fee deduction, this pool will be redistributed among those who voted for the winners (proportionally to their winning votes), ensuring everyone has a stake in the game.

The more the total votes, the bigger the prize pool. And the more winning votes you have, the bigger the share of it you’ll get. It’s a win-win outcome for all.

New Features

We learnt from past votings, so for this edition we came up with a few improvements:

• Track your stats: Now you have a stats page inside the voting page, where you can track all the $TAL you spend, amount of votes and also how much are you earning.

• Notifications in-app and mail: Not being aware of what is going on was a problem for some users. Now, you will get in-app and email notifications on the updates of your candidates. (you can turn them off in settings)

• Leaderboard change: See in real time how candidates fight for the top spots.

• Fair usage tax: To reduce the impact of $TAL whales, we implemented a fair usage tax system that increases gradually the more votes a user cast on each candidate.

  • How it works: TAX will be implemented based on the total amount of $TAL a user spent on an individual candidate. This means the TAX is for each individual and will not affect other votes.

  • Tax per Total amount of $TAL spent on each candidate.

    • 0 to 150 $TAL → 0% fee

    • 100 to 500 $TAL → 2,5% fee

    • 500 to 1k $TAL → 5%

    • 1k to 5k $TAL → 10% fee

    • 5k to 10k $TAL → 20% fee

    • > 10k $TAL → 25% fee

Join us and vote for Take Off Denver.

For all things related to Take Off and more, keep an eye on our Twitter for real-time updates. And before you dive in, make sure to glance through our Terms & Conditions.

Stay curious, stay connected, and let's take off together in Denver! 💜