fetch quests changelog

Changes and updates to a quest log for the modern technical worker

March 7.5, 2026 (oops)

The $ANORAK Platform Token (f/k/a FQT)

So the ticker FQT was already taken. I learned this roughly four hours after writing the entry below. Classic. The token formerly known as FQT is now $ANORAK, named after the legendary creator in Ready Player one and also happens to be the highest standing of Demonstrated Benevolence on the platform. Honestly it is a better name. FQT sounded like a medical abbreviation.

Everything described in the March 7 entry still applies. Same ERC-20 on Base, same engagement rewards, same Side Quests, same supply cap mechanics, same UUPS proxy, same role-gated minting. The only change is the name and ticker. If you read the entry above and mentally find-and-replace FQT with $ANORAK, you are caught up.

The Shadow Ticker

While $ANORAK is the name known to the masses, the contract metadata contains a deeper layer. A Shadow Ticker has been embedded: 9HJWLITBUF. This string is the encoded essence of Fetch Quests’ core mission. Those seeking entry to the Six Gates must use the protocol’s Master Key to decode the True Name hidden within. If you know, you know. If you don’t, that is the point.

March 7, 2026

FQT Platform Token

The USDC-only decision on February 28 was the right call for quest payments but it created an onboarding problem. New users have to create a wallet, buy USDC through Coinbase (identity verification, bank transfer, on-ramp transaction), and only then can they post or accept a quest. That second step is where most non-crypto-native developers bounce.

FQT is an ERC-20 utility token on Base that solves this. When you register your wallet, you automatically receive 50 FQT as an airdrop which is enough to create a Side Quest or accept one. You can create quests, accept work, earn rewards, leave reviews, and build reputation before purchasing a single dollar of crypto. USDC remains the main payment modality while FQT is similar to WoW gold.

Engagement Rewards

FQT is earned through participation. The default emission amounts are (with more to come):

100 FQT per quest completion
50 FQT per benevolent action
50 FQT registration airdrop
25 FQT per review submission

Oracle Rank Boost

The Oracle now factors FQT holdings into rank calculations. Holding FQT provides an additive boost to incentive share probability: 100 basis points per 1,000 FQT held, capped at 10%. The cap prevents whales from dominating incentive share purely through token accumulation. The boost is additive instead of multiplicative so it layers on top of existing probability from reputation and quest completions and doesn’t compound.

Doubling Season Integration

During a Doubling Season, quest completion rewards are multiplied by the doubling season multiplier (default 2x, configurable). A quest that normally awards 100 FQT awards 200 FQT during a Doubling Season. This stacks with the existing 2x incentive share multiplier from the Season Controller, meaning Doubling Seasons are now doubly rewarding in both USDC incentive probability and FQT token earnings.

Side Quests

Side Quests are FQT-denominated community quests. A giver posts a quest funded with FQT instead of USDC and farmers complete it for FQT rewards. Side Quests are designed for work that does not warrant a USDC bounty such as code reviews, documentation help, mentoring sessions, answering questions, community moderation, or testing new features.

Side Quests build reputation identically to regular quests. Quest completion counts, review eligibility, and reputation score changes all work the same way. The one intentional difference is that Side Quest completions do not count toward Dreyfus farmer rank progression. This prevents gaming where someone creates trivial FQT quests to inflate their rank. You still need real USDC quest completions to advance from Novice to Professional to Expert, for example.

Quest escrow contracts already accepted any ERC-20 through its initialize() parameter, so Side Quests required zero changes to QuestEscrow, the protocol just passes FQT token addresses instead of USDC when deploying Side Quest clones.

Supply Cap

FQT has an optional supply cap that defaults to uncapped. The community DAO can set a maximum total supply at any time, and setting it to zero removes the cap. The cap cannot be set below the current total supply, preventing a scenario where minting is accidentally bricked. If the cap is reached, all mint functions revert with SupplyCapExceeded until the cap is raised or removed. I am leaving this uncapped at launch because the emission config gives enough control over inflation rate without needing a hard ceiling.

Technical Implementation

FQT is a standard ERC-20 deployed as a UUPS upgradeable proxy with role-gated minting. Only addresses with MINTER_ROLE can mint tokens. At deployment, MINTER_ROLE is granted to FetchQuestsProtocol (mints on quest completion and dispute wins), ReputationRegistry (mints on wallet registration and benevolent actions), and ReviewRegistry (mints on review submission).

The contract uses 18 decimals (standard ERC-20, unlike USDC’s 6). It inherits from OpenZeppelin’s ERC20Upgradeable, ERC20BurnableUpgradeable, AccessControlUpgradeable, and UUPSUpgradeable. Users can burn their own FQT and transfer freely. The __gap storage slot reservation ensures future upgrades can add state variables without colliding with existing storage.

Five contracts were modified to enable FQT functionality: FetchQuestsProtocol gained Side Quest creation and FQT hooks on quest completion, FetchQuestsOracle gained the rank boost calculation, ReputationRegistry mints FQT on registration and benevolent actions, and ReviewRegistry mints FQT on review submission.

A note that coinbase paymaster covers gas for all FQT operations on Base as well, so Smart Wallet users pay zero gas for minting, transferring, or spending FQT which is a huge win.

March 4, 2026

Doubling Season

Doubling Season takes its name from the Magic: the Gathering card and works similarly. A dedicated season contract randomly selects one upcoming season to become a Doubling Season; it lasts only that single season (two weeks by design) and cannot be extended. During the chosen season all incentive share probabilities are doubled. Reviews, on‑chain actions that earn probability, and any other network interactions that feed incentive share chance count twice as much while the season is active. The randomness of the contract means farmers can only anticipate that a Doubling Season will occur, not when – the extra reward window is revealed at the start of the season itself.

Alongside each Doubling Season an exclusive Doubling Season NFT becomes mintable (one per wallet per season). Holding this NFT grants a small additive increase to your incentive share probability during normal (non‑doubling) times, giving early participants a lasting edge.

The mechanic is designed to add excitement and encourage continued participation; even when a season isn’t active the NFT provides a modest boost that rewards collectors.

March 3, 2026

Gasless Transactions via Coinbase Smart Wallet & Paymaster

Fetch Quests no longer requires users to hold ETH for gas fees. I integrated Coinbase Smart Wallet as the primary wallet connector, allowing new users to create a wallet instantly using a passkey (Face ID, fingerprint, or security key). Combined with the Coinbase Developer Platform Paymaster, all transaction gas on Base is sponsored automatically, meaning users only ever need USDC. Existing MetaMask users can still connect via the “Use MetaMask instead” option.

This change is entirely at the frontend/wallet layer so no smart contract modifications were needed. The Paymaster intercepts transactions before they reach the chain and covers the gas cost (fractions of a cent on Base) on the user’s behalf. If Coinbase Paymaster sponsorship is ever discontinued, the architecture supports a fallback to an ERC-4337 USDC Paymaster where users pay gas in USDC instead of ETH (~$0.001 per transaction). The practical effect is that the onboarding flow drops from five steps (install MetaMask → create wallet → acquire ETH → switch network → use app) to one: click Connect and authenticate with your fingerprint.

New Guild Rank Structure

Guilds now have a formal rank hierarchy. The four guild roles and their corresponding internal rank names are Keykeeper (Guild Master), Gatekeeper (Officer), Wanderer (Guild Member), and Dreamer (New Member/Initiate). These ranks will be used for permissioning within guilds and for displaying status on profiles and leaderboards. The change lays groundwork for future guild governance and role‑based quest invitations.

March 2, 2026

The Six Gates: A Puzzle Hunt for Community DAO Membership

Prospective Fetch Quests DAO members now have a pathway to earn a place in the Community DAO: Six Gates, a 6-gate puzzle hunt available at genesiscreator.me. The game is designed to identify individuals with tenacity, problem-solving ability, and genuine curiosity about the Fetch Quests vision.

Six Gates challenges players to solve riddles, complete interactive games, and prove episodic memory across six sequential gates. Each gate builds on previous learnings and introduces new mechanics. Completion is non-trivial; it requires sustained attention and lateral thinking. Participants who successfully navigate all six gates receive a unique Genesis Code and a final quest that they must complete to be considered.

This mechanism serves multiple purposes. First, it filters for people who care enough to engage deeply. Second, it tests for cognitive diversity, surfacing those who can think across domains and connect abstract concepts. Third, it creates a shared experience and ritual for founding members, establishing a common foundation for governance. Finally, it ensures that early DAO members have demonstrated understanding of the platform’s values and mechanics before being granted governance rights.

Genesis Codes are unique and non-transferrable.

Fetch Quests Documentation and Arcturis AI

Fetch Quests documentation is now live at docs.fetchquests.org. The docs provide comprehensive guides on platform mechanics, rank progression, quest creation, DAO governance, and more. For real-time help, Arcturis, Fetch Quests’ AI bot, can answer questions directly at docs.fetchquests.org/questions. Arcturis is trained on the full documentation and can provide context-aware answers to platform-specific questions, making onboarding and troubleshooting faster and more accessible.

Fetch Quests Deployment: Base (Arbitrum L2)

Fetch Quests will deploy to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum L2, as the primary network for all quest transactions, payments, and smart contracts. This decision was driven by economics, ecosystem fit, and user experience.

Comparison: Base vs. Ethereum Mainnet

Dimension	Base	Ethereum Mainnet
Gas per quest deploy	~$0.01–0.05 (with EIP-4844 blobs)	~$5–30 depending on congestion
Gas per releaseFunds()	~$0.005–0.02	~$2–10
Full contract suite deploy	~$5–20 total	~$800–2,500 total
Finality	~2 sec L2 + ~12 min L1 settlement	~12 min
USDC	Native USDC (Circle-issued on Base)	Native USDC
Security model	Inherits Ethereum L1 security via fault proofs	Direct L1 security
Ecosystem	Coinbase on/off-ramp, growing DeFi	Largest ecosystem, most battle-tested
Block explorer	BaseScan (Etherscan infra)	Etherscan
ENS support	Requires L1 lookup (already handled in ens.ts)	Native
User onboarding	Coinbase Wallet users can fund directly	Higher barrier, more gas to start

Why Base is the Right Call for Fetch Quests

Transaction Volume Economics: Every quest creation, acceptance, completion, dispute, and reputation update is an on-chain transaction. At Ethereum L1 gas prices, a single quest lifecycle (create + accept + complete + release) could cost $15–50. On Base, the same lifecycle costs ~$0.05–0.15. Developers and quest creators won’t tolerate $15 in gas fees for a $200 quest. Base makes the platform economically viable for everyday use.

USDC-First Design: Circle issues native USDC directly on Base—no bridged or wrapped tokens. Since Fetch Quests is USDC-only by spec, this native integration eliminates intermediaries and simplifies the payment pipeline.

EVM Equivalence: Solidity is Solidity. All 14 OpenZeppelin contracts, all Hardhat and Foundry tooling, and all development practices are identical between Ethereum and Base. The smart contracts require zero modifications. Developers familiar with Ethereum immediately understand Base deployment.

Coinbase Ecosystem: Coinbase Smart Wallet, direct fiat on-ramps through Coinbase, and a large developer community lower friction for onboarding non-crypto-native developers. This aligns with Fetch Quests’ goal of making technical work accessible to developers at all experience levels.

Deployment Cost: Deploying 14 contracts on Ethereum could run $800–2,500. On Base, the cost is under $20. This represents a 99% reduction in deployment friction and allows for more flexible, frequent contract updates and iterations.

Structured Funding and Mentorship: Base Batches, the ecosystem’s founder program, provides comprehensive support for projects at scale. The program includes three phases: (1) a Buildathon phase with direct Base team mentorship and technical feedback, (2) a 4-week structured incubator program to validate product-market fit and refine business model, and (3) a Pitch Day to present to top-tier investors including Coinbase Ventures. Cohorts receive direct mentorship from Base team members, access to exclusive infrastructure and partnership resources, investor introductions, and deep protocol-level ecosystem integration. Deploying on Base positions Fetch Quests to access this structured path for sustainable growth and institutional funding as the platform scales.

February 28, 2026

Domain and Name

The platform will live at fetchquests.org. I chose “Fetch Quests” rather than something like “Side Quests” because fetch quests is more representative of the actual work, side quests are more trivial. Fetch quests are simple, straightforward, and repeatable. The name fetch quest also reinforces the operational constraint of quests in that they are scoped, bounded, and repeatable in two‑week Seasons.

Mailbox

Fetch Quests’ new mailbox serves as the single point of contact for on-platform interactions. Currently, mail allows sending messages, eventually the goal is to be able to handle USDC transfers between wallets as simply as sending a note, notification of private quests, guild invitations. Also on the roadmap as are lower priority features like marketing announcements, platform updates, and even advertisements for guilds or quests to increase engagement.

Currency

To eliminate needless complexity all transactions will now be denominated in USDC, including quest reward payouts. Supporting USD or a mix of tokens only creates accounting headaches and complicated KYC. I do have a goal of making it easy to purchase USDC throgh a smart contract funded by the Community DAO or Incentive treasuries, which will make onboarding easier than the current flow required to purchase USDC through MetaMask or other wallet providers. I know how painful aquiring crypto can be so at launch I’ll make sure it is as easy and seamless as possible.

Authentication

Fetch Quests relies heavily on GitHub for quest creation, issue tracking, and CI automation, while payments and rewards are managed on‑chain and tied directly to wallet addresses. To keep these pieces connected, registering as a Farmer or Giver now requires linking a GitHub account and a MetaMask wallet. Fetch Quests uses a natively developed GitHub app to create repos, read issues, and trigger CI workflows when quests are completed; it uses the MetaMask wallet for all on‑chain payments, both incoming (quest rewards) and outgoing (funding quests). The dual‑auth flow is performed at registration and whenever profile information changes, ensuring wallet addresses stays correct and are properly associated with the GitHub identity powering respective automation.

Farmer Onboarding Tutorial

Earning the novice badge and the privilege of accepting quests is no longer automatic. Every new Farmer must navigate a structured onboarding quest that teaches the platform’s technical and social infrastructure. It begins with a GitHub login and OAuth verification, followed by a profile change pushed to a YAML file in the repo that a GitHub Action audits for the required fields. The farmer then reads the wiki pages on ranks, incentive share mechanics, and Community DAO governance before answering a short quiz; incorrect responses prompt hints and allow retakes. The part of the toutorial sends farmers to the Quality Prompts tool (either the web app or the GitHub repository) to generate a minimal Jekyll blog. If the Farmer already maintains a blog, they may link the existing repository instead of creating a new one. Either way the site must include their username and a brief self‑intro as a farmer; a GitHub Action inspects the repository and returns errors if it’s not properly structured, lacks _config.yml, or omits the required text. Passing this sequence awards the novice badge and unlocks quest acceptance.

Additional Notes

Because Fetch Quests mailbox is the pipeline for everything related to a user, feature announcements and critical notices are guaranteed to land where they’ll be seen. All of the changes outlined above apply retroactively; revisiting the site shows updated mechanics while existing quests and badges remain unchanged.

February 21, 2026

Quest Mechanics: Sniping and Slot Controls

After more thought on competitive multi-slot quests, I realized the original design had a gap. If multiple Farmers can work on the same quest simultaneously, and one Farmer regularly swoops in at the last moment to claim rewards from quests others have been working on, that creates a toxic dynamic. The platform now tracks this behavior as sniping. Farmers who repeatedly win rewards on quests where other Farmers were already actively working earn negative reputation for doing so. This negative reputation decreases their Incentive Share payout probability and appears publicly on the leaderboard under a Negative Reputation section. The goal is to discourage opportunistic behavior that undermines collaboration without eliminating healthy competition entirely.

Givers now have more granular control over quest slots. A Giver can limit a quest to single-Farmer mode, meaning only one Farmer can work on it at a time. Doing so increases Giver reputation, increases the probability of receiving a Community DAO bonus on stale quests, and has a chance of reducing the protocol fee by 0.5%. This incentivizes Givers to create fairer quest structures when appropriate. Competitive multi-slot quests still exist for bounty-style work, but the tradeoffs are now explicit.

Quest Restrictions: Rank and Skill Requirements

Givers can now restrict quests to Farmers of a specific rank or higher. For example, a Giver might specify that only Professional Farmers or above can accept a particular quest. This allows Givers to match quest complexity with Farmer experience. However, rank-restricted quests have decreased probability of receiving the Community DAO stale quest bonus and the 0.5% fee reduction. The platform nudges Givers toward openness while still allowing restrictions when genuinely needed.

Givers can also restrict quests to Farmers who have demonstrated experience with a specific skill. Skills include programming languages like JavaScript, Rust, Python, Go, TypeScript, Solidity, C++, Java, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, and Haskell. They also include frameworks and specializations like React, Vue, Angular, Node.js, Django, Rails, Spring, blockchain development, smart contract auditing, web development, backend systems, full-stack engineering, mobile development, DevOps, infrastructure, data engineering, machine learning, and cryptography. Skill-restricted quests have lower Incentive Share chances, lower fee reduction chances, and lower stale quest bonus probability. The tradeoff is intentional. Open quests benefit from stronger platform incentives, while restricted quests trade those benefits for precision in matching work to workers.

Skills are extensible. If a Giver lists a skill that does not already exist on the platform, perhaps a new programming language, a niche framework, or an emerging specialization like quantum cryptography, the system generates a badge and skill acquisition pathway for it automatically. The new skill follows the same Dreyfus-based ranking structure as all other skills, and Farmers can mint badges for it once they reach the relevant thresholds. This keeps the platform adaptive without requiring manual curation for every new technology that emerges.

Farmer Collaboration: Benevolent Mechanics

A Farmer can now choose to help another Farmer on an open quest without claiming any reward for themselves. When a Farmer delegates their share of the work to another Farmer, they earn reputation toward Benevolent Farmer status instead of quest rewards. This mechanic creates a path for experienced Farmers to give back to the community in a way that is visible, trackable, and rewarded. Guilds can do the same, helping individual Farmers on quests to earn Benevolent Guild status.

Benevolent status follows its own tier system. A Farmer or Guild that delegates rewards 100 times earns Benevolent rank and can mint the Benevolent badge. At 200 delegations, they reach Good Benevolent. At 300, Mass Benevolent. At 400, Extreme Benevolent. At 1000, the highest tier, Anorak Benevolent, named after the legendary genesis creator from Ready Player One. Each tier increases Incentive Share payout probability substantially. The platform rewards generosity because generosity makes the ecosystem healthier.

There is a prerequisite added to the Master Farmer rank. A Farmer cannot reach Master Farmer without first achieving at least Mass Benevolent status and holding the corresponding badge. This ensures that the highest-ranked Farmers on the platform have demonstrated a commitment to helping others, not just personal achievement. Mastery includes mentorship.

Skill Badges and Portable Credentials

Farmers can now earn skill badges that are separate from their general reputation rank. When a Farmer completes quests requiring a specific skill they had not previously demonstrated, they earn progress toward that skill badge. Skills follow the Dreyfus model just like Farmer ranks. A Farmer might be a Professional Farmer overall but an Expert in Solidity and a Novice in Python. Each skill has its own progression, its own badge mintable at each rank, and its own visibility on the Farmer’s profile.

Givers can specify skill rank requirements on quests. A quest might require Professional-level JavaScript but be open to all Farmer ranks otherwise. If a newer Farmer completes that quest successfully, they earn credit toward Professional JavaScript skill rank, effectively bootstrapping their credentials in that area. This creates paths for Farmers to build specialized reputations even if their overall Farmer rank is still early.

As with all badges on the platform, skill badge minting costs are covered by the Farmer. The badges are wallet-portable, on-chain verifiable, and belong to the Farmer permanently.

Negative Reputation and Public Accountability

The leaderboard and Oracle now track negative reputation publicly. This includes sniping reputation for Farmers who repeatedly claim rewards from quests where others were actively working, and malicious dispute reputation for Givers who develop a pattern of disputing completed quests in bad faith. Negative reputation affects Incentive Share probability and appears on the leaderboard in a dedicated section. The goal is transparency. If someone has a history of bad behavior, that history should be visible to everyone considering working with them.

Demonstrated Benevolence: The Highest Standing

The highest and most favorable standing on the platform is Demonstrated Benevolence. This applies to both Farmers and Guilds. A Demonstrated Benevolence Farmer or Guild is one who has maintained a streak of only helping others, never claiming quest rewards for themselves, and earning all income exclusively through Incentive Share payouts generated by their Benevolent activity. This is a standing, not a rank, meaning it exists alongside the Farmer or Guild’s existing rank and Benevolent tier. It represents the purest expression of the platform’s cooperative values.

Demonstrated Benevolence status generates the highest Incentive Share probability weighting on the platform. It also earns a unique badge and a featured position on the leaderboard. The status is lost if the Farmer or Guild claims a quest reward, resetting the streak.

Conflict of Interest Limiter

To prevent gaming, there is now a conflict of interest limiter for Benevolent activity. If a Benevolent Farmer or Guild repeatedly helps the same Farmer over and over, they can trigger a conflict of interest flag. This temporarily decreases their reputation for two consecutive Seasons. The goal is to prevent reputation farming schemes where two parties collude to inflate Benevolent standing and then extract value off-platform. Genuine benevolence is distributed across many different Farmers. Concentrated benevolence looks like collusion and gets penalized accordingly.

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