JokeRace is an onchain contest protocol where communities create contests — anyone can submit entries, and the community votes to determine winners. It generalizes governance beyond proposals and grants into any competitive submission format: ideas, designs, memes, code, writing, and more. The protocol provides modular, composable contest infrastructure deployable on any EVM chain.
How It Works
- A contest is created — the organizer defines the prompt, voting rules, submission period, and rewards
- Entries are submitted — participants submit onchain responses to the contest prompt
- Voting occurs — designated voters (token holders, allowlisted addresses, etc.) vote on entries
- Winners are determined — entries with the most votes win
- Rewards are distributed — winners receive ETH, tokens, NFTs, or other rewards via smart contract
Advantages
- Generalizes governance beyond yes/no votes into creative, competitive contribution
- Fully onchain — submissions, votes, and rewards are all recorded immutably
- Modular — configurable voting token, submission requirements, and reward structures
- Engaging — contest format drives participation better than traditional governance
- Composable — contest results can feed into other onchain systems
Limitations
- Quality depends on voter engagement and expertise
- Popularity contests may not surface the best contributions
- Requires clear contest prompts — ambiguous prompts produce scattered entries
- Token-weighted voting can concentrate power
- Contest fatigue if overused
Best Used When
- A community wants to crowdsource ideas, content, or creative work
- Competitive formats will drive higher engagement than traditional governance
- Diverse contributions are desirable and quality can be assessed by community vote
- Onchain composability and transparency are important
Examples and Use Cases
Governance decisions — communities use JokeRace to crowdsource and select everything from branding to strategy to protocol upgrades.
Grants allocation — some communities run JokeRace contests to determine which projects receive funding, combining competitive submission with community voting.
Creative campaigns — meme contests, design competitions, and content creation challenges drive community engagement.
