The Art Of Paying It Forward
A Part Of Tezos Culture Provable On The Ledger
10 minute read
Everything that comes our way has to be taken from somewhere else first. Energy is not created, and it does not disappear. It is simply harnessed, released, and recycled. So why is it so easy to take without giving back in modern society? I think part of it is visibility, an out of sight, out of mind mentality operating at scale. When we give, we seek out validation, and when we are selfish, we hide from criticism. This pattern is rooted in a culture that treats every exchange as a business transaction, while life itself is built on reciprocal exchange, the give and take that allows living things to flourish.
I have drawn this comparison before in Art Appreciation Online and several other pieces. The current web, and the culture around it, often rewards extraction, while the web being built for tomorrow is rooted in expansion. On Tezos, there is no out of sight, out of mind. Every exchange is transparent. Energy flows openly and efficiently, in this case carrying data. That data is just code, but that code carries the value of human input. Human input is inherently creative.
Energy may not be created, but when it is shared creatively, it expands rather than retracting. Creativity drives energy forward. Monetization, however, can introduce friction. The moment art starts to be traded, a choice appears between cashing out and paying it forward.
The Ledger Never Lies #
The quality that shaped Tezos culture most is rather simple. Everything is visible and truly decentralized. When I open a fellow artist’s profile on Teia or Objkt, I can see their entire wallet history, including who has collected from them and who they have supported in return. Generosity leaves a trail, and that trail reveals that the average person using Tezos has a sense of integrity, empathy, and, just as importantly here, foresight. There is a shared awareness that the ecosystem thrives on liquidity and the artists using it thrive on reciprocity.
That visibility changes behavior in quiet ways. Out of sight, out of mind stops working when nothing is out of sight. A collector who recently accepted a huge offer can be seen putting that tez straight back into new artists. An artist who lands a big sale can be seen sweeping friends’ editions that same evening. A community reward winner can be seen moving their tez into the prize pool for an open call they organized. The same holds at the individual scale and across the wider culture of how the Tezos community transacts with integrity.
Circular Rewards #
For some of us, the groundwork for that habit was laid even before art arrived on Tezos in NFT form. The Community Rewards Program, known around the ecosystem as TezosCRP, is a Tezos Commons initiative that issues tez awards every month to people who stand out in merit and act in the interest of the Tezos ecosystem as a whole. Nominations come from the community itself through a short form or the #TezosCRP tag on social media, and anyone can nominate anyone. I wrote about it in more detail in Why Tezos CRP?
I may still be writing about this from the inside as part of the Tezos Commons team, but I also sat on the other side of the program for several years. My jump start on Tezos didn’t come from art sales. In fact, I couldn’t even sell my art as NFTs when I joined Tezos. Instead, I was nominated for and received Tezos CRP awards several times. This served as objective validation that people in the Tezos community saw value in me, and that tez enabled me to try all the dApps, learn DeFi, and unknowingly prepare for what was coming when hic et nunc arrived. In other words, it also enabled me to appreciate and grow my own skill sets.
What makes CRP a core example of paying it forward is what tends to happen after the tez lands. In a recent article spotlighting TheTezosCommunity (TTC), we visited a longstanding example where CRP awards have funded grassroots development of new tools, outreach, activities, and open calls. A reward that recognizes an outstanding community becomes fuel for the work that earned it. The recipients stay, collect from artists they admire, and the same tez that recognized one contribution goes on to support several more. Over months and years, that circulation shows up on-chain as a web of support.
Stay And Play #
Earning tez and spending it inside the ecosystem is one of the community’s most consistent habits, because the time spent here is fun and meaningful. I think of it as stay-and-play. When you earn tez from a trade or from an art sale, you can have your stake and spend it too. Put some away long term and earn rewards through staking, collect an artwork you have been admiring, or try out a new dApp and tip the developer if it’s helpful. The options range from art and community events to DeFi and beyond. It’s always a good idea to have some tez on hand to try new things and actually use the network. It’s so much more than prices and charts, and if you are only watching the charts, you are missing the beauty.
Everyone loves money when it’s enough to change your life, sure, but at every scale there is so much good that can be done when we put a portion of our good fortune back into things we believe in. A single art purchase, a small tip, or an afternoon spent helping someone set up a wallet, every bit of it counts.
Impact Beyond The Bubble #
As just one strong example, Art4LifeTez, an initiative funded by a TEIA grant with support from the Tezos Art Network, offered honorariums to artists making work about blood donation. That carried into the real world in a unique and significant way. As always, artists paid it forward in tez to support fellow artists of the initiative, but many also paid it forward in actual blood, donations that literally went on to save lives.
This is the same pattern I described in When People Use Tech For Good, an article that gathered many cases where artists donated work, collectors stepped into philanthropic roles, and funds moved transparently to the people who needed them. Disaster relief is the most visible version of paying it forward. The everyday version is quieter, but it carries just as much weight long term. It shows up everywhere, from a collector picking up a newcomer’s genesis mint to an artist airdropping editions to longtime supporters and a builder spending their income on art from the people who use their platform. A lot of feel-good, reciprocal transactions are happening on and off chain.
Everything In Moderation #
Paying it forward needs balance like everything else, which brings me back to Everything In Moderation. Without moderation, we deplete our Social Escrow reserves, the shared pool of attention and energy that grows from feel-good moments and drains from fear and uncertainty. Generosity can drain that same pool when it turns into performance or obligation.
The healthiest givers I know on Tezos give within their means, take care of themselves first, and trust that consistency carries more weight than any single grand gesture. It can be as simple as collecting from a new artist, donating to a crowdfunding campaign on TTCrowd, or spending a little time helping a fellow artist or collector get onboarded. Those small efforts, made every week, do more for the culture than a large gesture made once for show. On Tezos, we would rather share a million meaningful moments than produce a few millionaires from thin air.
Different Circumstances #
The same transparency that makes generosity visible also makes comparison easy. When every wallet is public, it becomes tempting to measure our own giving against someone else’s, or to quietly judge those who seem to give way less than they earn. That kind of comparison turns a cultural habit into a scoreboard, and scoreboards belong to the old internet. This is not a competition. Paying it forward works best as an individual act, shaped by each person’s ability and place in life.
Not everyone on Tezos is in a position to give back right now, and that is okay. Some artists are selling work to cover rent and groceries. Some collectors are rebuilding after a hard year, and some newcomers are still finding their footing in a space that can feel overwhelming at first. A wallet history shows transactions, and it never shows the circumstances behind them. Security has to come first, because giving from a place of scarcity can turn reciprocity into resentment.
Just remember, there is a dynamic human being behind all that data, and receiving is part of the cycle too. Every act of paying it forward needs someone on the other end, and there is no shame in taking the wins you need most and changing your life for the better. Many of the most generous people on Tezos today started out on the receiving end. I am one of them.
Energy In Motion #
I know both sides of this exchange well. When I first arrived on Tezos, I had nothing to give but time and effort. I could not sell my art as NFTs yet, and I was struggling financially and desperate to find another path forward. The CRP awards I received were what set my Tezos journey in full motion, allowing me to explore, learn, and find my footing. By the time hic et nunc arrived, I was ready to support the oncoming wave of new artists. I started a Telegram channel dedicated to bringing new users and projects together, and I was able to be in all the right places with the right knowledge to benefit greatly. I did so without any guarantee of financial compensation.
Thanks to the people who took the time to nominate me for CRP, and to a community that decided my contributions deserved recognition before I had much of anything to show for them, I am still here today with a stronger foundation at my feet. I kept going for several years, rain or shine, eventually finding my work with Tezos Commons. Every artist I have collected, every newcomer I have helped onboard, and every article I have written since carries some of that early energy forward, with gratitude.
That is the version of paying it forward I believe in most. It moves at the pace each of us can sustain, and it never asks anyone to prove their generosity beyond what sits on the public ledger. Energy may not be created, but on Tezos I have watched it expand each time someone passes along a little of what they received. For my part, I will keep collecting, writing, and passing along what was once passed to me.