What is TALENT?

Introducing Talent Protocol: Bringing Professional Reputation onchain

We’re pleased to announce that Talent Protocol (TALENT) is now available to trade on Uphold! 

In a world dominated by AI-generated noise and inefficient hiring processes, it’s harder than ever for talented professionals to be seen. Traditional resumes often fail to reflect a person’s true capabilities, and hiring managers are forced to scour multiple platforms looking for candidates.

The impact of ineffective hiring is staggering - employee disengagement alone costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually. Talent Protocol aims to address these pain points by bringing professional reputation data onchain, creating a more transparent and verifiable system to better display and find top talent.

What is the Talent Protocol?

Talent Protocol offers a decentralized ecosystem where professional reputations can be established, verified, and leveraged in real-time. The platform focuses on three key components:

1. Talent Passport – A smart, self-updating, AI-powered professional profile that consolidates scattered data.
2. Talent API – A data engine that connects users and organizations, offering access to rich reputation data.
3. TALENT Token – The utility token that powers the Talent Protocol ecosystem, encouraging high-quality data contributions.

Talent Passport: A Verifiable, Self-Updating Professional Profile

The Talent Passport provides users with an AI-powered profile that aggregates and verifies data from several sources, including GitHub, LinkedIn, and Coinbase. This brings together their achievements, contributions, and endorsements in real-time, providing an in-depth look into a person's professional reputation.

Key features of the Talent Passport:

• Verifiable: All data is sourced from third-party providers, helping to ensure its authenticity.
• Portable: Users can access their professional reputation instantly across integrated apps.
• Self-updating: Data is aggregated automatically, reducing the burden of manual updates.
• AI-enhanced: The profile is enriched by AI, offering a deeper analysis of achievements and contributions.

This dynamic resume allows builders to consolidate their fragmented online data into a single, trusted profile, helping to reduce bias and increase accuracy.

Credentials: The Backbone of the Talent Passport

At the heart of the Talent Passport are Credentials, which aggregate data from web2 and web3 sources to provide verifiable indicators of a user’s professional reputation. Credentials are divided into three categories—Identity, Activity, and Skills—and collectively contribute to a user’s Builder Score.

• Identity Credentials: Verify the authenticity of the user, helping separate real humans from bots or fake accounts. 
• Activity Credentials: Showcase a user’s participation in trusted networks and activities, helping distinguish active contributors from passive users. 
• Skills Credentials: Highlight specific areas of expertise, particularly for onchain builders, making this category a unique layer of reputation within Talent Protocol. 

Examples of credentials include having over 1,000 followers on X or participating in ETHGlobalhackathons. These credentials are aggregated into easy-to-read indicators that provide a quick, verifiable snapshot of a user’s achievements and skills.

The Builder Score: Quantifying Professional Reputation

The Builder Score is the sum of all the credentials within a user’s Talent Passport, and it serves as a real-time reflection of their onchain professional reputation. The score, which has no upper limit, increases over time as more credentials and data integrations are added.

The Builder Score offers several advantages:

• Distinguishing Builders: It helps differentiate true builders—those who invest time and effort to create shared value—from casual users.
• Recognition: Users with high Builder Scores can stand out in competitive markets, gaining visibility and credibility.
• Customizable: Different apps can integrate Talent Protocol’s Builder Score and create customized scoring systems based on their unique requirements.
• Integration: Apps like Etherscan and Basenames already integrate the Builder Score, using it to curate top talent and personalize user experiences.

For users committed to maintaining a trusted, professional reputation, the Talent Protocol app offers the ability to mint their Talent Passport, which enhances their profile’s portability and interoperability. Minting the passport involves recording a snapshot of the Builder Score and credentials onchain, with regular updates to keep the profile relevant and accurate.

Why Onchain Reputation is Important

By bringing professional reputation onchain, Talent Protocol seeks to address several key challenges faced in today’s job market:

• Open Access: All data in the Talent Passport is publicly accessible, reducing the need for manual background checks.
• Verifiable: Credentials are transparent and verifiable, providing confidence in the data's authenticity.
• Interoperable: Talent Passport credentials can be easily integrated with other platforms, enhancing visibility and opportunities for users.

This onchain system provides a more transparent and efficient way for organizations to discover top talent and for professionals to showcase their skills.

Hybrid Storage Model

Talent Protocol adopts a hybrid storage model, balancing decentralization with efficiency. While important reputation data such as the Builder Score and Credentials are stored onchain for transparency, offchain storage is used for frequent updates and faster performance. This model allows Talent Protocol to maintain the security and verifiability of blockchain-based data while offering real-time, up-to-date information.

TALENT Token Utility

The TALENT token plays an integral role in the Talent Protocol ecosystem, offering utility across different user groups:

• Increase Trust & Visibility: Users can deposit TALENT to increase their Builder Score and access premium features, or spend to invest in other builders! 
• Data Operations: TALENT is used to pay for the minting of Builder Scores and Credentials, exclusive Builder Perks, as well as Talent API access and Talent Pro plans.
• Verified Data: Both users and applications are rewarded in TALENT for referring quality users. Developers can earn by building custom credentials, and Talent can further earn from paid searches to their profiles. 

About the Team

Talent Protocol is led by Pedro Oliveira, Francisco Leal, and Filipe Macedo. The project has gained backing from prominent venture funds, including Protocol Labs, GSR, and Jump, as well as angel investors from major projects like Celo and Anchorage.

Bringing Talent & Opportunities Together in Web3 

Talent Protocol aims to set a new standard for managing professional reputation in the Web3 space. By consolidating credentials onchain through the Talent Passport, the platform seeks to offer a verifiable, portable, and self-updating profile that accurately reflects a professional’s skills and contributions. 

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