Astar Foundation Forward: Ambassador Fellowship Revamp

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Hello Astar Collective members,

As part of our ongoing Astar Foundation Forward initiative, we want to open a conversation about the Astar Ambassador Fellowship (AAF).

The AAF evolved from the Ecosystem Agent Program because we identified areas that needed improvement. That commitment to continuous refinement continues today. We’re bringing this discussion to you because your input will directly shape how community leadership operates moving forward.

I. Current State of the Ambassador Fellowship

The AAF was designed to recognize and reward community members who actively contribute to Astar’s growth through:

  • Content creation
  • Community management
  • Event organization
  • Developer engagement
  • Business development

1.1. What’s Working

The program has delivered consistent value through:

  • Dedicated contributors who have supported Astar through multiple market cycles
  • Clear progression pathways from Community Member to Head Ambassador
  • Structured contribution tracks across multiple specializations

1.2. Where We See Opportunities for Improvement

After an honest internal review, we’ve identified several areas where the program could evolve:

  • Program Renewal: The fellowship has operated with largely the same roster for an extended period. We want to explore how to balance retaining experienced contributors while creating pathways for emerging talent.
  • Contribution Impact: Ambassador engagement levels and contribution impact vary significantly. We’re looking at how to better support all ambassadors in delivering meaningful work.
  • Compensation Structure: The current model was designed during different market conditions. We want to discuss how compensation should align with Astar’s current reality and Foundation Forward’s focus on maximizing value per ASTR allocated.
  • Transparency: The community has limited visibility into ambassador activities and how contributions are evaluated. We’re exploring ways to increase program transparency.
  • Oversight Model: While the ACC reviews quarterly reports, we’re considering how to evolve toward more proactive support and accountability mechanisms.

II. Areas for Community Input

We’d like your thoughts on several key themes. Please share your perspectives, ideas, or concerns on any or all of these areas:

2.1. Compensation Structure

The fellowship needs a compensation model that works for both ambassadors and the ecosystem. We want to understand what matters most to the community.

  • How should ambassador compensation be structured to reflect different levels of contribution and impact?
  • What balance between predictability and performance-based rewards would work best?
  • How should the program adapt compensation during different market conditions?

2.2. Performance Recognition

Currently, the program includes base compensation and performance bonuses. We want to explore the most effective ways to recognize and incentivize high-impact work.

  • What types of contributions should be most valued and rewarded?
  • How can we better recognize exceptional work while maintaining fairness across the program?
  • What metrics or indicators best reflect meaningful ecosystem impact?

2.3. Accountability and Support

We’re exploring how to evolve the current oversight model to better support ambassadors while ensuring consistent contribution quality.

  • What kind of support would help ambassadors be more effective in their roles?
  • How frequently should contribution progress be reviewed?
  • What feedback mechanisms would be most helpful for ambassadors?

2.4. Program Renewal and Growth

Healthy programs need both continuity and fresh perspectives. We want to explore how to achieve this balance.

  • How should new ambassador positions be created and filled?
  • What criteria should determine continued participation in the program?
  • How can the Community Program and Guild system serve as effective pathways to ambassador status?

2.5. Transparency and Tracking

Increasing visibility into program operations benefits both ambassadors and the community.

  • What information about ambassador activities would be most valuable to see publicly?
  • What tools or platforms would best support transparent contribution tracking?
  • How can we balance transparency with reasonable administrative overhead?

III. A Note on Context

We want to be transparent about the broader context. The Astar Foundation Forward initiative focuses on optimizing resources across the ecosystem to ensure long-term sustainability. This includes reviewing all programs, including the AAF, to maximize the value generated per ASTR allocated.

This isn’t about reducing our commitment to community leadership. It’s about working together to ensure the Ambassador Fellowship remains effective, sustainable, and valuable for everyone involved.

Before moving forward, we want to hear from you.

Share your thoughts, ideas, concerns, or suggestions below. This is your program, and your input will shape how it evolves. :dizzy:

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Thank you for the post about AAF!

I think that for this topic in particular, it’s important to hear how it looks to the community, not just from current Agents (Ambassadors). For that reason, I strongly hope for broader participation in the discussion from non-Agents as well.

That aside, I’ll share my impressions as a current Agent.

First, I see AAF as being in a transitional phase from the existing Ambassador Program 2.0.
At present, Agents operate roughly under the following flow:

  1. Carry out Astar-related activities at one’s own discretion
  2. Create a report every three months
  3. Post it on the Forum
  4. ACC evaluates it
  5. Claim rewards (on-chain)

My understanding is that under AAF, Guild.xyz will become the main platform, where participants earn scores, which then determine their roles and performance-based rewards. However, I have the impression that task management on Guild.xyz (or perhaps the overall operational state of AAF itself) is not working very well. What do you think?

To begin with, it seems that one must accumulate a certain amount of score to obtain a role, but even after linking X, authentication is unstable and it’s difficult to reliably earn score. As a result, it has become hard to reach higher roles (this could be an issue specific to my environment).

I assume that additional tasks are supposed to appear once a role is obtained, but it’s unclear what the current situation is there as well. I feel a significant gap between what’s described in Notion and what I’m experiencing in practice.

Regarding transparency, using a score-based system on Guild.xyz could actually reduce transparency. Since I can’t clearly see how Guild.xyz is functioning in concrete terms right now, it’s hard to say definitively, but compared to that, the current approach—posting reports on the Forum—makes activities more visible. Another important point is how task evaluation (such as content creation) is quantified; it’s unclear what exactly is considered an “outcome,” so the evaluation methodology here is also crucial.

Overall, because I couldn’t really assess the effectiveness of a Guild.xyz–centric management approach, I initially thought I’d just try it and see. But honestly, even now I still don’t fully understand how it’s supposed to work. If things remain as they are, since I’m not participating for the sake of rewards, I may stop reporting altogether once the full transition happens.

That said, AAF does have clear promotion criteria and participation requirements, so if it actually functions as intended, I think that aspect is valuable.

Regarding compensation, it was changed to a dollar-based system in the previous program revision, right?
This has been excellent for Agents in terms of providing stable and predictable rewards. However, when ASTR’s price declines, the amount of ASTR distributed increases, which could further contribute to sell pressure. This might be something that needs adjustment.

Broadly speaking, I see two possible approaches:

  1. Keep dollar-based calculation, but set a cap on the amount of ASTR distributed (and potentially apply a downward adjustment below 100% depending on ASTR’s performance).
  2. If ASTR’s price falls below a certain level, calculate the reward but defer distribution, and then distribute ASTR later once the price recovers (similar to a call option).

Option 1 allows some control over the amount of ASTR distributed, but it would reduce the dollar value actually received, which could hurt motivation.
Option 2 keeps the total amount of ASTR unchanged, but the timing of distribution becomes uncertain. This also creates inefficiency for those who intended to stake rather than sell, since they lose time in the market. Automatically staking the rewards could mitigate this, but that would add significant complexity and may not be desirable.

Either way, one thing is clear: AAF participants would need to make an effort to improve ASTR’s price performance. Whether it’s reasonable to place that level of responsibility on them is another question altogether—but at least on that point, the direction seems consistent.

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Thank you for adding your valuable comments to the discussion, @you425!

As the administrator of the space on Guild, yes, I have received multiple reports about this, as it seems that Guild has issues in several areas related to account management and connectors. However, since we don’t have a database or a backend, it’s difficult to verify whether the problem is on the user side or on Guild’s side, especially because others are not reporting it. That’s precisely why I’m also requesting feedback regarding the use of this platform.

I agree that it provides more visibility, but personally I would prefer that we find a more efficient way to present reports instead of filling the forum with multiple topics from ambassadors.

What cap would you propose, and why? What parameters would you have in mind when applying those adjustments?

How would you implement this exactly?

My honest question is: should ASTR rewards continue to be a motivation to participate in the ecosystem?

That is, I completely understand that receiving an incentive (a tip) for the time and effort invested is rewarding, I’ve been on that side and I know how gratifying it can be. On the other hand, I also understand that no one participates purely for altruistic reasons.

However, from my perspective, we are viewing this as if it were the core of the entire operation: if there is a reward, I do it; if not, I will probably stop participating in the near future. If we truly believe in the vision, should this still be a concern?

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Most ambassadors in here write generic ai comments to fulfill a quota and no value added.

Very possible any discords they “manage” are dead, twitter posts and youtube videos are botted.

They should be evaluated just like dApp staking dApps.

There are some good ones but its a minority

Just some honest feedback!

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I appreciate your honest feedback. As a very active forum member, you have likely already identified this issue.

How do you think we could mitigate this from your point of view?

What metrics would you evaluate from your perspective?

If you can propose concrete actions, that would be ideal :folded_hands:.

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Hallo community,I’m relieved (and honestly a bit happy) that at the start of 2026 we’re finally tackling topics that are absolutely fundamental to the success of any blockchain. I’m talking about the Astar Ambassador Fellowship (AAF), and I’ll give my opinion as requested — even if someone might already remember it because I’ve said it loud and clear months ago .I just hope my thoughts don’t make me lose even more friends than I already have…I 100% agree with @you (and everyone who thinks like him): the Astar Guilds are an excellent base tool to solidify the community, motivate people to actually “work” for ASTR, and make them feel part of something bigger. They’re doing great on Soneium and Base, I have to admit.

Unfortunately on Astar I still find them clunky and not very user-friendly (I have to say it myself too), but the concept is solid and has huge potential. It just needs better polishing.Regarding the evaluation of agents/ambassadors: I won’t go into the details of individual scores — I have no doubt they’re assigned carefully and rigorously. I also won’t comment on AI-generated replies anymore — it’s a normal tool now, it helps express ideas in non-native languages and it’s part of daily life.That said, I’ve thought a lot about this topic in recent months and I’ve slightly changed some of my previous ideas.I still strongly believe that real interaction matters far more than views or sterile likes. However, in general I now think quantity is more important than I used to believe: if the Guilds worked properly and were sufficiently promoted/sponsored, they could generate exactly that — more real interactions (more people join → more media coverage → statistically more chances of quality and real conversions).My basic view: I see the agent/ambassador as the armed arm of the Foundation

the connecting ring between the community and the core team

a true aggregator and glue

In business terms: a real independent professional (like someone with a VAT number).That’s why I agree with a fixed compensation (to retain people and provide stability) + percentage/performance bonuses based on actual work and real impact.

But careful: engagement must reward above all real user transformation (wallets onboarded, on-chain interactions generated, TVL brought in, dApp usage, etc.). It’s not enough to “knock on 100 doors” if nobody buys the vacuum cleaner. It’s good to knock on as many as possible, but the big rewards should go to whoever closes the sales.To be clear: I do NOT think the price action of ASTR is the agents’ fault. But I do believe that anyone who’s part of a team should feel obligated to give their absolute best so the “company” actually works — even if it means facing criticism or making enemies. Sometimes some of the replies feel a bit nauseating, but anyway…I agree with Juminstock: someone who becomes an agent should do it almost regardless of the pay (out of passion and conviction), while still recognizing that the work deserves to be compensated.

But be very careful about changing everything without thorough evaluation. Remember the monkey rule: before letting go of one branch, make sure you’ve got your other hand on a stable one.

A chain we used to be close to in market cap completely wiped out their agents/ambassadors after growing them together… it only created doubts and uncertainty in their community.

It’s not the same here (our community isn’t strong enough yet, also because it hasn’t been backed by strong historical price action), but anyway, let’s keep that precedent in mind.One last thing that’s really important to me: compensation in ASTR, not in dollars or stables. It motivates the receiver much more, because they become the first person interested in seeing the token grow (win-win).

Let’s be honest: seeing 100k ASTR “thrown around” like that, when just a few months ago we were expecting very different numbers, feels a bit depressing for the community…I have to say that since I pointed it out, the official Astar profile now often mentions agents’ posts, often with interesting deep dives — that’s a good thing. I invite you to do even more: try replying to some of their messages under their own posts too.

I give agents a thousand blames — I’d often like to grab them by the collar — but we can’t put all the blame on them alone. Engagement in crypto is tightly linked to price action: if the price isn’t supporting it, any account talking about a token will struggle enormously to generate decent traffic. So unless you have a method to get back to decent levels (which would be great, eh), I invite the main channel to interact much more with the agents.On top of that, I propose the idea of structuring some kind of team award: even if I don’t know how many agents there are per country, it would solidify relationships between agents and encourage healthy competition.As the discussion moves forward and I hear other opinions, I’ll try to go deeper into other points if needed.

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The issue is that they are using it to generate ai slop - it makes reading threads a chore. It’s leading to generic comments with 0% critical thinking.

It’s acceptable if used for translations, but it’s being used to generate the illusion of contributing.

i’d like to see the ambassadors comment in this thread and address these comments first to be honest.

They have the experience of being in the role to suggest improvements to the program.

The silence is telling

If we scrapped the ambassador program tomorrow - what would happen?

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Yes, I agree that filling the Forum with report topics is not ideal, so I’m also in favor of exploring alternative approaches. In the past, from a similar perspective, I suggested that activity reports for projects listed via dApp Staking should be handled on the Portal, and perhaps we should think along the same lines for Ambassadors as well.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep adding new platforms, so one possible option could be to use Discord’s Forum feature and create a dedicated reporting thread for each Ambassador. This could also help with transparency if there is a need for open interaction with Ambassadors.

Since rewards are currently calculated on a USD basis, when the price of ASTR falls, the amount of ASTR distributed inevitably increases. By setting a cap on the ASTR amount, we can limit the quantity distributed.
Alternatively, it might be worth considering abandoning the USD-based calculation altogether and returning to the previous model of setting rewards with a simple 1 ASTR = 1 ASTR mindset.

Honestly, I haven’t thought through the exact parameters, and I don’t think there is a clearly “correct” value anyway.
If we go with setting an ASTR cap as mentioned above, it should be possible to derive it from the amount of ASTR equivalent to around $800 over the past year, using an average value as a reasonable reference point.

For example:

  1. Set a distribution threshold at 1 ASTR > $0.01.
  2. If a given month’s reward is $800 and 1 ASTR = $0.008, the calculated reward would be 100,000 ASTR.
  3. However, since condition 1 is not met, the reward is put on hold.
  4. In the following month, if the reward is again $800 and 1 ASTR = $0.011, the calculated reward would be 72,727 ASTR.
  5. Since condition 1 is met in that month, the recipient receives 172,727 ASTR, combining both the current and previous month’s rewards.

That’s the general idea.
By holding rewards when ASTR’s price is low (i.e., when market conditions are poor) and distributing them when conditions improve, we can reduce negative market impact.
The downside, of course, is increased management and operational complexity.

Yes, I agree with your concern.
One important caveat is that the Ambassador program was designed from the outset as an incentive-based program. Because of that, it’s difficult to predict what kinds of negative effects might arise if those incentives were removed.

It’s possible that removing rewards would cause participation motivated by income to disappear, leaving (or even increasing) only those who truly care about Astar. But to be honest, we won’t know unless we actually reach that situation.

To give some personal context:

I was already contributing to Astar before becoming an Ambassador, and later I was invited into the program. In other words, I didn’t join for monetary reasons. Since becoming an Ambassador, the activities I changed or added are as follows:

  1. Hosting two regular Spaces(X) every month
  2. Providing more proactive community support
  3. Minimizing posts on X that are unrelated to Astar
  4. Declining work for unrelated projects

I made these changes because I receive compensation and hold the Ambassador title—not because the Foundation instructed me to do so (this was entirely my own decision).
If compensation were removed, these would become constraints for me personally, and there’s a high chance I would stop doing them, reverting to roughly the level of activity I had before becoming an Ambassador.

In other words, compensation is not the source of my motivation to contribute to Astar itself, but it is a source that raises the quality and intensity of that contribution.
As for the absolute amount, I’m not particularly focused on it at the moment.

This is purely my personal experience, and I can’t say whether other Ambassadors feel the same way.

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I’d like to share a quick comment.

Discovering New Talent

I agree with the idea of increasing the turnover of members. As for the approach, it would be similar to the current process, but I suggest keeping recruitment primarily through the Foundation and existing members. In addition, candidates could apply after having at least six months of contribution activity within the Astar Network, followed by a voting process.

Measuring Contribution Impact

This is an extremely difficult area. Using tools to measure impact is one possible direction, but I don’t yet have a solid idea that would work well. If we define impact solely as “whether it increases the value of ASTR within the Astar Network,” then only activities with a large reach would end up receiving high evaluations.

Even if the ultimate goal is to increase ASTR’s value, there can be multiple contributing factors. For example, when evaluating “content,” factors such as the importance of the content itself, number of views, difficulty level, and contribution to liquidity could all be considered.

Compensation Structure

I don’t deny that incentives help motivate contributors, and I recognize that some members reinvest the ASTR they receive into further contributions. Community perception will matter, but compensation obviously cannot be unlimited, and ideally it should not fluctuate too heavily with market volatility.

This is just an idea, but since integration with Soneium is progressing, perhaps we could set an upper limit such as $500 USDSC.

There will also be cases where agents take on tasks that require significantly more time or effort. In such cases, depending on the workload, providing additional individual incentives would be reasonable.

Transparency

Regardless of the evaluation method, I believe the current reporting style already provides a reasonable level of transparency by clearly explaining “what activities each person has carried out".
Whether Google Docs is the best tool or not, keeping a record in the form of a report is meaningful for me as well.

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I have been part of the Ambassadors team even before the program existed.

I am very concerned about the program’s approach and I am glad that this thread has been opened in order to find a definitive solution.

A fixed monthly fee would be ideal, based on USD rather than ASTR, to eliminate sales pressure. On the other hand, the treasury council could perhaps continue to look for ways to generate liquidity to cover the network’s basic expenses, including ambassador rewards, adapting to market conditions.

Likewise, “incentives” in blockchain are the spirit of any network, which is why there are points programs and other ways to reward users.

As an Ambassador, I do not intend to justify whether we have acted right or wrong, but I can say that there are great people here who have worked for years (When Astar was PLASM) .

I am glad that this thread has been posted. The important thing here is to find a balanced solution between contributions and rewards. Finally, I would not know how to gauge whether ambassadors would continue their work if the incentives disappeared.

I can only add that incentives drive you to be better, and competition always raises the quality of content.

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Vangardem’s comments gave me a new level of insight and awareness.

When it comes to token-based incentives, I now feel even more strongly that they may indeed be an essential element in the open world of blockchain. I resonated deeply with the idea that tokens are not merely “motivation tools” or “compensation for labor,” but something far more meaningful.

In the physical world, “tokens” are positioned within behavioral science as one form of motivation. But in the blockchain world, tokens do much more—they help shape culture, bring people together, strengthen relationships, and even influence how communities form opinions and reach consensus.

Because of that, as this program evolves, I believe incentives—token rewards—should continue to be used meaningfully, even though the exact “amounts” may be something worth discussing.

To be honest, I have high expectations for the future of blockchain technology and business use cases, especially around Astar Network and Soneium. As an engineer, I’m genuinely excited by new discoveries and possibilities.

That’s why—even if rewards were to disappear—I would continue contributing just as I always have. This is not some idealistic “Japanese-style modesty.” It’s simply because my involvement with Astar has never been driven by rewards.

I understand what motivates my own actions. For me, it is about supporting others—and I strongly want to continue supporting everyone who is passionately building and contributing to the Astar Network.

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