Token rewards have long served as the primary way crypto projects acknowledge their backers, and "points systems" have become increasingly common alongside airdrops this year, rewarding users for actively using a protocol over a sustained period of time.

Valdora, a vault and liquid staking protocol that grew out of the ZIG Finance ecosystem, has launched its own Points Program, rewarding users for taking part in a range of ecosystem activities. A public leaderboard lets participants see their points and where they stand relative to other users.

Points are accrued through three activities:

• Depositing into eligible Valdora vaults
• Staking ZIG
• Referring others who participate

The logic is simple: the greater a user's participation over time, the more points they can collect.

Early Supporters Are Not Starting From Zero

The most notable detail of the program is its emphasis on past activity. Anyone who deposited into a vault or staked ZIG before the program went live has already been credited with a certain amount of points — a gesture toward the users who showed up before any scoreboard existed. Retroactive credit of this kind lets a points program account for sustained use that predated its launch, rather than measuring only activity from the day it went live.

There are quite a few of them. Valdora's total value locked (TVL) — the combined value of assets deposited in the protocol — currently sits at roughly $79 million, about double the approximately $37 million recorded at the end of June, according to data from DefiLlama.

Staking remains the entry point for many of those users. ZIG staked on Valdora returns stZIG, a liquid token that keeps accruing validator rewards while remaining usable elsewhere. The protocol's USDC vaults, meanwhile, cover strategies ranging from private credit and commodities to equities and opportunistic credit, each with its own yield source, risk profile, and liquidity terms.

Room for Newcomers

The program is also open to first-time users, who can begin earning points now and work their way up the leaderboard through continued participation. New participants accrue points through the same three activities as existing users. The rationale is straightforward: people are already using Valdora — depositing into vaults and staking ZIG — and the points system offers a simple way to recognize that activity while showing how the community is getting involved.

A Step on the Road to TGE

The Points Program will also form part of the community's journey toward Valdora's token generation event (TGE). Exactly how points will factor into that process has yet to be detailed, and neither the timing of the TGE nor the precise role points will play has been specified. Until those details are published, the points tallied on the leaderboard reflect participation in the protocol today rather than any confirmed future benefit. Interested participants will need to watch for further announcements.

For a protocol whose TVL has grown substantially over a single summer, a public leaderboard provides a structured way to show who its most committed users are. Additional details are available in Valdora's official documentation and FAQs at docs.valdora.finance, with further information on the protocol at valdora.finance.