Half of anything Patina wins goes back to the people who made it happen.

Patina is competing in the Vana Cup, a public competition run by the Vana Foundation that closes on 18 August 2026. If Patina finishes in the top five, it wins a prize paid in VANA. Half of whatever Patina wins is shared with the people who connected their accounts.

This is the part worth reading twice. The reward comes out of winnings that do not exist yet. If Patina finishes sixth or lower, the pool is zero and nobody is paid anything. The Vana Cup leaderboard is public, so you can check where Patina actually stands at any time rather than taking our word for it.

The top 50 people by points at the moment the competition closes. Points are your Patina score plus 10 for every real person you bring. Your Patina score is built only from the history in the accounts you connect; referrals never change it. The full breakdown is shown to you, so nothing about your position is hidden.

Each qualified invite adds 10 points toward the top 50 — that is the climb. Separately, everyone in the top 50 holds one share of the pool, and every person you invite who connects and scores at least 20 adds one more share, whether or not you are in the money yet. Shares only pay if you finish inside the top 50 when the Cup closes. The pool is divided by total shares among those places.

A reward attached to a referral link is an open invitation to register a hundred empty accounts. Requiring an invited person to reach 20 makes that pointless: a throwaway account made last week scores about 2, while a genuine account belonging to somebody in their late teens scores around 30. Spotting that difference is the entire product, so it would be strange not to use it here.

Eligibility is tracked against the underlying accounts you connect, not against a browser or a wallet. Clearing your cookies and starting again does not make you a second person, because it is still the same YouTube channel or the same GitHub username. Connecting the same account from several browsers counts once.

By 31 August 2026. The Vana Foundation pays prizes within 30 days of the competition closing, and we pay out once we have been paid. If their payment is delayed, ours is too, and we will say so publicly rather than go quiet.

Patina never asks for a wallet address in order to give you a score, and you should be wary of anything that does. If there is a pool to share, eligible people are asked for a payout address at that point and not before. Patina will never ask for a private key, a seed phrase, or a payment of any kind. Nobody legitimate ever will.

Fabricated or purchased accounts, automated signups, and attempts to farm referrals with accounts under a single person's control. The Vana Cup disqualifies entrants for this, so anyone doing it is not only taking from the other participants, they are putting the whole pool at risk.

The Vana Foundation runs the competition and its rules govern it. They may change dates, recalculate standings, or cancel the competition, and the value of VANA moves on its own. The share is stated in VANA rather than in dollars for that reason. Read their official competition terms.