How curation works

Curation power

A curator's epoch power starts with their eligible $AUTEUR balance. That balance includes liquid tokens held in eligible connected wallets and already credited but unclaimed rewards.

At a normal epoch boundary, the balance is read from the last Ethereum block at or before the boundary. A curator admitted during an open epoch is measured at the admission block instead.

Tokens deposited in the backing vault are no longer liquid wallet holdings and do not count again at the next balance snapshot. Depositing during an epoch does not retroactively change that epoch's existing snapshot. Backing rewards already credited in the rewards vault can count as unclaimed rewards.

Dilution

Curation power is divided across every selection the curator makes in that epoch:

power per selection = eligible AUTEUR balance / all selections in the epoch

Selections made through connected Farcaster and X identities share the same epoch power. If Alice has 10M AUTEUR and makes ten selections across either platform, each selection starts with approximately 1M of curation power.

If Bob also has 10M AUTEUR but makes only two selections, each starts with approximately 5M.

This is the central selectivity mechanism. Selecting everything does not create more total power; it divides the same power into smaller pieces.

A selection is not a guaranteed reward

A recorded selection earns a curator reward only when all of the following are true:

• the curator was eligible when the selection was made;
• the platform signal falls inside the epoch's eligible window;
• the selected work passes moderation and is funded;
• the curator is not the author of that work;
• the epoch is successfully settled.

Self-curation

Self-curation is intentionally non-rewarding.

It can still count in the curator's total number of selections, so it dilutes their other selections. It does not:

• receive a curator reward;
• contribute rewardable power to the work;
• confirm another curator's early entry;
• start an author's discovery history.