Pass the Tag: A 96-Hour Test of Onchain Coordination

From January 29, 2026 at 9:00 AM Eastern through February 2, 2026 at 9:00 AM Eastern, Collab.Land ran Pass the Tag, a live tipping tournament built on SmartTag 2.0. Twenty-five players. Four days. One goal: send as many successful onchain tips as possible.

The numbers tell part of the story:

• 19,503 total tips sent
• 21,366 messages in the tournament channel
• $4,873.75 USDC tipped on Base
• ~3.4 tips per minute
• ~203 tips per hour, nonstop, for 96 hours

But the real story is what happened inside the game itself.

What Was Pass the Tag?

Pass the Tag was a skill-based competition designed to test SmartTag 2.0 under real-world conditions while giving community members something genuinely fun and competitive to play together.

The rules were straightforward:
Players competed to send the most successful onchain tips during the tournament window. Everyone started with $10 USDC on Base, courtesy of Collab.Land. To keep tipping, you needed to receive tips from others.

This created a live social loop where hoarding slowed you down, circulation kept you competitive, and the leaderboard never stopped moving. Players coordinated, strategized, and pushed value through the system constantly.

Top three players won cash prizes ($125, $75, and $50 USDC). Rankings came down to total successful tips sent, number of unique players tipped, and timing.

Who Played

Twenty-five real, active community members were selected based on:

• A Discord account at least 6 months old
• Ongoing participation in crypto or online communities
• Completion of the interest form by January 26

No purchase required. Collab.Land covered all the gameplay funds. Once validated, SmartTag created noncustodial smart addresses for each player right in the server. No apps to download. No leaving Discord. Instant onboarding with zero friction. Players got their wallets pre-funded with $10 USDC before the tournament kicked off.

No waitlist. No spectators. No late entries.

The Numbers Behind the Game

Over four days, players sent 19,503 successful onchain tips and posted 21,366 messages in the tournament channel. That works out to 3.4 tips per minute, or roughly 203 tips per hour, sustained nonstop across the entire 96-hour window.

$4,873.75 in USDC moved through the system on Base as players tipped, received, strategized, and competed.

The pace was relentless. The energy was chaotic. The system held up under real pressure.

SmartTag 2.0: The Foundation

None of this happens without SmartTag.

SmartTag is our wallet-to-wallet tipping, rewards, and payment system built for communities that care about real ownership, transparency, and security.

We've been testing SmartTag since May 2024, using it for rewards, participation, trivia, and trials alongside our AI Quiz Agent. Pass the Tag was our most intensive real-world test yet.

Here's what makes SmartTag different:
No custodial risk. Every transaction is onchain, verifiable, and direct. Tips go straight from your wallet to theirs. No pooled funds. No honeypot.
Instant wallet access. SmartTag creates noncustodial smart addresses for community members without them ever leaving the server. No apps, no seed phrases, no confusing setup. Members get their first wallet and first tokens with zero complexity.
Easy funding. Top up your smart address whenever you want to start tipping or paying others. For Pass the Tag, we used SmartTag to fund all 25 player wallets instantly, right in Discord.
Sponsored transactions. For Pass the Tag, all transactions were sponsored. No gas fees taken from player tips. This means communities can sponsor gameplay in their servers with their own tokens, removing friction entirely.
Fully onchain. Every transaction is transparent and auditable on Base and our other supported chains.

SmartTag currently supports Arbitrum, Base, Linea, and Optimism, with USDC, USDT, and $COLLAB available across all of them.

Pass the Tag ran on SmartTag 2.0, our next iteration featuring a new smart address key management system built with TACo. We recently moved to TACo's infrastructure to make SmartTag more robust and flexible. This partnership lets us iterate quickly as feedback comes in and needs evolve. The result? In-chat onchain transactions that are seamless, secure, and ready to scale with real community demands.

Pass the Tag put this new system through a proper stress test. The frequency and simultaneous nature of the tips surfaced errors early on, but we fixed the plane while flying it. With player reports helping us identify issues in real time, we resolved problems quickly and errors lessened as gameplay continued.

Why It Matters

Pass the Tag wasn't just a game. It was a live product test that let us evaluate user experience, interaction flows, load handling for in-chat onchain transactions, and scoring mechanics under real pressure.

But it also showed us something deeper: what happens when you combine competition, coordination, and onchain transparency in a space people already hang out in.

The result? Nearly 20,000 tips. Over 21,000 messages. Nonstop activity. Strategic play. Community energy that sustained itself for four straight days.

What Communities Can Do With This

Right now, crypto feels a bit uncertain. Markets are sideways. Attention is scattered. The big narratives haven't landed yet.

But that's exactly when communities matter most.

Games like Pass the Tag show what's possible when you give people something real to do together. Not speculation. Not hype cycles. Just participation that's fun, competitive, and genuinely social.

Communities can run their own tournaments, trivia nights, reward challenges, or participation sprints using SmartTag with their own tokens. Sponsor the transactions so members can play without friction. Build mini-economies that reward contribution and circulation. Create reasons to show up that have nothing to do with price charts.

When the market feels directionless, community builders who focus on engagement, utility, and play will be the ones their members remember. This is how you keep people around. This is how you build something that lasts.

If you want your community talking, collaborating, and having a blast together, Pass the Tag can make it happen in your server. Send a message to [email protected] to get started.

About Collab.Land

Collab.Land burst onto the scene in May 2020, redefining how online communities connect when the world was forced to go virtual. As DAOs stepped into the spotlight as the future of collaboration, Collab.Land became the indispensable tool for managing tokenized memberships with ease.

During DeFi Summer 2020, we powered investment groups. By Spring 2021, we were at the heart of the NFT explosion. Today, gaming guilds, blockchain protocols, NFT communities, DeFi innovators, and DAOs worldwide rely on Collab.Land to lead the token-gated experience.

At our core, Collab.Land provides token-gating to verify and manage community membership, bridging projects and token holders to empower seamless teamwork and foster stronger, more connected communities. We're read-only, accessing public blockchains to verify wallet ownership and token holdings for role or group membership. We don't access private data, only public wallet addresses visible to all.

Through our admin portal, miniapps like SmartTag and the AI Quiz Agent, and now experiences like Pass the Tag, we give communities the tools to do more than gate access. We help them build economies, spark engagement, and create moments that matter.

We don't just adapt to Web3. Collab.Land defines what's next.

What's Next

SmartTag is going global.

What started as a tournament feature is becoming a core tool for communities everywhere. A way to tip, reward, pay, onboard new members, run contests, distribute tokens, and build onchain economies right inside Discord.

From quiz rewards to tournament play, SmartTag has proven itself across multiple use cases. With sponsored transactions, communities can remove all the friction from gameplay and engagement, making it easy for members to jump in without worrying about gas fees or complicated setup.

SmartTag is available now as a $9.99/month add-on for all Collab.Land plans, or included with the Exclusive Plan($149/month).

Soon, it's coming to all Collab.Land communities.

Stay tuned.

Final authority: Everyone started equal. The rules were clear. The clock was real.

Tag smart. Tip fast. Keep it moving.

Collab.Land token gating and membership verification operates as a read-only application. By signing a message to add a new wallet, you affirm ownership of that particular wallet address. Collab.Land solely accesses public blockchains to verify that a member’s wallet addresses are linked to the required tokens for role or group membership. Collab.Land maintains no access beyond reading public wallet addresses, which are transparent to all users.

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TACo:
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