Why is there a teaRank threshold for rewards?

The tea protocol distributes a pre-programmed amount of teaRank rewards every epoch amongst registered projects. The amount of TEA a project receives is proportional to its teaRank. However, only projects above a certain threshold of teaRank would be eligible to claim rewards.

Placing a threshold for rewards serves two primary purposes:

1. It ensures that teaRank rewards are distributed fairly among OSS projects with substantial impact, and

2. It deters spammers by preventing a large number of projects with very low teaRank from attracting a significant amount of teaRank rewards away from more impactful projects. For example, 100,000 low teaRank projects each receiving 1 TEA would result in 100,000 TEA tokens taken away from impactful projects.

The threshold to receive teaRank rewards is currently set at 25 (out of 100). i.e., for a project to receive teaRank rewards, their teaRank score must be equal to or greater than 25. Although this threshold was set after analyzing the teaRank of all OSS projects in currently supported package managers; it is a protocol parameter that can be adjusted through the teaDAO’s governance process.