As part of its continued commitment to empower the Avalanche community and the developers building it, the Avalanche Foundation is proud to announce the third cohort of Retro9000 grantees, selected from a competitive pool of builders innovating across the Avalanche ecosystem.

Retro9000 is a retroactive grant program backed by a $40 million pool, designed to reward projects that are already delivering impact. It’s built to recognize developers who have already shipped Avalanche L1s and foundational infrastructure on mainnet, driving Avalanche forward.

See Full details here regarding eligibility, timeline, and how the Avalanche Foundation evaluates projects. 

Introducing the Third Cohort of Retro9000 Grantees

We are pleased to announce the third cohort of 3 Retro9000 grantees from our Avalanche L1 and Infrastructure Tooling round.

This cohort has been collectively awarded over $140,000 in retroactive funding, recognized for shipping impactful Avalanche L1s and infrastructure tooling already live on mainnet

Blaze Stream, Hashfire, Tesseract, and Transparency Protocol.

Grant distributions are subject to the completion of KYB & KYC. Each project has been contacted by the Avalanche Foundation to coordinate next steps.

Returning Grantees Making Significant Improvements

Retro9000 is designed not just to reward builders once, but to continually support projects that keep delivering impact. Grantees that show measurable progress remain eligible for additional funding in future snapshots, reinforcing the program’s commitment to long-term builder success.

In this round, we are proud to recognize Tesseract for their continued development since receiving their initial Retro9000 grant.

Tesseract

Tesseract has made significant progress since the June Retro9000 snapshot, expanding its integrations, strengthening core infrastructure, and deepening its role across Avalanche L1s and DEXs.

Key progress includes:

• L1 Expansion: Launched on the Kite Testnet, integrated with BLAZE L1 and PLYR L1 (where Tesseract also powers the whitelabel DEX), and delivered custom features like vanity URLs and preset swap routes.

• DEX Integrations: Added support for Blackhole, Pangolin V3, Pharaoh V3, APEX DeFi, and ArenaDEX - broadening liquidity and routing coverage.

• Infrastructure Upgrades: Deployed a new scalable pathfinding algorithm, added a proxy for C-Chain RPC sticky sessions, introduced Infinite Approvals, and improved routing reliability, quote generation, and error handling.

• API & Data Enhancements: Upgraded pricing methodologies and expanded token support. Ecosystem Tooling: Launched a Dune dashboard for key metrics and continued adding new assets to the whitelist.

Tesseract continues to establish itself as a core liquidity and routing layer across Avalanche, advancing both developer tooling and ecosystem usability.

The Avalanche Foundation will continue to monitor the progress of all participating projects and review for significant improvements during the next snapshot. 

Refer Projects & Earn Rewards

Retro9000 is designed to empower the Avalanche community to help grow the ecosystem by referring strong projects, with up to $2m allocated for referral rewards. 

Here’s how the referral program works:

• Earn $100 in AVAX when a referred project is accepted into the Retro9000 program.

• Earn between $500 and $10,000 in AVAX if the referred project is awarded a grant.

After the first three snapshots, $12,000 has been awarded between 49 community members through successful project referrals, with $85,500 in referral rewards that went unclaimed, through projects that hadn’t been refereed into the program. 

Each successful project referral can earn up to $10,000. Don’t miss out. 

To start referring:

1. Connect your wallet: retro9000.avax.network

2. Submit your contact details

3. Receive your referral code and link

4. Share with builders

Retro9000 values quality over quantity: the more impactful your referral, the higher your reward.

New Round On The Horizon

The current round continues to focus on scaling Avalanche L1s and strengthening core infrastructure. These areas remain essential to Avalanche’s long-term growth.

The Avalanche Foundation is preparing a new round focused on one of our primary chains powering the Avalanche Network. Details will be shared soon, continuing the program’s focus on rewarding builders who are driving measurable onchain impact.

A new round will provide new opportunities for community participation. 

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and prepare to take part in the next phase of Retro9000 funding.

Upcoming Snapshot: January 2026

If your project wasn’t selected in this snapshot, don’t worry - Retro9000 is an ongoing program with recurring quarterly snapshots. The next one takes place on Tuesday, January 13, 2026 at 12:00 UTC.

Build publicly, get voted on by the community, ship to mainnet, and get rewarded.

Explore Retro9000 now 

Disclaimer

Participation in Retro9000 does not guarantee funding. All evaluations, funding decisions, and eligibility determinations are made at the sole discretion of the Avalanche Foundation. This program is designed to support ecosystem development and does not constitute an offer or solicitation for investment.