Grass Farmers Furious with Disappointing Stage 2 Rewards Ahead of Tokenholder Call

Grass, a Solana-based DePIN protocol monetizing contributor’s unused bandwidth, has once again come under fire from disgruntled farmers.

With Grass opting to distribute nearly $3M to Season 2 participants in $USDC, crypto traders and investors are torn over the role and necessity of the protocol’s native token, $GRASS.

Investors and farmers alike now eagerly await next week’s Tokenholder call, in which Grass is expected to communicate more information about its recent revenue growth.

Grass Farmers Disappointed by Season 2 Rewards

The Grass Foundation has unveiled its Stage 2 rewards checker, allowing network contributors to see what they’ve earned in exchange for sharing their unused bandwidth to power Grass’ web-crawling data sales to AI labs. 

Estimates suggest that Grass is distributing just under $3M USDC to users, who ran the DePIN protocol’s browser extension on the devices in exchange for points throughout Stage 2, which ran from October 2024 to June 2026.

As is often the case in incentive campaigns with no capital requirement, contributors are seething over their allocations. Thousands of frustrated users expressed their complaints on Grass’ social media accounts, with many threatening to delete and uninstall the application.

This is not the first time that Grass contributors have been left disappointed by reward allocations. Users voiced similar concerns during the $GRASS TGE in 2024, which saw thousands of network contributors slandering the protocol for exploiting users.

Analysts Argue over Role of $GRASS Token

Furious farmers aside, yesterday’s Grass Foundation announcement sparked fresh debate between crypto analysts and investors over the role of tokens. Where typically, most DePIN networks distribute rewards in the protocol’s native token, Grass instead chose to reward its contributors in $USDC.

According to Grass co-founder Andrej Radonjic, contributors have been paid out in $USDC because the DePIN protocol has reached profitability. Radonjic asserts this places Grass in “the unusual position of being able to compensate contributors directly from the revenue the network generates.”

While some investors proclaimed that $USDC payouts will reduce sell pressure on $GRASS itself, detractors are arguing that the token now serves no effective purpose.

With $GRASS no longer being used to incentivize network participation, concerns are mounting over the role and utility of the token. Despite having strong revenue figures, which have been independently verified under NDA by Messari and EV3 Ventures, Grass has not announced any means of token value accrual outside $350,000 in buybacks executed in December 2025.

On the side of the fence, advocates claim that Grass is heading into what was previously uncharted territory for the majority of for DePIN protocols.

Contributors Seek Answers in Upcoming Tokenholder Call

With the crypto community divided on the role of the $GRASS token, all eyes now turn to the protocol’s upcoming token holder call, scheduled for July 7th. The raging debate over the common dual equity-token has been exacerbated this week, with Venice announcing a $65M Series A round led by Dragonfly. Critics argue that the raise dilutes and devalues the product’s native token, enriching equity holders at the expense of tokenholders.

For $GRASS, supporters and critics alike are eager to learn more about potential $GRASS utility, as well as confirmation of the network’s financials. Estimates based on recent growth and previous quarterly records suggest that Grass could be on track to generate between $50-$100M in annual revenue, which tokenholders are desperately hoping will begin flowing to protocol’s native asset.

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