Nervos Community Catalyst: Quarterly Reports

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Q2 2026 report

Executive Summary

Q2 2026 was defined by expansion and consolidation across all of NCC’s core programmes. The Community Keeps Building initiative grew to 70 CKBuilders, while the launch of the Build on CKB initiative brought a further estimated 40 new developers into the ecosystem, bringing the total number of developers who have taken active steps to explore and build on CKB to over 100. To support this growing cohort, a dedicated CKBuilders website, weekly developer calls, and a CKBuilder Developer Liaison were introduced. The CKBuilder project tracker now lists 45 projects, with 23 added over the quarter and 15 submitted for technical review, reflecting both the volume and maturity of work being produced within the programme.

The newly announced Gone in 60ms: Fiber Network Infrastructure Hackathon has already surpassed its predecessor in registrations, with a subsequent use-case focused hackathon to follow. CKB Off-Chain made its Africa debut in Lagos, with Nairobi to follow in July. CKBoost completed its final milestone and is now an established campaign platform with over 100 users, setting the stage for its next phase of development. Five CKBuilder projects progressed to Community Fund DAO proposals, with three passing. Q2 demonstrated that the foundations laid in Q1 are bearing fruit, and the conditions for continued growth are in place.

Community Keeps Building

Expanding Scope

Q2 brought a number of structural developments to reflect the growing scale of NCC’s developer activities, which I wrote about in a June mini-update. CKBuilders now has its own dedicated web presence at ckbuilders.dev, serving as the primary point of reference for developers looking to learn about the programme. Alongside this, a new Build on CKB initiative and Telegram group has been launched, open to any developer with an interest in CKB regardless of experience level. Members receive support from CKB DevRel, pointers to guides and documentation, alerts for upcoming events and hackathons, and the opportunity to win prizes for standout weekly contributions. It also serves as a pathway into the CKBuilders programme proper, as well as other grant programmes such as Spark and the Community Fund DAO.

To support the increasing operational demands of a larger cohort, a dedicated CKBuilder Developer Liaison has been recruited to help oversee and track developer activity. Weekly CKBuilder calls have also been introduced to keep the community connected and moving forward. In addition, NCC is working closely with DevRel to ensure that feedback and reporting from CKBuilders is being analysed and used to improve the broader developer experience on CKB.

Onboarding

CKBuilders

By the end of Q2, the Community Keeps Building programme had grown to 70 participants, all of whom are CKBuilders. Our remaining content creators have moved towards Community Fund DAO proposals, as noted later in this report. While the primary focus of NCC’s activities is on building a strong developer community on CKB, we remain committed to supporting rising content creators and community activists.

As in Q1, the developer referral bounty on the CKB Bounty Board continued to be the primary source of new developer referrals. Building on the momentum established in Nigeria, Q2 saw continued growth efforts in Kenya and Vietnam, with new developers joining from both regions as we work to strengthen our presence across emerging developer hubs.

Build on CKB

The Build on CKB group has also grown significantly, with an estimated 40 new developers joining who have no prior involvement with CKB as CKBuilders. To engage this wider audience, two campaigns were run exclusively for developers new to CKB with prizes for completion:

Both campaigns gave new developers a structured entry point into building on CKB, and provided further real-world usage data for CKBoost as a campaign platform.

Continued growth

Across both initiatives combined, we now have over 100 developers who have taken active steps towards exploring and building on CKB. This is a significant achievement given current industry conditions, with many other blockchains experiencing a decline in developer activity. The effects of this surge are visible across the ecosystem: more applications being built, more developers coming to CKB spontaneously via social momentum, an increase in grant proposals, more technical discussions across social channels, and greater participation in campaigns and hackathons. I will see how we can communicate these successes in the form of external media campaigns.

AI Scholarship

As detailed in the Q1 report, NCC launched the CKB AI Scholarship initiative to ensure that CKBuilders have access to the best AI tools available as they develop their applications. The scholarship operates across two levels: Level 1 provides access to the Share-AI platform for shared AI resources, and Level 2 supports personal accounts for more dedicated use, tied to specific performance and reporting requirements.

In Q2, the number of CKBuilders receiving Level 1 support has grown to 43, reflecting the continued uptake of shared AI resources across the cohort. 5 CKBuilders are now receiving Level 2 support, with recipients required to produce monthly reports detailing their activity and learnings. This reporting requirement ensures accountability while also providing useful insight into how AI tooling is being applied in practice across CKB development.

CKBuilder Project Tracker

The CKBuilder project tracker continues to serve as the central record of all projects being developed within the programme. Since the start of Q2, the number of listed projects has grown from 22 to 45, with 23 new projects added over the quarter. The range of applications being built reflects the breadth of the CKBuilder cohort: new additions include a ZK key recovery protocol for AI agents, a multi-tenant indexing and query service, a Groth16 zkSNARK verifier, a Fiber desktop client, a DID reference dashboard, an implementation of ML-DSA quantum-resistant cryptography, a governance voting prototype, and various DeFi primitives including lending and prediction pool applications, among others.

As well as being listed on the tracker, many of the projects have been introduced on the forum or mentioned in the CKB Bi-weekly report, so for brevity they do not need to be listed again here.

Project Review

In Q2, a further 15 projects were submitted for review, with feedback and suggestions provided by core CKB developers. This continues to be a valuable mechanism for ensuring that CKBuilders receive informed technical guidance as they develop their applications.

Progression to Community Fund DAO

In Q2, a number of CKBuilders and content creators progressed from NCC support towards Community Fund DAO proposals:

A word on the Community Fund DAO

From the beginning, the positioning of NCC has been to guide creators and developers towards output that benefits the ecosystem, is likely to receive community support, and could possibly become self-sufficient over time. The judge of that is ultimately the Community Fund DAO by way of the governance process. Conceptually, the DAO works because it aligns incentives with ecosystem progress and accountability to the community. My request to the community is to continue to engage over both voting stages to ensure that proper due diligence occurs, and, where majority support does exist, that the community’s voice is resoundingly clear on that.

CKBuilder Articles

Q2 saw a number of articles published by CKBuilders, sharing their experiences and perspectives on CKB from a variety of developer backgrounds. These pieces offer a valuable window into how developers from other ecosystems perceive and engage with CKB, and contribute to the growing body of community-generated technical content.

One Hackathon Ends, Another Begins

Following the conclusion of the CKB AI Agent Hackathon, time was taken to consider possible routes forward for the projects that emerged from it. The most noteworthy progress has come from the hackathon winner, PactAgent, which has continued its development and is working to identify the right niche in which it can operate, with attention turning towards applications that could be built on top of it, such as content or service commissioning platforms. A series of developer updates can be found here.

More recently, a new hackathon was announced: Gone in 60ms: Fiber Network Infrastructure Hackathon. As Fiber Network matures, the priority is to make it easier for external developers and businesses to build on top of it. This hackathon is designed to address that directly, challenging developers to build reusable infrastructure that strengthens the foundations around Fiber and makes it easier to integrate, operate, and productise.

As of writing, the event has attracted over 85 registrations representing roughly 95 participants, a significant step up from the previous hackathon. A round-up of submissions will be shared once the campaign concludes. This hackathon, and a subsequent Fiber hackathon aimed at use-cases, will continue to generate momentum and focus developers’ attention towards real-world impact based on Fiber.

CKB Off-Chain

Lagos

On April 18, in collaboration with TechyJaunt, NCC hosted the first Africa-based CKB Off-Chain meetup in Lagos, Nigeria. The event drew over 50 attendees, bringing together existing CKBuilders and developers from TechyJaunt’s wider network. Following an introduction to CKB’s design and ecosystem, three CKBuilder projects were presented: PocketNode, Pact Agent, and Backr, with some developers onboarding their first users on the day. A CKB airdrop event introduced new participants to PocketNode and provided useful real-world testing feedback. The full event overview is available here.

Nairobi

The next CKB Off-Chain meetup is scheduled for Saturday 18 July in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration with Web3 Clubs. The event will bring together CKBuilders and regional blockchain developers, featuring presentations from developers building on CKB, networking and idea-sharing, and an introduction to CKB for new developers. With a growing contingent of CKBuilders based in Kenya, it represents a natural next step in expanding CKB’s regional presence in East Africa.

Future Plans

Q3 will continue to build on this momentum, encouraging further regional community and builder meetups as a means of strengthening in-person engagement across the ecosystem.

CKBoost

In April, CKBoost completed its final milestone review, with Alive24 publishing a product delivery report confirming that all three milestones from the original proposal have been substantially delivered. The platform now constitutes a working, CKB-native system for structured community campaigns, verifiable participation, on-chain points and rewards, identity verification, tipping, and admin review flows.

As noted in earlier sections, CKBoost served as the campaign platform for the Build on CKB developer campaigns in Q2, bringing in new developers from outside the CKBuilders cohort and generating further real-world usage data. This has translated into more substantial engagement during the ongoing hackathon. With over 100 developers now having used the CKBoost platform across its various campaigns, there is sufficient evidence of traction to consider the next stage of development.

The priorities for that next phase include better DID integration, improved use of mailing lists to engage the growing user base, UX and UI improvements, and a solution for reducing CKB cell costs as usage scales. Once these areas are addressed, progression to mainnet can be considered, though an audit may be warranted at that stage.

Looking Ahead

Q2 continued to build on the momentum established in Q1, and there is good reason to feel encouraged by the direction of travel. Our developer community is growing, and the interest, participation and output are all noticeably higher. My priority is to continue this momentum and seek opportunities for it to translate into broader ecosystem growth. I would like to see builders empowered to go one step further and become entrepreneurs, creating useful applications that utilise the unique benefits of CKB. I would also like to see external teams and other potential partners inspired by recent momentum to consider CKB as a viable home for their endeavours. There is however still much work to be done.

As always, thanks to everyone involved across the various programmes for their hard work and commitment.

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