Turtle is innovating within the decentralized finance space by introducing a new system for assessing and incentivizing on-chain liquidity, a critical and limited resource.
The company has revealed the Turtle Liquidity Leaderboard, a comprehensive ranking system that evaluates participants based on verified deposits, user network contributions, and engagement boosts. This leaderboard offers a consistent method for protocols and liquidity providers to track performance.
This launch addresses a growing issue in the digital asset market: declining liquidity. Reports from Kaiko indicate that the liquidity of the top 50 alternative cryptocurrencies decreased by approximately 30% during the first quarter of 2025. This decline is attributed to reduced incentives for market makers and a concentration of activity in fewer assets. Turtle’s new system aims to reshape how capital allocation is measured and rewarded in a competitive environment where protocols are vying for sustained liquidity.
The leaderboard uses three primary metrics to evaluate participants. The Liquidity Score reflects time-weighted deposits made to partner platforms, the Distribution Score quantifies the amount of liquidity brought in via user referrals, and Boosts provide multipliers for verified identity and active engagement.
Unlike many points-based programs or social media leaderboards that focus on metrics like impressions, Turtle’s framework emphasizes verifiable capital contributions, making it difficult to manipulate.
Essi, the Chief Executive Officer of Turtle, stated that the company seeks to prioritize liquidity as the most important signal, as it is frequently overlooked in favor of superficial metrics.
This announcement builds upon the
momentum
Turtle has established through previous initiatives. Since 2024, its distribution protocol has facilitated liquidity for various ecosystem launches, reportedly mobilizing over $4 billion in deposits across more than 300,000 wallets.
During Arbitrum’s TAC “Summoning” event, Turtle vaults attracted substantial interest, securing over $100 million in the first week, growing to $150 million by the second week, and ultimately reaching between $790 and $800 million in liquidity by the mainnet launch. Notably, Curve founder Michael Egorov was among the participants.
The company’s extensive network was also highlighted in May when it successfully closed a $6.2 million seed funding round. The round was led by THEIA, with participation from Susquehanna International Group, ConsenSys, and Nomura’s Laser Digital.
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Turtle has previously experimented with cross-platform leaderboards, including its participation in Kaito’s Yapper attention leaderboard, which measures user engagement. The new liquidity leaderboard broadens this strategy to include capital flows, linking protocols and allocators by tracking demonstrable commitments rather than simply measuring social media engagement.
Nick Thoma, Chief Technology Officer, described the system as a fusion of liquidity, distribution, and social incentives, designed to provide protocols with reliable and sustained capital.
Similar coordination systems have recently garnered significant market attention. Incentive platforms, like Royco, have accumulated nearly $3 billion in total value locked by utilizing mechanism design to distribute capital across different protocols. Established models such as bribe and ve-token systems on Curve and Velodrome also continue to impact liquidity allocation. Turtle’s objective is to establish a transparent and adaptable scoreboard, offering a competitive layer that protocols can customize for their own launches.
Future versions of the leaderboard are planned to include rankings specific to individual protocols, deeper integrations with SocialFi platforms, and features that blend cultural engagement with financial contributions.
Turtle promotes this system as a way for liquidity providers to enhance their visibility and for protocols to achieve more effective capital distribution.
The framework is expected to expand in the coming months.
Turtle intends to evolve the leaderboard into a customizable component that protocols can directly integrate into their campaigns. This will combine time-weighted deposits, referral networks, and verified user signals into a single metric of market commitment.