YourGrails Lands $30,000 in Avalanche Team1’s Debut Accelerator Grant

In Brief:

• The first award handed out under the Accelerator tier is a $30,000 grant that Avalanche Team1 signed off on for YourGrails.
• Graded PSA, BGS and CGC cards are sold by YourGrails inside digital packs, with a custodial vault holding the physical card while a Card Token stands for ownership on Avalanche.
• Funded from Team1’s own budget instead of Avalanche Foundation grants, the payout is the first genuine trial of an Accelerator process settled by committee vote.

Since the Builder Grants program opened on July 1, no project had claimed an Accelerator award until now: Avalanche Team1 has greenlit $30,000 for YourGrails.

“The committee has approved $30,000 for @YourGrails, a tokenized trading card platform bringing real, graded cards onchain to Avalanche,” Team1 said in a post on X. “An amazing project the community can engage with, built by native builders who show up every day.”

What YourGrails sells

The flow starts with USDC: buy a sealed pack, rip it open, and a real graded card comes out. Owners can then put it up for sale, stake it in a battle, have it shipped to their door, or flip it back instantly for 90% of its value. That sell-back option stays available for seven days.

Every card carries a PSA, CGC or BGS grade and lives in a climate controlled facility, where it is insured through storage and shipment subject to custodian terms. Because a Card Token acts as the stand-in for the physical asset, the card itself never has to move when ownership changes.

The loop is closed at redemption. Burning the Card Token on Avalanche triggers the vault to release the card, which is then inspected, packaged and shipped. It’s the mechanism that stops one collectible from simultaneously being a live digital claim and a redeemed physical object.

Competition comes by way of Pack Battles. Two players open packs of matching value, whoever pulls the higher total card value takes home a bonus pack, and neither side loses their original pulls.

Beta traction

The platform remains in closed beta. According to Team1’s blog, packs opened during that stretch topped 7,000, with volume running past $500,000.

The network had already put a spotlight on the project weeks ahead of the grant. “YourGrails is a tokenized trading card platform that allows users to rip packs and battle other players, while being provably fair,” Avalanche said in a post on X. “Days into their closed beta, YourGrails is already highlighting what’s possible for onchain experiences on Avalanche.”

Under the hood, the build relies on Avalanche's EVM environment, native USDC and a Circle CCTP integration handling settlement and cross-chain access.

How the Accelerator tier works

Where Team1’s Mini Grants top out at $10,000 and accept all comers, Accelerator Grants reach $30,000 and come with a stricter filter. Teams have to hand in a whitepaper or litepaper, a prototype and market analysis. An internal review comes first, followed by interviews with the projects Team1 favors, before finalists advance.

Proposals and funding decisions rest with a committee made up of Avalanche team members and community representatives, who vote on the outcome.

Recipients receive development credits alongside their initial funding. Milestones are agreed jointly, with additional money unlocked as each is met and reaching MVP set as the goal. Marketing and user acquisition funding follows the MVP stage. There’s also a chance for selected teams to interview for Codebase, Avalanche’s official accelerator.

The money behind it

Serving as the Avalanche ecosystem’s global community arm, Team1 says it counts 500 members spread over 50 countries. December 2024 brought it a $1.15 million grant from the Avalanche Foundation earmarked for community support and scaling up operations.

Administration of the Builder Grants sits with Team1 independently, keeping them distinct from Avalanche Foundation grants. Public support came from the Foundation nonetheless, which highlighted Mini Grants recipients spanning gaming, infrastructure, community tools and developer tooling.

Anything built on Avalanche qualifies for either tier, both of which are global and ongoing. Submissions go through grants.team1.network and the Avalanche Builder Hub.

One caveat came attached at launch, per Team1: “High volume of applications and participation does not guarantee funding.”