In Brief:
- Portal has released new Portal 2.0 updates that, according to the company, allow users to earn Shards and monetize their skills.
- Creators collect Shards by making game assets in Nexus or building games in Gen8, and can then redeem them for gift cards in the Portal Shop.
- The rollout arrives during Gen8’s open beta, running Oct. 1-31, as CEO Benjamin Charbit steers Portal toward AI game creation.
Portal’s Shards reward currency is now linked to creative output on the platform, following a new round of updates to Portal 2.0.
The company announced the change on X: “Your creativity is now your currency,” Portal wrote. “We just rolled out major updates to Portal 2.0 that let you monetize your skills, earn Shards and fuel your next big game.”
Earn with Portal
Your creativity is now your currency. We just rolled out major updates to Portal 2.0 that let you monetize your skills, earn Shards and fuel your next big game.
Let's dive into how it works@PortalView on X ↗
The announcement gave no dollar value for Shards. Portal also left open whether the changes affect how many Shards a particular task pays.
How the Shards loop works
Portal’s website sums up the earning model in a single line: “Generate assets or games to earn Shards for rewards.”
The model rests on two main tools. Nexus covers assets, giving users the ability to “Create game-ready sprites, audio, and art your agentic team can put to work.” Gen8 is for complete games, letting creators “Shape your concept, then prompt to build your game into something playable.”
The site says Shards can also be earned through app usage, events, game jams and community engagement.
Options for spending them are more limited. In the Portal Shop, users can “Spend shards on gift cards that fuel accounts for the games you keep playing.” Credits, Shards and creator packs are sold there too. The site does not list any direct cash or token payout for Shards.
Gen8 beta and events
The updates arrive partway through “Portal Gen8: Open Beta for All,” which runs Oct. 1-31. Gen8 turns text prompts into playable 2D games. A user enters an idea, chooses a template and then refines what comes out.
Ahead of the beta, Portal ran a Gen8 Creators Program from Aug. 1-31, which gave early access to 20 selected creators.
The company also staged two game jams, one in August (Aug. 15-17) and one in September (Sept. 19-21), each with a 50,000 Shards prize pool. A Nexus Asset Sprint took place July 6-20.
Portal lists integrations with Claude, OpenAI, Unity, Unreal, Godot, Cursor and HelloMinds.
The Portal 2.0 pivot
Portal 2.0 grew out of a reset that started after Portal merged with BLIFE Protocol in December 2025. A new leadership team, drawn mostly from Animoca Brands, took control, and Benjamin Charbit, a former Ubisoft game director, was named CEO.
With the relaunch, Portal moved toward what it described as “AI-native tools and a creator-first workflow” intended to “enable non-developer users to create through AI-powered game development.”
Portal Studio is on the 2.0 roadmap. It is a virtual workspace where AI agents work together. So is Portal GameRouter, a single API for managing agents, assets and pipelines. Portal also described GameGen, for games generated from prompts, and GameHub, a monetization platform it planned to launch. GameHub has not gone live yet.
For the token, Portal intends to put revenue from its AI tools toward regular PORTAL buybacks. Holders receive early access, advanced tool usage rights and voting rights.
Shards, round two
Portal has used Shards before. During its Crystal Dash campaign in late 2023, users earned points for creating and sharing content about Portal. The points became crystal shards, which could be fused into virtual crystals.
After PORTAL launched in January 2024, Crystal Dash participants converted their shards into the token airdrop.
This time the Shards lead somewhere different. As things stand, the Portal Shop’s catalog is made up of gift cards for other games.