In Brief:
- Portal has rolled out updates to Portal 2.0 that it said let users monetize their skills and earn Shards.
- Users earn Shards by generating game assets in Nexus or building games in Gen8, then spend them on gift cards in the Portal Shop.
- The update comes during Gen8’s open beta, which runs Oct. 1-31, as Portal shifts toward AI game creation under CEO Benjamin Charbit.
Portal has pushed a set of updates to Portal 2.0 that ties its Shards reward currency to creative work on the platform.
“Your creativity is now your currency,” Portal said in a post on X. “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
The company didn’t put a dollar value on Shards in the announcement. It also didn’t say whether the changes alter how many Shards a given task pays out.
How the Shards loop works
Portal’s site lays out the earning model in one line: “Generate assets or games to earn Shards for rewards.”
There are two main tools. Nexus handles assets, letting users “Create game-ready sprites, audio, and art your agentic team can put to work.” Gen8 handles full games, where creators “Shape your concept, then prompt to build your game into something playable.”
Shards also come from app usage, events, game jams and community engagement, according to the site.
Spending is narrower. The Portal Shop lets users “Spend shards on gift cards that fuel accounts for the games you keep playing.” The shop also sells credits, Shards and creator packs. Portal’s site doesn’t list a direct cash or token payout for Shards.
Gen8 beta and events
The update lands in the middle of “Portal Gen8: Open Beta for All,” which runs Oct. 1-31. Gen8 turns text prompts into playable 2D games. Users type an idea, pick a template and iterate on the result.
Before that, Portal ran a Gen8 Creators Program from Aug. 1-31 that gave 20 selected creators early access.
It also held two game jams. The August jam ran Aug. 15-17 and the September jam ran Sept. 19-21. Each carried a 50,000 Shards prize pool. A Nexus Asset Sprint ran July 6-20.
The platform lists integrations with Claude, OpenAI, Unity, Unreal, Godot, Cursor and HelloMinds.
The Portal 2.0 pivot
Portal 2.0 is the product of a reset that began after Portal merged with BLIFE Protocol in December 2025. A new leadership team made up mostly of Animoca Brands people took over, and former Ubisoft game director Benjamin Charbit became CEO.
The relaunch moved Portal toward what it called “AI-native tools and a creator-first workflow” meant to “enable non-developer users to create through AI-powered game development.”
The 2.0 roadmap includes Portal Studio, a virtual workspace where AI agents collaborate, and Portal GameRouter, a single API for managing agents, assets and pipelines. Portal also outlined GameGen for prompt-generated games and GameHub, a monetization platform it planned to launch. GameHub hasn’t gone live.
On the token side, Portal plans to use revenue from its AI tools to fund regular PORTAL buybacks. Holders get early access, advanced tool usage rights and voting rights.
Shards, round two
This isn’t Portal’s first run with Shards. Its Crystal Dash campaign in late 2023 paid points for creating and sharing content about Portal. Those points turned into crystal shards, which could be fused into virtual crystals.
When PORTAL launched in January 2024, Crystal Dash participants converted those shards into the token airdrop.
This time the Shards go somewhere else. Under the current setup, the Portal Shop’s catalog runs to gift cards for other games.
