Early rewards programs and point systems are standard in DePIN, but their design determines whether they create temporary mercenary activity or durable contribution habits. PTC points that have no current monetary value still serve a coordination function: they give contributors a scoreboard, a streak mechanic, and a reason to keep the app installed while the paid bounty market is still thin. The danger is that participants optimize for whatever the points system measures, usually volume or frequency, rather than for the characteristics buyers actually value. If the highest-point activities are short, easy captures in already well-covered areas, the points system can actively work against the goal of filling coverage gaps or producing higher-quality reconstructions. The more sophisticated approach is to make points a temporary bridge that gradually hands off economic weight to real USDC bounties and, eventually, to reputation or identity-weighted access to better-paying work. The Agents NFT boost is an early attempt at that handoff. Whether it succeeds depends on whether the points and identity layers are adjusted over time to reward the behaviors that increase the network’s utility to paying customers rather than simply maximizing activity for its own sake. How @vangrid_io evolves these incentives will determine whether the contributor base becomes a durable asset or a temporary surge.