When we launched the Nexus Creator Academy in early October, our goal was to open a space for creators around the world to help tell the story of verifiable systems. We invited participants to take on complex themes, like verifiable finance, and translate them into engaging, accessible, shortform videos.
Over the course of four weeks, more than one hundred creators submitted original videos exploring the future of verifiable infrastructure. Some entries were clear, concise explainers.
Others took creative risks by blending graphics and music or voiceovers. Taken together, these contributions formed a vibrant snapshot of how the next generation of builders and storytellers is thinking about verifiability and the future of the Nexus project.
Today, we’re proud to reflect on the success of the pilot and announce the winners of the first-ever NEXY Awards.
What the Creator Academy is all about
The Nexus Creator Academy is a new initiative focused on empowering global voices to tell meaningful stories about verifiability and the systems that make it possible. The Academy sits at the intersection of content, community, and infrastructure — and invites creators to shape public understanding of topics like verifiable finance, verifiable computation, and the next wave of internet architecture.
For this pilot round, we invited participants to produce a 60-second video in any format or style. The only requirement was that the video engage with a core theme from the world of verifiable systems. To support creators, we published weekly prompt ideas and reshared submissions that stood out for their clarity, originality, or creativity.
What we saw in this first round
The submissions we received came from across geographies, backgrounds, and styles. Some creators chose to explain fundamental concepts, while others took a narrative or artistic approach, bringing ideas to life through metaphor, humor, or visual storytelling.
While the formats varied widely, a few themes consistently stood out. The best content demonstrated educational clarity without oversimplification. It took creative risks, but remained grounded in insight. And reflected Nexus branding.
We’ll be sharing selected highlights from these submissions on our social channels in the weeks ahead, including TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.
Announcing the first NEXY award winners
To celebrate the most outstanding contributions, we created the NEXY Awards —our version of an Emmy or Grammy, but for Nexus-native content. The four award categories were designed to reflect the range of qualities we value in creators: Most Informative or Educational, Most Creative, Best Community Spirit, and Wildcard.
We asked our Discord channel to vote on nominees for 24 hours. One nominee (@DiscoverLPP) won two categories. But in the interest of recognizing more creators, we decided to look at second place votes for both of those categories, and ultimately ended up with the following winners.
The winner of Most Informative or Educational is...
Each of these creators will receive a custom NEXY Award NFT and will be featured across Nexus-owned platforms in the coming weeks.
What’s next for the Creator Academy
This pilot was just the beginning. The quality and energy of this first round confirmed that there is a strong appetite for creative, accessible, and verifiability-focused content from voices outside traditional industry channels.
We’re planning to run more challenges through the Creator Academy in the months ahead.
To everyone who submitted, shared, encouraged, or participated in any way —thank you. You helped bring the Creator Academy to life, and your work will continue to shape how these ideas are seen, understood, and discussed.
The next round is coming soon. We hope you’ll be part of it. Sign up to our Content Creator Academy email list to get updates first.
Daniel McGlynn
