Name: Reference Relay
Brand: DEPLOYR
Price: 149 USD
Availability: PreOrder

Picture this

Who it is for

Ifeoma leaves her startup and her old manager signs a reference in two minutes. She shares a link that proves it is genuine to each new employer, and can revoke it anytime, so her ex boss never gets ten phone calls.

Two ways to own it

What you get

Base$149

$37 deposit to reserve

Referee signing via email domain verification, encrypted reference vault, share link with expiry, verifier page.

You choose: chain
You choose: name and logo
You choose: accent color

Customfrom $1,000

Built around you

Reshape it entirely: new features, your flows, your brand end to end, integrations you need. We scope it with you.

Everything in Base
Custom features and design
Priority build

Why it is new

What exists today, and what this does differently

What is new

The VC standard supports it but no simple consumer reference tool was found.

Closest things out there

W3C verifiable credentials and wallets (Velocity Network, Gen Digital/Accenture pilot) support holder-controlled employment credentials; no lightweight referee-signed reference product found.

Checked with web searches in October 2026. A search is not proof that nothing similar exists, and the market moves fast, so we recheck before every build.

What it unlocks

The human in it

Your good name travels with you.

The Regatta Board

Races it can enter

buildathon · Base · upcoming

Base Batches

unknown for next cohort

Official page ↗

Eligibility unknown; prior editions took existing early projects.

Their rule on existing code: unknown; prior editions accepted early-stage teams including existing projects

What you own

The whole app, not a starter kit.

The complete Reference Relay app: a referee signs one job reference once, and the candidate carries it sealed, sharing a private, expiring link with each employer, with a paywall and checkout built in.

Base price · $149

The user app, complete

Every buyer gets the same finished app. Basic branding and copy changes come through a quick form.

Three step onboardingHome

Shown once: your old boss signs once, you carry it sealed, one link per door.

Progress and next actionHome

Drafted, signed, shared and checked, with one clear next step and recent activity.

Referee signing with chosen claimsRefs

The referee approves each trait; the drafting helper never adds a claim they did not tick.

Proof of employer with fallbackRefs

Work email code, or a co-founder co-sign when the company has closed, with weaker proofs labelled.

Sealed reference and proof slipRefs

Fingerprint attested on Base or Optimism; letter text and salary stay private in the vault.

More than the free referencesRefs

Extra referees beyond the free number. Gated behind Candidate Plus.

Per employer share linksLinks

One private link per employer with 7 or 30 day expiry, preview and withdraw any time.

Check page stress testsLinks

Edited copies, expired links and screenshots fail the check instead of guessing.

90 day linksLinks

Custom long expiry. Gated behind Candidate Plus.

Who opened my linksActivity

Which employer checked and when, visible to the candidate only. Gated behind Candidate Plus.

Monthly note and calls chartActivity

On the 1st: who looked, what expires, and how few calls the referee got.

PDF copy with QR checkMe

Printable copy whose QR points to the signed original. Gated behind Candidate Plus.

Plans and USDC checkoutMe

Pricing sheet with tiers from the owner, paid through the shared USDC checkout with a receipt.

Open the full app demo

Add-on

Owner console

Your admin side: revenue, paywall editor, users, rules and the agent log.

Revenue and paywall editorRevenue

MRR, payouts, incoming USDC payments, tier names and prices, gates and payment methods, live in the user app.

RulesRules

Email proof, co-sign fallback, QR on PDFs, salary default, gas sponsorship, monthly note, chain and expiry.

Agent log and costsAgent

What the helper did when proofs failed, reacting to the rules, plus running costs.

Roadmap requestsRoadmap

v2 and v3 scopes with add-on prices and a request button.

Top-up

Growth and referrals

Referral and growth mechanics, switched on when you are ready to grow.

Growth loops and referralsGrowth

Hiring team trial, check page footer invite, pay it forward, cohorts and candidate referral codes.

The money path, built in

How it earns for you

Candidates carry their references for free. Busy job seekers pay for Candidate Plus, and employers pay for a hiring team plan with bulk checks.

CandidateFreeUp to 3 references, share links with 7 or 30 day expiry, revoke any time

Candidate Plus$4 a monthUnlimited references, who opened what, PDF with QR check, 90 day links

Hiring team$29 a monthPaid by employers: bulk verification, an applicant system friendly check page, audit export

Gas for each attestation is well under one cent and can be sponsored by the owner. Payments arrive in USDC on Base by default.

Prices are yours to set. Illustrative, not a promise of income.

Growth loops, built in

How it spreads

Check page footer: every check ends with 'Get your own references signed once'
Referees who sign once ask their own reports to use it
Monthly pay it forward note turns candidates into referees
Hiring team trial for employers that check often
Candidate to candidate referral codes worth a free month for both

Roadmap · build the next phase with us

Where it goes next

v1 included

The full candidate app

Referee signing with email code or co-sign fallback
Sealed reference on Base, letter encrypted in a vault
Per employer links with expiry and revocation
Check page that fails edited copies and screenshots
Activity, monthly note and pay it forward

Included

Hiring team portal and check API

Hiring team dashboard with bulk checks
Applicant system plugin that reads the check page
Audit export for compliance
Optimism deployment of the same schema

Add-on from $400

Portable work record

Project credits co-signed by teammates
Peer endorsements with the same seal
One link for a whole work history
Referee dashboard for managers who sign often

Add-on from $900

For investors and grant reviewers

The pitch, ready

Job references the referee signs once and the candidate carries everywhere, privately.

Problem: References still run on phone calls. Good managers get called ten times per candidate, references vanish when a startup closes, and a PDF can be edited by anyone who forwards it.

Solution: The referee signs one reference in two minutes. Its fingerprint is attested on Base, the text stays encrypted in the candidate's vault, and each employer gets an expiring link that fails on any edited copy.

Why now: Cheap attestations on Base, embedded email wallets that hide the crypto, and small models that draft from bullet points make a signed reference practical for people who never touch a wallet.

Market: Job seekers in startup and remote hiring, the managers who give references, and the hiring teams and recruiters who check them, starting with tech employers.

The ask: Pilot partners: two hiring teams willing to accept the check page, and a place in an onchain consumer programme such as Base Batches.

Funding is never guaranteed. Check each program's rules.

For hackathons and demo days

Your 2 minute demo

Home: meet Ifeoma, 29, in Lagos, the night Kaya Labs closes, with interviews in three cities.
Refs: pick what Tunde vouches for, choose work email proof, send it to sign.
Agent: the email bounces because the domain died; the helper switches to the co-founder's co-sign.
Links: send Wanjiru at Lumen Pay a 30 day link and mark it checked.
Links: stress test the check page with an edited PDF, an old link and a screenshot.
Activity: Tunde got one call, not ten; sign a reference forward for Kunle.
Revenue: rename a tier, change the price, and see the user Plans screen update.
Roadmap: request the hiring team portal as a priced add-on.

Many hackathons require code written at the event. See the Regatta Boardfor each race's rule.

Make it entirely yours

Custom work covers your own branding beyond name and colour, extra proof methods such as HR system or payroll checks, applicant system integrations, other languages and regions, and data protection reviews for your market. Scoped on a call, from $1,000.

Custom from $1,000

BLUEPRINT

Why it matters and how it really works

The need

Job references still run on phone calls. Good managers get called ten times per candidate, references disappear when a startup closes, and a PDF reference can be edited by anyone who forwards it. Candidates have no say over who reads what their old boss wrote.

What exists and what is new

The building blocks exist. W3C verifiable credentials and wallets support holder controlled employment credentials, and Velocity Network and a Gen Digital and Accenture pilot have shown employer issued credentials in practice. Research verdict: rare, medium novelty. We found no lightweight product where a single referee signs a personal reference once and the candidate shares it per employer with expiry and revocation. That consumer flow, plus a fallback for employers that no longer exist, is what is new here.

The data it runs on

The referee's signature and proof they worked at the employer (work email code, or a co-signature from a company officer's wallet), the reference text and chosen traits (encrypted in the candidate's vault), a fingerprint of the letter, share links with expiry, and a private log of who opened each link.

1.The mission

Let a good word from a good boss travel with you, without costing them a phone call every time.

2.Why people can't resist it

Two minutes, once Referees sign one reference and never get chased again. That alone makes managers say yes.

You hold the baton Each employer gets its own link that expires, and you can pull any link back without touching the reference.

Copies cannot lie Any edited PDF fails the check, and every printed copy carries a QR to the signed original.

3.How it works for real

Referee proof: A one time code to the referee's work email, or when the company has closed, a co-signature from a founder or officer wallet plus a candidate supplied payslip fingerprint. The method is shown on every check.

Signing: The referee signs in a Privy embedded wallet with no crypto knowledge needed. The letter is hashed and an EAS attestation on Base records referee, candidate, fingerprint and proof method.

Vault: The letter text is encrypted client side and stored in the candidate's vault (for example Lit Protocol access control or a simple encrypted blob store). Only the fingerprint is onchain.

Share links: Each link is a signed capability with an expiry. Opening it decrypts the letter for that viewer and checks the fingerprint against the Base attestation.

Revocation: Revoking a link is a cheap offchain update; revoking the reference itself (only the referee can) is an EAS revocation on Base, visible to every verifier.

Assistant: A small model (for example Claude Haiku or Gemini Flash via OpenRouter) helps the referee draft from bullet points and writes the monthly note. It never invents claims the referee did not tick.

Optimism option: The same EAS schema can be deployed on Optimism for owners who prefer it.

4.Cost per use and pricing

An EAS attestation on Base usually costs well under one cent in gas, sponsored by the app. Drafting help on a small model is a fraction of a cent per letter. Storage and email are cents per user per month. Example month with 1,000 references and 6,000 checks: a few dollars of gas, about $5 of model calls, roughly $30 hosting and email, under $40 total.

Candidate Free

Up to 3 references and unlimited share links with expiry.

Candidate Plus $4 a month

Unlimited references, who opened what, PDF with QR, and custom expiry.

Hiring team $29 a month

Bulk verification, an ATS friendly check page, and audit export.

5.Growth loop

Every check page ends with 'Get your own references signed once'. Referees who sign one letter see how easy it was and ask their own reports to use it. The monthly 'pay it forward' prompt turns each happy candidate into a referee for someone else.

6.Risks and guardrails

False referees: Someone could pose as a manager. Proof methods are shown plainly, weaker proofs are labelled, and employers can still call if they want.

Closed employers: Work email fails when a company dies. The co-sign fallback is weaker and must say so rather than look equal.

Privacy: Letter text never goes onchain. View logs are visible only to the candidate. Salary is off by default.

Legal: References carry defamation and data protection duties in many countries. Referees must see the final text, and candidates can request deletion of their vault.

Screenshots: A screenshot cannot be verified. The check page must say so instead of guessing.

7.Build order

Referee signing with work email code and a Privy wallet
EAS schema and attestation on Base
Encrypted vault and per employer share links with expiry
Public check page with fingerprint comparison
Revocation for links and for references
Co-sign fallback for closed employers
Monthly note and pay it forward prompt

8.Where this is going

Now
One signed reference, shared with expiring links, checked in seconds on Base.
Next
Hiring tools read the check page directly, so candidates paste one link into any application.
Later
References, project credits and peer endorsements live together in a portable work record the candidate controls.
The world it builds
Your good name stops depending on whether your old company still exists or your old boss picks up the phone.

Costs and tools are estimates at the time of writing. General information only, not legal or financial advice.

OWNER PLAYBOOK

Own it, then chart your voyage

Nine routes from one vessel. Tap a port to open its chart.

Why own Reference Relay

References are still phone calls and unverifiable PDFs. Own Reference Relay and you run the private, signed reference vault, from your wallet and brand, that saves job seekers and old managers hours. The users, the recruiter relationships and the trust record are yours.

What’s stopping you?

“Will employers accept it?”

Some will ask for a call anyway. The verifier page shows the referee's verified email domain and signature, which saves the call for most. Start with tech and web3 employers.

“Is storing references a privacy risk?”

References are encrypted and shared by link with expiry. Store as little as possible and let users delete everything.

“I can't code.”

You do not need to. Reference Relay arrives working, deployed from your own wallet with a written guide for every step. You will click, paste and fill in names. If you ever want a change you cannot make, the custom option or a freelancer can handle it, but the first launch needs no code.

“Is it really mine?”

Yes. The contract is deployed from your wallet on Base, the code sits in your own git repo, and the name and brand are yours. DEPLOYR does not hold your keys or take a cut of what Reference Relay earns. If you stop paying anyone tomorrow, the app keeps running on your wallet.

“What if nobody uses Reference Relay?”

That is the most likely early outcome, and it is fixable. The paths below start with you as the first user, then ten real job seekers and the managers who vouch for them you can name today. If ten people you message do not care after you have shown it to them, you have learned something useful in a week instead of a year.

The million-dollar ladder

Free first reference, a small fee per extra reference or yearly plan for job seekers, and recruiter plans for verifying at volume. This ladder is a target, not a promise.

$90

$2,400

$28,500

$85,000

First 10 users

10 job seekers

$9 each

Proof it works

200 job seekers

$12 each

Real business

1,500 job seekers and recruiters