The coding period for the 4th BSV Hackathon has commenced last June 14, 2021. The hackathon will last for six weeks until July 26, and the competition is open for registration for the entire coding period. This means that interested participants—whether individuals or teams—can still register for the online blockchain-based competition. This year, the prize pool amounts to $100,000. The grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 and the second and third place winners will be given $30,000 and $20,000, respectively.
“I’ve always said that our role was to provide the infrastructure and for the ecosystem to find ways to leverage that—and with $100,000 staked for the winners of this competition, we’re literally putting our money where our mouth is. I’m excited to see the different approaches that our Hackathon participants are sure to take during the competition and the final entries that emerge as a result,” leading blockchain research and development firm nChain CTO Steve Shadders, who is also one of the proponents of the hackathon, said.
This time, participants are tasked to develop peer-to-peer applications on the BSV blockchain utilizing the SPV Channels service and Merchant API (mAPI). The said applications are not limited to payment systems. Three finalists will be chosen after the coding period; and they will be given the opportunity to present their projects live during the next CoinGeek Conference to be held in October of this year.
“This month’s release of SPV Channels CE v1.1.0 introduced a crucial new service to the BSV network and an integral component to the massive scaling vision that underpins the BSV blockchain. With this edition of the Hackathon, we’re putting that new ability front and centre, tasking our entrants with finding unique and innovative ways to utilize that service and deliver on the true peer-to-peer vision for Bitcoin,” Shadders explained.
The BSV Hackathon, which began in 2019, is organized by Bitcoin Association, the Switzerland-based global industry organization that pushes the enterprise adoption of the BSV blockchain. The goal is to increase awareness about the capabilities of blockchain technology by creating massive innovative solutions to real-world problems. By involving developers from all backgrounds, the BSV blockchain can demonstrate its true value as the only scalable, stable, secure and transparent blockchain in the market.
“Developer education is a key component of the work we do at Bitcoin Association and one of the most exciting ways to incentivize developers to learn how to build applications on BSV is through competition such as our BSV Hackathons… The unbounded scaling, huge transaction throughput and extensive data capabilities of BSV make it the ultimate blockchain for developers to work with—resulting in a diverse assortment of projects each Hackathon. Previous participants have used BSV Hackathons as a springboard to venture investment, turning their competition projects into real-world businesses, so I’ll be watching with great interest to see what new and exciting ideas emerge during this iteration of the competition,” Jimmy Nguyen, founding president of Bitcoin Association, said.
The BSV Hackathon is one of the perfect venues to mingle and learn from other developers and experts. It also provides a way to not only refine their projects, but to create opportunities that would allow them to ultimately release their applications out into the market. For instance, a team composed of brothers Connor, Dylan and Kevin Murray only finished second place in the second BSV Hackathon in 2019, but they eventually were able to earn a grant and participate in Bitcoin Association’s Pitch Day that allowed them to secure enough funding in order to release their project TrueReviews—now known as BriteVue.