Technical Resources Here! Pave Your Way for the 2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon
The 2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon, hosted by Parity and OneBlock+, is in full swing. As the hackathon progresses, are you facing new development challenges but lack resources to assist you? Do you wish to gain comprehensive insights into the Polkadot ecosystem, becoming an explorer of its domain, yet lacking comprehensive and scientific technical resources to reference? Only by finding the right technical guides can we overcome obstacles and stride towards a new phase of development.
Looking back at the star teams emerging from previous Polkadot Hackathons, most possess robust technical resources and reference guides. These resources not only provide more creative inspiration for project development, but also empower participants to claim the highest honors in the competition with courage and determination.
During the 2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon, to provide developers with a richer and more comprehensive hackathon experience, we’ve prepared detailed and comprehensive development resources and guidelines. From introductory stages to advanced levels, we believe various developers will find the secret of technical breakthroughs, with additional introductions to excellent projects within the Polkadot ecosystem and winners from previous hackathons. This will help you familiarize yourself with Substrate and Polkadot, mastering the secrets from 0 to 1 to create outstanding hackathon projects.
The following will introduce the Substrate / Polkadot technical guide, keep this technical treasure trove handy for the hackathon:
Technical Guide
Why Suggest New Web3 Developers Learn About Substrate?
Substrate allows you to create customized blockchains by producing and integrating different modules, providing all the technical foundations required for building blockchains. Utilizing Substrate modules can easily create the desired content or devise personal custom logic, making blockchain construction easier, more efficient, and secure.
It offers:
- Chain upgrades without hard forks: Upgrading blockchains has never been this easy. With Substrate, upgrading chain logic is as simple as submitting a transaction.
- Cross-language support for WebAssembly: WebAssembly is the next web standard. You can write your blockchain logic in any language, including C/C++, C#, Typescript, and Rust, then compile it into WebAssembly format.
- Direct compatibility with the Polkadot network: Your Substrate blockchain will be compatible with the Polkadot network, making it easy to become a parachain of the Polkadot network and communicate with other chains.
- Future-oriented blockchains: With non-forking chain upgrades, lightweight clients, off-chain workers(OCW), and other functionalities, your Substrate blockchain is prepared for the innovations brought by the future Web3.
1. Beginner’s Guide — Polkadot Wiki
The Polkadot Wiki provides technical knowledge for learners, Polkadot developers, and maintainers. It starts from defining Polkadot and explains everything related to Polkadot, including but not limited to basic information such as Polkadot network, community, funding programs, ambassador programs, account usage guidelines, and research guides (containing video tutorials for beginners on how to enter the Polkadot ecosystem).
🌐 Wiki Link: https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/getting-started
2. Substrate / Polkadot Beginner’s Guide
In our article “How to Learn Substrate,” we introduce why learning Substrate is necessary, essential knowledge needed to learn it, Substrate learning materials, and recommended employ methods, aiming to help beginners establish a basic understanding of Substrate.
1. Official Substrate Documentation
The most comprehensive Substrate technical knowledge explanation, covering knowledge from conceptual introduction to specific code implementation, provides beginners with the best documentation for understanding Substrate knowledge.
- Substrate Development Tutorial: https://docs.substrate.io/tutorials/
A step-by-step tutorial teaching you how to use Substrate to create your own DApp and how to build interactions with the front end.
- Substrate Reference Materials: https://docs.substrate.io/reference/
Containing links to Rust API documentation, technical reference materials for Substrate and FRAME tools and libraries.
2. Substrate Technical Development Advanced Chinese Course
The introductory / advanced Substrate course, exclusively created by OneBlock+ and Parity, allows developers to enter the Substrate world in the shortest possible time. Interested developers can proactively contact Emma to get the course (the 7th advanced course is currently open for enrollment, scheduled to start in mid to late December):
🧑🏫 Course Registration Link: https://meggd.xet.tech/s/2nGVuQ
3. Substrate Development Related Tools
- Blockchain (Parity Official) frontend/wallet: https://polkadot.js.org/apps/#/explorer
The most comprehensive Substrate blockchain frontend and wallet with various functions.
- Subscan: https://www.subscan.io/
A detailed Substrate blockchain browser. Besides searching for blocks, external functions, events, and accounts, it also provides a user-friendly interactive experience in staking, EVM, parachains, and other modules.
- Substrate Playground: https://substrate.io/developers/
An online editor for compiling Substrate in the cloud without installing a development environment.
4. Polkadot Official Documentation
🌐 Link: https://wiki.polkadot.network/
Explains some behaviors of the Polkadot network and the principles behind it.
5. Polkadot-JS Documentation
🌐 Link: https://polkadot.js.org/docs/
Explains how to use Polkadot-JS API to build a client that interacts with Substrate, subscribing to on-chain information.
Experienced Substrate Developer’s Guide
1. Substrate Development Guide
🎯 Link: https://docs.substrate.io/reference/how-to-guides/
Records how to achieve specific functionalities on Substrate: each guide explains how to complete specific functionalities assuming you are already familiar with Substrate and Rust programming.
2. Substrate Runtime API Documentation
🎯 Link: https://docs.substrate.io/reference/runtime-apis/
Contains tutorials on how to launch networks, clients, and external pools.
Substrate / Polkadot Community
In addition to the technical resources mentioned above for participants’ reference and learning, you can also follow the official Substrate / Polkadot accounts to learn about the latest developments in Polkadot and gain more project development inspiration.
⛳️ Substrate Community Project List: https://github.com/substrate-developer-hub/awesome-substrate
👥 Substrate Technical (Public) Matrix Group: https://matrix.to/#/!HzySYSaIhtyWrwiwEV:matrix.org
🧑🏻💻 Parity Support Group (Official Engineer Support): https://app.element.io/#/room/!AtgPynFxLJGFYkAZEl:matrix.parity.io
💬 Parity Watercooler (Chat Area): https://app.element.io/#/room/!IWlcTyHSqIEjpUReHD:matrix.parity.io
Excellent Projects in Polkadot
In early November, Messari released the Q3 report on Polkadot ecosystem. The current official version, Polkadot 1.0, has been completed, and it is advancing towards the new path of decentralization and security of 2.0. Asynchronous Backing significantly enhances Polkadot’s throughput and scaling. The open-source technology stack provides more comprehensive developer support, covering user interfaces, tools, smart contracts, and various other domains.
As the second-largest web3 ecosystem, according to Electric Capital’s data, Polkadot averages nearly 2,000 monthly active developers, continuously driving more innovative projects’ development and technological upgrades. Currently, there are hundreds of teams in the Polkadot ecosystem gaining attention and favor from investment institutions, communities, and individual investors. Many outstanding projects have become sponsors of the 2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon, serving as judges and guests to guide more potential entrepreneurial projects to stand out in the hackathon!
If you are keen on exploring these excellent projects, please pay attention to the pre-hackathon guidance workshops! You will have the opportunity to interact with them face-to-face and gain technical insights and development experiences. The following introduces excellent projects in the Polkadot ecosystem (ranked alphabetically):
- Acala — A DeFi Hub on Polkadot that facilitates collateralization, exchange, borrowing, lending, and yield farming.
- Bifrost — A scalable, non-custodial decentralized cross-chain liquidity staking specialized parachain (Omnichain LSD Layer1) built on Polkadot, currently supporting liquidity derivatives on over 9+ blockchains.
- Cumulus Encrypted Storage System (CESS) — A decentralized cloud storage network for data storing and sharing, which is high-speed, secure, and scalable. CESS is an open-source public blockchain, intended to be the underlying network infrastructure for decentralized storage needs.
- Gear Foundation — Gear Protocol is a next-generation WebAssembly smart contract platform based on Substrate that enables anyone to deploy a DApp in minutes. Gear Protocol has completely new features with the innovative implementation of the Actor model, persistent memory, and WebAssembly execution environment in Substrate.
- Moonbeam — A developer-oriented blockchain that strives to provide compatibility with the existing Ethereum developer toolchain and network. It does this by providing a full EVM implementation, a Web3-compatible API, and bridges that connect Moonbeam to existing Ethereum networks. This allows developers to deploy existing Solidity smart contracts and DApp frontends to Moonbeam with minimal changes.
- Tanssi — A permissionless appchain infrastructure protocol designed for swift and effortless deployment of application-specific blockchains.
Previous Winners
The Polkadot Hackathon, jointly hosted by Parity and OneBlock+ since 2021, has successfully conducted 7 sessions. Masses of developers have developed promising projects in this hackathon. Here are some outstanding projects from previous hackathons, hoping to inspire participants this time:
- Cybros Network — Cybros Network is a blockchain-based async jobs scheduler, which could introduce tons of classic Web 2 features into the Web 3 world in a native way. Combined with Web 3 composability, it could derive new product forms.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/projects/11-cybros-network
- Polkadot Smart Account — Polkadot Smart Account is an implementation of smart contract accounts in the Polkadot ecosystem, based on the ink! contract and adjusted and optimized according to the Polkadot architecture, following the EIP4337 standard, and will also provide a pallet version in the future.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/projects/50-Polkadot-Smart-Account
- Mimir — Mimir is an asset management tool focused on user interaction, presenting various Polkadot ecosystem pallets in a productized format. It supports not only single-signature addresses but also multisig addresses. Users can access various existing Polkadot ecosystem applications through Mimir using multisig addresses.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/projects/34-Mimir
- DTIM — DTIM is a distributed instant messaging software based on the matrix communication protocol, DT is short for Decentralize team. Their goal is to provide a secure, efficient and transparent working communication environment.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/projects/12-DTIM
- Trypto — Trypto is a collaborative management system for secret sharing based on user personalized user profiles, aiming to provide a secure, reliable, and user-friendly way for users to share secret information in a decentralized environment while protecting their personal privacy and data security.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/projects/47-Trypto
Review of Workshop №1
In order to better assist participants in preparing for the 2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon, the pre-hackathon guidance workshop is in full swing. Workshop №1 was held on November 11 at 20:00, led by Parity engineers Suvi Dong, Kaichao, and Substrate contributor Jimmy, delved into account abstraction, XCM cross-chain technology, ZKML project development, and the development of the Polkadot ecosystem. Below is a review of the event:
🚩Bilibili Playback:
https://space.bilibili.com/1650224419/channel/collectiondetail?sid=847209&ctype=0
🚩YouTube Playback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4UZGxXBbaU&list=PLKgwQU2jh_H9P-7nxAwmZkzxATpWp6UJ-
Exploring the Potential of AA (Account Abstraction) in Polkadot
Before understanding the application potential of account abstraction in the Polkadot ecosystem, we first need to grasp the concept of account abstraction. Simply put, account abstraction makes an account an independent concept, separating it from a strong binding relationship with signature algorithms, transaction fee deductions, transaction initiators, and even chains. For users, using account abstraction allows them to enjoy technological advantages such as multi-signature, keyless login, batch timed transactions, and lower-cost wallet migrations. These technological advantages can also be leveraged in the Polkadot ecosystem through account abstraction.
Account abstraction in Polkadot relies on Pallet in Runtime, and its native account abstraction features include multi-signature accounts, proxy accounts, derivative accounts, batch processing functions, etc. (More references here: (https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/learn-account-abstraction) For instance, on-chain multi-asset payment functions highly relevant to users can achieve asset circulation changes through personalized customization. Overall, Polkadot provides more space for improvement in the application of account abstraction and, with the help of cross-chain mechanisms, allows developers and users to experience more with account abstraction’s strong advantages in Polkadot. Finally, Suvi Dong hopes that developers interested in the Polkadot ecosystem can delve deeper into the essence of account abstraction. Only better understanding can help to better grasp the powerful advantages of account abstraction supported by Polkadot.
Unlocking the Future of Polkadot and XCM (Cross-Chain Messaging)
After understanding the application potential of account abstraction in Polkadot, the discussion shifted towards the evolution of Polkadot’s cross-chain technology. Exploring the development of Polkadot’s cross-chain technology needs to start with the background of Polkadot’s origin. Parity engineer Kaichao said that at the end of 2017, Substrate was separated from the Polkadot codebase. In 2018, Substrate demonstrated the ability to build a blockchain within 15 minutes at the Web3 Summit, making Substrate an official general-purpose blockchain development framework.
Following that, technical modules and parachains began to accelerate their deployment in Polkadot. By around 2022, XCM V1-V3 was successively deployed, becoming the primary way for communication between parachains. As a cross-chain communication language, XCM can guide users in the refinement and logic execution of on-chain information. It can also achieve asynchronous backing of messages, reducing the latency of transactions executed on parachains and thus gaining more throughput.
With the advancement of XCM technology, the development of parachains in the Polkadot ecosystem has further accelerated. At a time when challenges such as resource allocation imbalances, insufficient financial capabilities, and weak stability have gradually troubled parachain development teams, Polkadot proposed a major update in August this year — Agile Coretime, a more flexible way to access Polkadot’s computational capabilities. The allocation model of purchasing Coretime periodically can more efficiently allocate and manage block space. With the assistance of the XCM cross-chain mechanism, the allocation and use of Coretime will be precise and low-latency. This will allow the adjustment of blocks between parachains to be more customizable and personalized, enhancing the compatibility and scalability of Polkadot’s future development. In the near future, we can even expect upgrades to system parachain staking, identity verification, governance systems, and the emergence of Sassafras consensus, lightweight client Smoldot, among other products.
What Other Projects Can Be Done in the Blockchain world? Is ZKML the Answer?
As Web3 develops into a new stage, is there still room for innovative projects in the blockchain field? Regarding this question, Substrate contributor Jimmy focuses on the innovative applications of ZKxAI. Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) is a computationally intensive privacy protection technology protocol with verifiable and scalable attributes. Machine learning is a research direction in AI field, enabling computers to learn and improve automatically from experience without explicit programming. When time efficiency and gas costs on-chain become main pain points for project development, the advantages of AI, such as high data carrying storage and strong computing capabilities, often provide solutions. They establish a new pattern of development that is trustless and decentralized.
Specifically, ZKP technology might be a practical on-chain verification method that, when integrated with AI intelligent models, provides users with authenticated data to prevent deep forgery, thereby offering users secure and reliable on-chain transactions and content creation permissions. Although there are still obstacles in executing arithmetic circuits, proof triple trade-offs, limitations of floating-point operations in current ZK and AI collaborations, it is precisely these urgent problems that provide more market space for Web3 developers to develop projects. Jimmy believes that AI has always had great potential in the blockchain world, and as long as developers are interested and willing to study, more AI projects combined with popular technologies are expected to gain new development in Web3.
2023 Winter Polkadot Hackathon is still open for registrations! OneBlock+ will continue to track the latest developments in the hackathon and promptly deliver event-related information to you. Hackers, stay excited about the hackathon, and we look forward to seeing your splendid performances in the competition!
💎Registration: https://forms.gle/DX359M661hg17tPN9
About OneBlock+
OneBlock+ is the first and the largest blockchain developer community in China. At OneBlock+, we provide full support for developers with their substrate studies and further set off their career paths. We host Polkadot Hackathons every season to attract top-notch developers to build and innovate for the prosperity of the ecosystem. As a greater China technology resource integrator, OneBlock+ also partners with developers, communities, business elites, and key media who have business insights and experiences in the blockchain industry to provide educational events, such as technical courses, webinars, AMAs, and offline events for the industry. Want to shape the crypto world together? Come and join us today!
