Hackathon winners put top ICP features into practice
Recent hackathons hosted by the DFINITY Foundation welcome new developer talent, and a wave of innovative dapps showcasing the implementation of top ICP features such as ckBTC, the exchange rate canister, and HTTPS outcalls.
Written by: Angela Harp
Fully On-chain with ICP
The Fully On-chain hackathon hosted by DFINITY on Devpost kicked off at the end of summer on August 21. Hackers from around the world had about a month’s time to submit projects that met the criteria of one of the three tracks. And what was the secret to winning? Project submissions had to wow the judges not just by delivering high quality designs and source code, they also had to present impressive application or service ideas that showed great potential to be useful in the real world. Prizes up for grabs included US$23,000 worth of ICP, plus various developers grants paid in ICP at a total sum of US$40,000.
The Tracks
Track 1: AWESOME ICP, gave participants creative freedom to build whatever dapp they pleased with only one stipulation — besides being awesome, the project had to make use of at least one of the capabilities unique to the Internet Computer to solve a real world problem. From SocialFi applications to DAO-tooling, privacy-focused applications to multi-chain infrastructures and decentralized AI models, the sky was the limit.
Track 2: BUIDL Bitcoin challenged hackers to build innovative cross-chain solutions to enhance DeFi on Ethereum, for example, or unleash the power of Bitcoin’s liquidity. In light of Internet Computer features such as native Bitcoin integration, ckBTC, and the first phase of the Ethereum integration, participants were encouraged to find ways to bring canister smart contracts or Layer 2 functionality to Bitcoin, and to explore using HTTPS outcalls to query the Ethereum network, and send transactions to it within DeFi or commerce solutions. Judges were specifically on the lookout for projects that creatively implemented cross-chain payment solutions for commerce, non-custodial Ordinal marketplaces, Lightning Network integrations, new types of non-custodial Bitcoin wallets, and in-gaming economy infrastructure that plugged into a growing ecosystem of Internet Computer native tools and services.
Track 3: GAMEFI was all about next gen Web3 gaming. Judges wanted to be wowed by projects that gave them a taste of what the future of decentralized gaming looks like. Many Internet Computer features such as its data storage capabilities, low latency and a reverse gas model that allow users to play for free, make it the perfect blockchain to build virtual worlds comparable to casual Web2 games with a smooth on-chain gaming experience. Besides creating a cool game using modern game engines, participants had to utilize BOOM DAO’s game tooling, and were challenged to make use of blockchain features like wallet integrations, creative token economies, immutable smart contracts, and the use of DAO frameworks.
And the Winners Are…
Grand winner & track 1 winner
icRouter, a cross-chain network application, takes the top win. It solves the problem of today’s cross-chain bridges that are vulnerable to hacks due to unpredictable centralized components they often rely on. Built with Motoko, icRouter uses threshold signatures and HTTPS outcalls to enable transferring assets from one public chain to another, supporting major networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, the Internet Computer, Polygon, Optimism and BNB Chain. The Internet Computer serves as a platform for information routing and asset routing to achieve bridgeless asset cross-chaining.
Watch the demo:
Read more about the project
Try it out
Track 2 winner
SynthiFy is an overcollateralized ckBTC-based ICRC-1 stablecoin built with Azle. It allows users to deposit ckBTC or BTC (which can be converted to ckBTC directly on the app) into a decentralized vault and mint stablecoins against their ckBTC holdings, unlocking liquidity for ckBTC. The platform’s modular solution enables easy creation of new types of stablecoins as needed, and currently supports the creation of a USD stablecoin called SynthUSD.
Read more about the project
Try it out
See open-source code
Track 3 winner
ICSoccerWorld snatched the prize for the GameFi category. This project uses BOOM DAO’s Unity template and combines AI, learning, genetics and NFTs in ways never attempted before. With all the essential building blocks in place, this ICSoccerWorld has the potential to be a fully fledged soccer management game that’s fun and truly decentralized.
Try it out
See open-source code: Frontend / Backend
Best use of 100% on-chain game
ToyoWorld’s proof of concept uses BOOM DAO, and is inspired by the likes of Axie Infinity and Pokemon. It aims to bring the two genres together by creating a unique play-to-earn metaverse where players can earn tokens, raise digital pets, battle and socialize on-chain from the browser.
Congratulations to the winners and to all teams who submitted projects!!
See the list of top project submissions.
Get to know some of the winning projects on the DFINITY X Space.
Bitcoin Olympics
In collaboration with the Bitcoin Startup Lab, DFINITY sponsored the Bitcoin Olympics Hackathon, which was open for submissions from August 9 to September 30 of this year. Hackers were encouraged to build unique applications, exploring with technologies such AI, Zero Knowledge Proofs, Ordinals, BRC-20 and more. The hackathon was open to developers around the world with over $100K in prizes from various Web3 sponsors, including DFINITY.
DFINITY Developer Relations team held several workshops and office hours to support the Bitcoin builder community in learning how to make use of the cross-chain capabilities of the Internet Computer to unleash innovation and shape the future of Bitcoin.
Congrats to the grand prize winners!
While there were several promising projects, two, in particular, stood out from the rest for the win.
Nostric:
The Nostric team set out to enhance Nostr, their social media protocol, using the Internet Computer to remove the risks or difficulties Nostr users can run into when using centralized Nostr clients and relay servers. Nostric is a brand new Nostr client running on the Internet Computer, which covers this basic functionality that most of the other Nostr clients have. The Nostr social media dapp also integrates ckBTC and vetKeys, which are used to store encrypted private keys securely in the backend of the app for security and a better user experience.
Read more about the project
See open-source code
ICP Canister Bridge
ICP Canister Bridge creates a service powered by the Internet Computer and Nostr that enables fast BTC swaps between the Lightning testnet and Rootstock testnet. The service uses the Internet Computer to send HTTPS requests to an Express.js API that interacts with the Lightning Network and Rootstock via an ECDSA API.
A canister smart contract acts as a decentralized bridge responsible for getting users requests and triggering required actions such as the generation of invoices, payment of invoices and transactions at Rootstock or Lightning. ICP smart contracts and ICP features such as HTTPS outcalls combined with Nostr and an Express.js API simplifies the process and ensure seamless transactions.
Once again, congratulations to all ICP winners and submissions. Be sure to join the next ICP hackathon powered by Encode Club, launching on December 12, 2023.
Register now!
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