Four Major Challenge Tracks and Participation Process of Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer.
Why do we recommend you participate in a Web3 hackathon?
For newcomers to the Web3 community, the best way to learn about cryptography is through hands-on practice. A hackathon is undoubtedly the ultimate classroom where you can apply what you have learned. It will help you grow rapidly in this emerging field.
For experienced professionals in the crypto industry, participating in a Web3 hackathon offers the opportunity to learn how to organize project teams and build products from 0 to 1. It also provides a chance to receive guidance and advice from industry leaders and gain the attention of investors. Therefore, the Web3 hackathon is an excellent opportunity to incubate crypto startup projects.
Why do we recommend you participate in the Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer?
- Rich event experience to support the growth of outstanding projects.
The Polkadot Hackathon, co-hosted by Parity and OneBlock+, has successfully held six editions. We witness the growth of hundreds of projects and thousands of developers. This hackathon includes pre-competition workshops, technical resource sharing, Polkadot ecosystem technology, and prospect speeches. We hope to contribute to the growth of startup projects.
- Diverse awards and generous prize support.
To assist more Web3 enthusiasts in entrepreneurship, the hackathon offers a total prize pool of up to 2,000,000 CNY and features four categories with 16 awards. Additionally, multiple bounty awards will be announced gradually. By attending and successfully entering the finals, participants will have the chance to share the 714 DOT Travel Grant prize pool. Your efforts will be rewarded!
- An annual industry event and an opportunity to gain attention from industry experts.
The hackathon will invite industry leaders, tech experts, and investors as judges and guests. The Demo Day during the finals will provide startup teams with the opportunity to be discovered and allow high-quality projects to quickly gain global visibility.
In the article ‘Registration for the 2023 Summer Polka Hackathon is Open Now, With a $300,000 Prize Pool’, we have provided an overview of the registration process, awards and prizes, and the main agenda of the competition. Interested participants can scan the poster link above for registration.
Let’s provide you with a detailed explanation of the participation process to help all the registered participants smoothly take part in the event. In addition, this year’s hackathon features four major tracks, but there are some differences in the specific track design compared to previous editions. Please stay tuned for the latest track guidelines as they may contain the inspiration you need for your participation!
1.Registration Process
The Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer started accepting registrations on May 12th and will conclude on July 4th. During this period, there will be various activities including online live team formation, workshops, office hours, and an offline final Demo Day. Specific event information will be announced gradually in the official competition group and on the OneBlock public account. Please stay tuned for updates. Additionally, participating individuals should pay attention to the following registration process:
Step1: Fill out the Google form
Participants can submit their registration and complete the required information through the following link. Whether you are participating as a team or an individual, each team member must fill out this form. Please note that awards are evaluated based on four categories, so a project can participate in multiple tracks.
🚩Google form: https://forms.gle/bfQCm1JUKDwBqXSW9
Step2: Fill out the registration form
Each team should have at least one team member who clicks the registration link, clicks “Submit BUIDL,” and provides the necessary information. You can choose to fill out only the required registration information. By participating in this hackathon, it implies that you agree to the sponsors collecting and storing participants’ personal information for the operation and promotion of the hackathon.
🚩Registration Link: https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/polkadot-hackathon-2023-summer/detail
Step3: Join our Discord
Please join the discord group and select “2023 Polkadot Summer Hackathon Hacker” as your role. Please modify your username to “Name-TeamName” or “Name-Individual” (if you haven’t formed a team yet).
🚩Discord Group Link: https://discord.com/invite/KsCEKvqU4p
2. Challenge Tracks Guide
This hackathon features four major tracks: Building Parachains + Independent Chains, Smart Contracts and Related, Blockchain Products and Tools, and Open Tracks. Participating teams can register for multiple tracks and compete for multiple awards. Please check the specific track guidelines for more details.
Category I: Building Parachains + Independent Chains
In this category, you can use Substrate to build a custom blockchain challenge. In the near future, your chain will have the ability to access the Kusama relay chain for interoperability and plug-and-play security. The following ideas are meant to give you some inspiration. We want you to get creative and build the custom chain you think will be most useful to other builders of the Substrate ecosystem!
Game Chains
A game can be defined as a change of state between two or more participants with additional predefined rules. Our vision of an ideal game chain is not that it can support slow two-player turn-based games (this problem has already been solved), but a chain that is abstract enough to be applicable to everything from chess and battleships to almost real-time, rogue-like games with many players in the same world.
Such a product would ideally be an abstract chain on which developers/entrepreneurs could seamlessly drop games into the multiverse as a way to build a tournament platform with sports booking and eSports capabilities, raise funds for games, and enable fair distribution to game developers. Its functionality could include all or some of the following features:
- Implementation of the multi-token standard (ERC1155).
- Exchange or interchange protocol for ERC1155 tokens (e.g. modified to ERC1155).
- On/off-chain (e.g. IPFS) metadata deployment and hosting tools.
- Stablecoin integration (Acala).
- Trading and integration API for JS/Unity based games.
Experiment with free tx, free tx under specific restrictions, or free tx based on player reputation. The concept of building a web3 game proves that it does not break the feel of a centralized game, but sticks to players, items and information for true ownership of virtual characters. Example:
- NFT parachain example
- Substrate collectibles example
- Substrate game example
Examples of existing game chains:
DeFi or Stable Coin Chain
Decentralized finance is a re-imagining of traditional financial services with blockchain trust minimization at its core. one example of DeFi is loans and interest-bearing positions, such as MakerDAO’s collateralized debt position system. Another example is the synthetic asset protocol, which allows users to create stablecoin positions or derivatives. For Kusama, DeFi can exist in its own parachain alone by creating optimized executions, or across parachains by composing protocols on top of the underlying primitives and using XCMP for interoperability.
Stablecoins are less volatile cryptocurrencies that are typically pegged to the value of a reference asset (e.g., the U.S. dollar). By using algorithmic stablecoin designs, there are now different designs to implement stablecoins, such as Schellingcoin or synthetic asset designs. A Kusama stablecoin may be similar to one of these or something completely original and new.
Other ideas in this category include a stablecoin savings account (e.g. Dharma), an insurance layer for DeFi (e.g. Opyn), a B2B payment platform (e.g. Veem), a fast payment chain, or a regenerative subscription payment implementation, or an unsupervised swap process that can be integrated with any custody scheme, a process that allows users to trade with each other without giving up supervision of third parties.
Examples of existing DeFi chains:
Private Chain
Blockchain is inherently transparent. And all transaction history is visible to all. Some applications will need to have stronger private protection. On Kusama, private chain can be integrated by using zkSNARK, zkSTARK, ring signatures, and other methods of hiding information on the chain. Private chain can also be created at the protocol or network level by designing hidden node or verifier identities. The minimal functionality a project can include here is to allow users to private chain trade value in the Kusama or Polkadot ecosystem. Different designs are possible, but the most useful design would be a parachain that allows private transactions to be handled using arbitrary Substrate tokens. Its functionality could include all or some of the following features:
- Confidential Transaction: Has the ability to transfer tokens between two accounts without revealing the number or type of transfers, even if the addresses of the transactions involved remain visible.
- Anonymous Transaction: Has the ability to transfer tokens between two accounts without revealing the addresses involved, even if the number or type of tokens transferred is publicly available.
- Confidential Account: An account with an unknown balance, but also with a view secret key allowing the specified user to view the balance of this account, but not the incoming or outgoing transactions. This is similar to ZCash’s z address.
Reference example:
DAO Chain
A DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is a blockchain application that allows community members to come together to agree on certain decisions in a DAO. Aragon is the most famous DAO framework in the Ethereum world. It allows someone to launch a DAO with a few mouse clicks, while adding in new applications (e.g. different voting or funding models), as well as allowing members to initiate votes on the execution of actions, not only within the DAO, but also the DAO’s external smart contracts (i.e. the DAO can invest in DeFi and thus earn interest on membership fees).
A Kusama DAO chain allows the use of a modular DAO framework with out-of-the-box basic modules and allows users to easily plug their own custom modules into the DAO. Whether this can be better done with smart contracts or WASM modules that require governance is up to the developer, but the essence of a DAO is the ability to programmatically interact with other DAOs in the same chain — the interoperability of governance is a new way to think about the state of the digital state.
Example:
Content, Social Network and Storage Chain
The focus of a content or storage chain will be all-encompassing, ranging from decentralized versions of Github and access to ownership of personal data to hosting unstoppable, uncensored websites. Social networks with built-in privacy, decentralized email platforms, and next-generation seeds, all of which should be made possible by integrating a Substrate chain with a protocol like IPFS or Storj.
A Kusama storage chain would demonstrate the real need for decentralized storage, not just storage for storage’s sake. Or, it could be an abstraction chain for cost-based read/write, and others could connect to it just as easily as to an AWS S3 bucket. This might include integration with IPFS, Storj and so on.
Example:
- SubSocial
- Redis-style data storage and commands
DID
Idea: substrate-developer-hub/hacktoberfest#27
Example:
Decentralized Market Chain
Idea: substrate-developer-hub/hacktoberfest#27
Other Ideas
- Public voting chains
- Computational chains (e.g. Golem)
- Permission chains
- Prediction markets
- Federal Oracle Machine
Category II: Smart Contracts (and related)
Smart Contract Chain
Smart contract chains are sandbox execution environments for small pieces of code that other developers can deploy without permission. Substrate provides a smart contract module based on EVM and Ink, which Kusama will definitely need to execute to deploy an active parallel chain. Some specific ideas could include smart contracts using other languages, such as assembly scripts, especially those with existing toolchains. In your opinion, what would a perfect smart contract chain look like?
Reference examples:
Such as:
- EVM contract-based applications
- ink! contract-based application
Smart Contracts Platform
The Smart Contracts Platform provides an efficient platform for smart contract specification and execution. Substrate has the scalability to make developing a contract platform very easy. New contract platforms can be innovative in terms of efficiency of execution, contract security, and cross-chain invocation of contracts.
Reference examples:
ink! Smart Contracts Developer Tools
ink! is a next-generation smart contract development framework developed by Parity that relies on Substrate’s built-in pallet-contracts module to write WebAssembly smart contracts using Rust. As more and more developers use ink! framework, we need additional support packages to help developers write secure and efficient smart contracts. These suites include, but are not limited to:
- Contract testing environment for quick start and deployment
- Smart contract auditing specifications and tools
- Refinement of contract standards
- Monitoring, indexing, visualization of data on the contract chain, and more
Category III: Blockchain Products and Tools
Testing suite
Currently, writing automated tests is not quite straightforward — for example for objects available in Truffle, Embark in Ethereum — and especially for specific blockchain functions on Substrate-based chains. A test suite allows embedding to embeing a test wallet in the suite and performing state tests in a deterministic way. The output should be a complete category, including issues and suggestions on how to fix them (if the fix is known). Ideally, the bug fixing process should be a crowdsourced effort. Until then, undetected bugs are automatically converted into issues and new categories in the central repository of recipes.
Reference example:
Visualization
We thought of thinking about it from the following perspectives. If you have other perspectives, don’t hesitate to let us know with your actions.
- Block visualization tool
Build an engaging, insightful, and visually appealing method to visualize the growth of relay chains in Polkadot. This visualization should allow easy exploration of blocks, finalization, validator data, temporary forks, or any other information related to block production on Polkadot.
- Block Explorer
If you have a fantastic way to explore the historical state of blockchain, now is your chance to showcase it to the world.
- Verifier Visualization Tool
Impress us with your dynamic presentation method for validator information. For example, their identity details, addresses, era nodes, or the blocks they have generated. You can sort them based on the number of blocks they have produced or the length of time they have been part of an active validator set. Unleash your creativity!
- Nomination Visualization
In Polkadot, validators are typically nominated by others to become part of the active validator set. We envision this as a large graph where some nodes represent validators, while more nodes represent nominators, along with connections between nominators and the validators they have chosen. Please share your perspective on how to display the state of the existing nomination ecosystem to users.
- Token Distribution Map
Show us how to visualize the distribution of Polkadot tokens among different accounts.
- Account Information Visualization Tool
Unleash your creativity and provide relevant information about users on a single page. Include details about their on-chain identity, token holdings, nominated targets. If they are actively validating, you can also display the account’s age, previous votes, submitted proposals, or any other pertinent information about individual accounts.
- A Relay Chain Clock
Perhaps it could emit a beep sound every time a certain number of blocks pass, or have a cuckoo bird pop out every 100 blocks? Do you have any better ideas?
- Throughput Visualization Tool
Display the number of transactions being processed on the relay chain and, once activated, on the parachains. Alternatively, showcase the number of transactions in the transaction pool. It’s up to you.
- Burner Wallet
When you start using the application, you only need to enter your password once. In the subsequent sessions, you can interact with the application without entering your password. This greatly improves the user experience. A burner wallet can retrieve a private key from local storage or create a temporary wallet via GET.
Substrate pallets tools suite
Reference example:
Governance Tools
Idea：
Data Analysis Tools
During the operation of blockchain, a large amount of on-chain data will be generated, and data analysis can be done through data mining to get the hidden information in the data.
Example：
Category IV: Open Tracks
Try everything possible! In this category, we want you to push the limits of what is possible, to be creative, to break things!
Improve the underlying Web3 technologies, such as peer-to-peer communication frameworks like libp2p, new consensus algorithms based on Substrate, node routing and lookups like DHT, and other things that can be used to help peer-to-peer financial, social activities, and more.
3. Competition Guidelines
During the opening ceremony of Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer, which concluded on May 20th, Parity engineer Jun Zhou presented the latest technological advancements in Polkadot for the first half of 2023. In the first quarter, the Polkadot ecosystem witnessed several notable technological developments, including the release of XCM V3 version. Many projects have joined the queue for the upgraded version, marking a significant milestone in the maturity and usability of cross-chain technology.
The release of ink! Contract 4.0 has also reached a commercially viable level. Developers are encouraged to explore and experiment with it. These technological updates are welcomed for participants to experience and contemplate during the competition. The future of the Polkadot ecosystem still relies on the innovative ideas and wisdom of developers. If you missed the live broadcast, you can click on the link:
📻 https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1zqKVPaELeLJB
Jimmy, a contributor to Substrate, provided a detailed explanation of the competition rules for this Polkadot Hackathon. All registered developers should refer to the competition guidelines to better prepare for the event. During the registration process, you might encounter the following questions:
- s it necessary to fill in all team member information when registering on the DoraHacks website?
It is not necessary. Each project should have at least one team member register and provide the required information. Participating in the hackathon implies your agreement to sponsors collecting and storing participants’ personal information for operational and promotional purposes.
Yes! Whether you are participating as a team or an individual, each team member must fill out the Google form. Additionally, after registering, please join the Discord group as soon as possible. Important competition notifications will be posted in the group, and mentors will provide technical assistance.
🚩Google form: https://forms.gle/bfQCm1JUKDwBqXSW9
- Should the participating project be built in the Polkadot ecosystem?
Yes! The participating project must be built within the Polkadot ecosystem and align with one of the four tracks mentioned above. However, projects can participate in multiple track evaluations and have the opportunity to win multiple awards.
After completing the registration, how do I submit my project? Or if I have already registered and joined the participant group chat, what should I do next?
If you have successfully registered, please proceed to create and submit your project for the Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer:
- Registration is complete. You can immediately start creating your project by forking this code repository into your team members’ repositories.
https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer
2. Generate a directory in the “teams” section, naming it after your team. Start by adding an empty file or a simple README introducing your team. Submit a pull request (PR) to create the directory. This is done to reserve a space for your team. Please pull it down.
3. Afterwards, all the code related to your project should be stored within the directory named after your team. You can organize it in this way.
4. Submit a pull request (PR) to this repository before 11:59 PM on July 4, 2023. Teams are only allowed to modify the files within their respective directories.
What kind of submission is considered compliant? What specific materials do I need to submit? What should be included in the initial review materials? Once you have successfully created a project on GitHub, you need to ensure that the following materials and information for your project are submitted in full:
5. The team’s code must be submitted on the Parity GitHub. During the first week of registration, teams should fork this code repository and create a team directory. In the README file, outline the planned code functionalities to be completed during the hackathon (within 1000 words) and submit a pull request (PR) to the Parity GitHub.
6. Each team must submit at least one entry for the competition, and all submissions must be in English.
7. The submission should include, but is not limited to, the following information:
- Basic information: project name, project initiation date
- Project overview: project background, origin, problem statement, project description, project demo, technical architecture, project logo, initial version of the project for preliminary review, team information, track category
- Planned code projects during the hackathon: blockchain backend, web frontend, user registration page, etc.
- Completed project for the hackathon (to be submitted before 11:59 AM on July 4, 2023)
8. Do not upload demo videos or large PPT files directly to GitHub. Instead, provide links to the demo video and upload the PPT to Google Drive. Only submit the YouTube and Google Drive links on GitHub.
9. List the functionalities that were completed by the hackathon deadline of 11:59 AM on July 4, 2023. Place the related code in the “src” directory and outline the completed development work/features in this section. We will pay close attention to these directories/files and conduct a technical evaluation based on them.
10. If you need to refer to any resources, you can click the following link for reference: 🚩https://github.com/parity-asia/hackathon-2023-summer/tree/main/teams/00-team-template
11. Submissions for the competition must be made within the specified time (before 12:00 PM on July 4th). Late submissions will not be considered valid.
12. On the evening of July 7th, this repository will provide a preliminary list and select participating teams to enter DemoDay.
The above is a detailed analysis of the tracks, competition rules, and steps for Polkadot Hackathon 2023 Summer. If you haven’t registered for the hackathon yet, please take the time to register and create your outstanding project!
🚩Google Form for Registration: https://forms.gle/bfQCm1JUKDwBqXSW9
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!
