Quantstamp Japan organized Decrypt Tokyo 2019, a blockchain hackathon in Japan
Decrypt Tokyo 2019, Blockchain Hackathon! WHAT we accomplished and WHY we did this event. A look into the blockchain industry in Japan
Quantstamp/Quantstamp Japan co-hosted and participated in a hackathon “Decrypt Tokyo 2019” from June 8–9th. It was designed for blockchain beginners and intermediates. Over 100 hackers & 20 teams participated in the event. Sponsors including Microsoft, Curvegrid, Metaps, and more helped to make this event a huge success. Participants included students from Japan’s top universities such as Tokyo U as well as mentors from top crypto projects such as Kyber Network and OmiseGO.
We were honored to help organize such a great event for the Japanese blockchain community. Our intern Chang Yu and Security Auditor Poming Lee also participated in the hackathon directly, creating a trust-less password manager. Check out “Encrypt my Data”
Decrypt Tokyo was organized by Quantstamp as well as Neutrino and HashHub, which operates blockchain co-working space, and NodeTokyo, the first tech-focused, international blockchain conference in Japan.
We’d like to thank Mayato Hattori from Neutrino, Yoriko Beal from Hashhub, Yusuke Obinata; a.k.a Obi from NodeTokyo for your contribution!
The Japanese Blockchain Community
“A lot of people have started leaving from the Blockchain industry in Japan…”
This trend led us to holding the hackathon in the first place — as it’s an opportunity to introduce hackers from other industries into blockchain. At first glance, you may think Japan has a strong blockchain community since we have lots of communities, seminars, and meetups. This is true to some extent and there are many active members in the industry. However, it is also true that lots of blockchain startups and professionals have started to leave the industry for various reasons, ex.) difficulty to monetize, their own company policy and etc…
For this reason, we realized the number of people in the Japanese blockchain industry has been gradually decreasing. Plus, we found that the environment in Japan for a new-comer to the industry was not well developed enough. In other words, though we have so many communities/events, there is not a clear enough path for non-blockchain to get more deeply involved in the industry. Maybe some event/seminar for beginners exists, but we don’t think there are enough.
We are very glad we eventually gathered over 100 hackers. And, we would like to say thank you to our awesome sponsors and venue provider Speee inc!
Here’s our recap of the exciting two days!
Day1 Throwback— TechTalk by Blockchain Specialist Sponsors
1.Yusuke Obinata a.k.a. Obi, Founder of NodeTokyo, CryptoAge
Theme：Introduction of Blockchain
2. Kazumi Hirose, Prince of Deployment at Microsoft
Theme：What Microsoft is doing with blockchain, Develop DApps using Azure Blockchain Service
3. Jeff Wentworth Co-Founder of Cruvegrid
Theme：Architecting Enterprise Blockchain Applications
4. Jun Katagiri, Senior Architect of LayerX inc.
Theme：Smart Contract with Vyper
5. Shogo Ro, Blockchain Division Manager at Sun*
Theme：Mass Adoption of Blockchain
6. Ryohei Komiyama, Co-Founder & CTO at Kyuzan Inc.
Theme：What Front-end means for a blockchain engineer
7. Hirohumi Aoki, Head of Blockchain Business at Metaps
Theme：How blockchain engineers should choose from various technologies
8. Shohei Yoshida・Tomoya Kita, Software Engineer at Mobile Factory/Uniqys Kit
Theme：How to utilize Qurage Link・What is Uniqys Kit and how to develop DApps
9. Kasima Tharnpipitchai, Director of Engineering at OmiseGO
Theme：The Path to More Viable Plasma
10. Anton Buenavista, Senior Developer at Kyber Network
Theme：Enabling Decentralized Finance
11. Asuka Nishide, Co-Founder/CTO at FiNANCiE
Theme：Collaboration between on-chain and off-chain
12. Yuki Tanaka, Vice President at Recruit Strategic Partners
Theme：Blockchain Startup Investments and Trends
13. Richard Ma, CEO at Quantstamp
Theme：zk-STARKs, an Introduction
14. Xan Ditkoff, Takato Tomizawa Production Partner at Blockcstack, Engineering at Blockstack
テーマ：Introduction of Blockstack Platform
15. Bill Laboon, WEB3 (Presented by Obi)
テーマ：Introduction of WEB3
DAY2 — Looking back on the hackathon ＆Presentation・Results
This time, we set a very general product development goal so beginner and intermediate blockchain hackers could build something.
1. Developing a prototype for a service using blockchain and/or smart contracts
2. Developing a prototype for a Dapp with extremely high usability
We believe, while these two themes are very fundamental, they play an important role when we consider the implementation of blockchain applications.
In addition to the above criteria, all of the judges considered 4 points:
Originality:
4) The idea is new to the world
3) The idea is new to me
2) The idea is adapted from a different domain
1) The idea has been adopted already in the blockchain industryTechnical Feasibility
4) Prototype/Demo is working seamlessly and future plans to scale are well thought out, the architecture makes it easy to build on top of
3) Prototype/Demo is working seamlessly
2) Prototype/Demo is half working
1) A tutorial level simple implementation, any competent engineer can easily build this within a few hoursUsability
4) Intuitive for users to learn and use
3) Easy to use after some learning
2) Complex but still usable after some learning
1) No usage unless a lot of time is spent for learningSocial Inpact
4) Potential for the outcome of this project to make a significant impact beyond the presented field
3) Potential for the outcome of this project to make a significant impact within the presented field
2) Low potential to address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the presented field
1) This project is not considered impactful
Here, we introduce projects of the top winning teams. Please refer to Cryptocurrency Watch for further details.
2nd Runner Up — “COME-ON!!”
2nd Runner Up was awarded to team “COME-ON!!”. They developed a blockchain based platform for SNS campaign or promotion so as to make visibility and transparency whether payments or some shape of rewards are actually being made.
1st Runner Up — “MYPAYPAY”
1st Runner Up was awarded to “MyPAYPAY”. They developed a blockchain based salary payment platform, named Smart Salary.
Winner — “Virtual Grave Game”
First place was awarded to “Virtual Grave Game”. This project creates a virtual grave space combined with NFT. They implemented a cryptocurrency tipping system so anyone could donate or tip to somebody already dead as we do in the real world. This was a very novel concept with interesting gamification features.
We also prepared several special awards, and 7 teams ultimately received awards. Each team developed DApps making use of their unique ideas.
If Decrypt Tokyo made you more interested to get involved in the blockchain or at least taught you know more about the blockchain industry, we are very happy.
So, Thank you again for participating in Decrypt Tokyo 2019! Maybe (or hopefully) we see each other NEXT YEAR in Decrypt Tokyo 2020.
— From All of Quantstamp/Quantstamp Japan Team Member
