Theta Labs announces $1 million in new hackathons to support development of Theta blockchain ecosystem

Today we are thrilled to announce $1 million in new Theta Hackathon prizes to incentivize ecosystem development on Theta blockchain. With one of the largest prize pools ever for a blockchain hackathon, Theta Hackathon is expected to dramatically increase community development and growth in the Theta ecosystem.

Theta’s vision for 2021 and beyond includes a growing ecosystem of Theta developers, dapps, and projects running on Theta blockchain. Recent upgrades to Theta blockchain have greatly expanded compatibility with Ethereum, allowing any Ethereum or ETH-compatible application to be ported over and run seamlessly on Theta blockchain with little to no changes. Theta blockchain is now compatible with the Ethereum RPC API suite, Metamask, smart contract development tools like Truffle, Hardhat, and Remix, making it easier for developers to create their own Theta dapps and expand popular existing dapps to Theta. These developer tools can now be put to use building Theta applications in the new hackathon.

Theta hackathons are a core way Theta community developers are supported, and prior featured critical community projects such as GPool, Guardian Monitor, and ThetaBoard. For the upcoming hackathons the $1 million prize pool will be broken into two distinct hackathon phases with prize pools of $500k each, with Phase I running from September 1st through December 1st, and Phase II beginning in Q1 2022. Each phase will be broken up into four different project categories:

1. Streaming video
2. Gaming
3. NFTs
4. General category for all other focuses, including decentralized storage, DeFi and blockchain analytical tools

“We are seeing a significant increase in development interest in Theta blockchain, and we expect the upcoming Theta hackathons to further incentivize new development teams to build their projects on Theta” said Theta CTO Jieyi Long. “Our team is excited to see the next generation of apps built to expand Theta’s role as the leading blockchain for the media and entertainment space”.

For all the details and hackathon rules and requirements, see the new Theta Hackathon page on DevPost. Existing projects built on Theta or other blockchains are eligible to participate, but only development done during the Theta hackathon period will be judged for the purpose of awarding prizes. In addition to the official prizes awarded, submitted projects will also be considered for additional funding from Theta Labs if deemed to be beneficial for Theta ecosystem development.

Good luck to all project teams who participate!

Cheers,

Theta team