Cosmos ATOM HackAtom VI Closes With Over One Million in Prize Money Dispersed.
HackAtom VI was announced on October 23rd. It was the largest hackathon in Cosmos’ history. We had a very ambitious goal and a tight time schedule. We wanted to attract the best developer talent possible. The HackAtom VI prize pool was more than $1,000,000 in ATOM and it was spread across seven categories as well as 25 HackAtom VI sponsor challenges. We are thrilled to report that the competition was a great success a few weeks later! There were 1,960 participants, 103 submissions and we have chosen the winners.
HackAtom VI – A Historic Competition for Cosmos
We are grateful that we were able to host two events in person during the one month-long HackAtom VI event. The competition was officially opened in Lisbon on November 11.
At both events, we gave useful hands-on workshops like “Blockchain Gaming with the Cosmos SDK,” “Creating a Loan with Starport,” an “Overview of the Cosmos Ecosystem and HackAtom VI Challenges,” and more. We also had live coding sessions and informative keynotes about the Cosmos ecosystem and the individual projects and accomplishments of HackAtom VI sponsors.
Throughout the competition, participants were provided with dedicated help and encouragement. We made channels for support available in Discord, held live challenge AMAs, brainstorming sessions, and additional workshops for extra tips and tricks. If you want to check out any of this rich content to help you build your next blockchain app with Cosmos tech, visit the full HackAtom VI playlist here.
We also held the Winners Announcement and closing ceremony online on Dec 16, where we revealed the winners, showcased the demos of the winning projects and listened to an opening keynote by Tendermint CEO Peng Zhong, as well as an interesting discussion with the HackAtom VI judges, Pylons CEO Michael Sofaer, Osmosis cofounder Sunny Aggarwal, and Head of Developer Experience at Tendermint Denis Fadeev, moderated by Tendermint Director of Marketing and Community Adriana Mihai.
All judges overwhelmingly agreed on the high quality of the submissions received, the interesting ideas put forward by hackathon participants, and their willingness to really engage with the code. Selecting the winners was extremely challenging!
To wrap it all up, we got to meet some of the winners live on the virtual stage as they shared their hackathon experiences with us, what motivated them to choose the challenges they did, and how they found the competition, support, and variety of challenges. We thank everyone who took part in making this a success! You can watch the full ceremony here👇, or check out the outstanding work of our very well-deserving winners below.
Ethereum on Cosmos: Constellation Prize
The goal of Ethereum on Cosmos was for participants to create solutions making it easier to bring Ethereum-based applications over to Cosmos. From NFTs to DeFi marketplaces and IBC SDK application modules, the constellation prize covered it all!
Evmos Challenge
Evmos proposed various challenges from building an NFT smart contract project to creating an IBC SDK application module to be deployed on Evmos.
1st Place $35,000: Evmos.me by Guillermo Paoletti
The winner of the Evmos challenge is Evmos.me, a wallet that allows users to interact with the Evmos blockchain using Metamask and Keplr. It supports the interaction with the intrarelayer module, ERC20s, IBC-vouchers, and Cosmos tokens. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Evmos Balancer by Maxim Sultakov
The second prize goes to a project that introduces the battle-proven Balancer Bronze release to the Evmos ecosystem. In a nutshell, Evmos Balancer is an off-the-shelf stack for rapid prototyping of DeFi protocols on Evmos, giving developers access to the state-of-the-art core functionality of Balancer, without non-essential features such as advanced gas optimizations. Visit DevPost for more details.
Starport: Starport Prize
As the all-in-one platform to build, launch, and maintain any crypto application on a sovereign blockchain, all challenges in this category were provided by Starport. The aim of each challenge was for participants to come up with ways of implementing new functionality or improving existing functionality and reliability to Starport CLI.
Code Scaffolding Challenge
Starport depends on string placeholders being present in modules’ files. While placeholders work, this challenge required participants to find another innovative solution.
1st Place $35,000: (AST) Walking Around Starport by Jim Fasarakis-Hilliard
The winning entry in this category eliminates the need for placeholders throughout the code by manipulating Abstract Syntax Trees. It builds ASTs for both the Protobuf language files and the Go files and manipulates them in order to insert the elements as required. You can either create completely new nodes and insert them in specific positions relative to other elements or mutate currently existing nodes as required. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Code Scaffolding in Starport with AST Analysis and Mutation by Isabella Muerte
The second prize goes to the entry designed to remove placeholders from Starport, replace all instances of placeholders by parsing, querying, and mutating the AST to add new definitions. Instead of relying on a regular expression matcher, or specially worded comments, this submission manually walks the AST of a file, looking for functions to edit, then inserting nodes into the tree before writing them back out to disk. Visit DevPost for more details.
A Plugin System Challenge
A program like Starport can benefit from a flexible plugin system that will allow developers to add functionality to Starport on the fly. This challenge was to build one!
1st Place $35,000: Starport Plugin System
The winning entry in this challenge extends the list of Starport available commands thanks to a plugin system. The plugins should be declared in the config.yml file. A plugin is defined with a name and a path to a repository. Such a repository can contain multiple plugins, but a plugin path in config should point to a single plugin. Visit DevPost for more details.
Kickstarter Prizes $3,000
We received many excellent submissions in this category, however, not all of them met the minimum viable judging criteria to scoop up the top prizes. The Starport judges still felt that the following three projects showed a lot of promise and deserved a special Kickstarter prize of $3,000 each.
Starport Plugin System by Joonkyo Kim, Dong Yoo Kang, Hwangjae Lee, and Hyung-Kyu Hqueue Choi
This plugin system for Starport allows third-party code to be imported and executed inside of Starport. Any developers can implement plugins that are based on Golang’s plugin packages and publish them to a public Git repository. Visit DevPost for more details.
Starport Plugin Service by Luke Rhoads
This plugin service is able to list, download, build, extract, and inject configured plugins into the running Starport process. It supports both command and hook plugins. Command plugins can add custom commands under a specified parent command. Hooks can add pre/post run behavior to a specified parent command. Visit DevPost for more details.
Starport — Code Scaffolding Challenge by Sharad Chand
For this challenge, the Kickstarter winner implemented a new scaffolding mechanism, where code is generated in the appropriate location using code analysis for both Proto and Golang. Visit DevPost for more details.
Interoperability: Interstellar Prize
This category required developers to create new, innovative ways to highlight the possibilities of blockchain interoperability using the IBC protocol for viable implementations, use cases, data formats, and more.
Akash Challenge
Akash’s challenge asked participants to develop images, SDL files, and readme.dm documentation to run chain nodes from Cosmos chains not currently in the repository.
1st Place $35,000: Cosmos Omnibus: Akash Interoperability by Pranjal Paliwal
The first prize for the Akash challenge goes to Cosmos Omnibus, which allows developers to run Cosmos Nodes on Akash. More chains will also be added to the project and the deployment and contribution process to Cosmos Omnibus, in general, will also be improved. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Akash Cosmos Omnibus Evolution by Marius Avram
The second prize goes to the entry that extends support for running Cosmos SDK-powered validator nodes on the Akash network. It does so by defining a Dockerfile that is generic and suitable to build projects derived from Tendermint. Visit DevPost for more details.
End-User Apps: Solar Prize
Accessibility is a primary driver to entering the blockchain ecosystem, yet one of the most challenging tasks is to make digital asset ownership accessible to end-users. Developers in this category were expected to build applications that make features more accessible or more intuitive for an end-user. Check out the winners below.
Nym Challenge
Nym’s challenge was to create a Nym service provider (application) offering cloud file storage, and a GUI where users interact with the service provider, all via the Nym mixnet.
1st Place $35,000: NymDrive by Saleel Salam
The first place in this challenge goes to NymDrive, an open-source, decentralized, E2E encrypted, privacy-friendly alternative to Google Drive/Dropbox that allows users to upload and store their files in a secure and decentralized manner. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Nym, The Eternity Service 2.0 by Marius Avram
The second prize goes to Nym, The eternity Service 2.0, a client that exemplifies how to send a file via the Nym network. The destination address can be a nym-file-service-provider, which will save a copy of the file locally. Visit DevPost for more details.
Injective Challenge
Injective’s challenge was to build a new simple single-page application trading interface for trading spot and perpetual markets.
2nd Place $15,000: Magnetar by Andrey Belokopytov, Эмин Исаев, and Vadim Buldenko
While no submission in this challenge met the requirements for the top prize, a well-deserving second place goes to Magnetar, a DEX project based on the Injective protocol. Magnetar is a single-page application that gives non-professional traders access to unlimited DeFi markets through a simple and user-friendly interface. Visit DevPost for more details.
LikeCoin Challenge
LikeCoin’s challenge was to develop a wallet interface for users to manage their pre-NFT credentials (metadata) records or ISCN records.
1st Place $35,000: ISCN Wallet by catdingding ding
The first place in this challenge goes to ISCN wallet, which allows users to (batch) create, update ISCN, transfer ISCN, list ISCN by owner address, and find ISCN by ID with the tool. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: SnappBlock by Joseph Cheng and Mr_K_Chau
The second place in this challenge goes to SnappBlock, a tool that allows users to upload an original photo taken by their phone camera to decentralized storage and index the metadata with Likecoin’s ISCN to provide provenance and trustable photo content. Visit DevPost for more details.
Archway Challenge
Archway’s challenge asked developers to build out some of the pivotal apps that will help bootstrap its ecosystem from NFTs and DeFi to DAOs and token minting.
1st Place $35,000: Flea (Archway NFT Market) by Fujita Takuya, Takumi Aita, and Tadashi Mannou.
The first prize of Archway’s challenge goes to Flea (Archway NFT Market), an NFT marketplace on Archway that allows users to easily publish NFTs by filling out the form with their name, image URL, and description, and then clicking a button. Using CONST, the native token of the Archway Testnet, users can get Wrapped tokens and use them to buy and sell NFTs. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: NFText by Wotori Movako
The second place goes to NFText, which makes NFTs more inclusive by allowing anybody to create their own character or other NFT from scratch, adding drawings, 3D models, skeletons, animation loops, and more. Visit DevPost for more details.
DeFi: Galaxy Prize
DeFi is lowering the barrier to entry to the financial system allowing more people to access financial services, take out a collateralized loan, or earn a yield on their assets. This category was all about expanding the capabilities of DeFi by building an app or module with the Cosmos SDK. Check out the winners below.
Osmosis Challenge
The Osmosis team wanted to give developers full creativity, simply requesting that they build something cool with Osmosis, with bonus points for incorporating ION.
1st Place $35,000: Osmosis (Semi-) Auto Compound by Manuel Richter
The winning prize goes to the Osmosis (Semi-) Auto Compound that automates Osmosis pool compounding as much as possible, opting to implement a semi-automatic wizard seamlessly into the Osmosis UI. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Classic Trading by Ping Ping, Ding Yi, and Edward Gunawan
The second prize goes to this CEX-like dashboard for Osmosis. This project offers a classic trading interface as an alternative way for users to swap on Osmosis, just like on other traditional exchanges. This project comes complete with price charts for all trading pairs and users can explore different charts without changing views. Visit DevPost for more details.
Gaming: Starship Prize
Blockchain has the potential to completely restructure the gaming industry with the true item ownership from the same technology that lies at the core of cryptocurrencies. The starship prize was all about building the future of gaming with the Cosmos SDK. Check out the winners below.
Pylons Challenge
Pylons challenged developers to build a game with meaningful gameplay behavior using the Cosmos SDK, or a decentralized virtual world with Cosmos SDK + Pylons SDK.
1st Place $35,000: CrowdControl NFT Arena by Patrick Wieth, nlsui Faust, Anna Zhu, Niklāvs Šenvalds, and Andreas Frankenberger
The first prize goes to CrowdControl NFT Arena that allows users to transfer their NFTs cross-chain and equip them with armor and weapons that can be crafted and enchanted with random properties to give your fighter an edge over all others! Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: GetCrypto Game by Dragos Roua and Eva Michalcakova
The second prize goes to GetCrypto, a card game for newbies in the crypto space that can be played in groups of 2–6 players. It introduces the players to basic concepts around cryptocurrencies and reinforces best practices for holding your own crypto. Visit DevPost for more details.
Secret Network Challenge
Secret Network’s challenge was to build a game on Secret Network using CosmWasm, Secret NFTs, and on-chain randomness.
1st Place $35,000: prisnr.games by Blake Regalia and Ben Adams
The first prize in this challenge goes to prisnr.games, a two-player game implemented on Secret Network inspired by the classic game theory game Prisoner’s Dilemma where two players must decide to collaborate or not based on limited information. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Poker Joker DAO by Belsy W, Arsen Kondratiev, Bohdan Skochko, and Dmytro Baida
Second place goes to Poker Joker DAO, a gaming DAO designed to manage games that provide ownership to players (DAO membership) and utilities for gaming assets (NFTs). Visit DevPost for more details.
Earth: Earth Prize
The Earth category asked developers to change the state of our planet by building modules, accessible apps and integrations for local currencies, self-sovereign identity, non-fungible impact tokens, verification oracles, decentralized impact exchanges, and earth intelligence data. This is the Interchain Earth Mission! Check out the winners below.
Regen Challenge
Regen’s challenge was to bridge ecocredits into the interchain by implementing an IBC app that allows users to move these new ecological assets across different blockchains.
1st Place $35,000: Geospatial Data Oracle for Cosmos by Kennedy Nganga
The first prize in this challenge goes to the Geospatial Data Oracle, a Chainlink oracle to provide Cosmos apps with geospatial data from satellites to power Earth Impact and ESG projects. This oracle provides this data to the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Allocation Engine / opt.in by gotjoshua gotjoshua and Manuel R.
Second place in the Regen challenge goes to Allocation Engine / opt.in, which allows users to endow, vote, and spend in the network, supporting real earth value in the Cosmos ecosystem. Visit DevPost for more details.
Grant.fish & Juno Challenge
Juno and grant.fish asked developers to build modules, accessible apps and integrations for local currencies, self-sovereign identity, non-fungible impact tokens, and more.
1st Place $35,000: Wynd by Ethan Frey, Milan Steiner, and M P
The winning project for this challenge goes to Wynd, an environmental DeFi app with the goal of channeling the DeFi funding towards environmental goods, connecting complex environmental data to the blockchain. Visit DevPost for more details.
IXO Foundation
The Earth Crisis Challenge
Ixo asked participants to build applications using the Internet of Impact for preventing and responding to specific types of real-world Earth Crisis events.
1st Place $35,000: IXO Assistant Playground by Will Abramson and Lohan Spies
The winning entry in this challenge goes to IXO Assistant Playground, a friendly docker environment to easily implement, configure, and test custom actions that can be integrated into the IXO Assistant bot. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Unremarkable Project by a12a12a12 Katta and Dinislam Tebuev
The second prize in this challenge goes to Unremarkable Project, which provides a Kindle-style paperlike screen with iPad refresh speed to be used for more general-purpose computing than just paginated reading — Web3 native hardware that makes computing full-stack, humane, and sovereign. Visit DevPost for more details.
IXO Foundation
The Earth Tokens Challenge
For this challenge, ixo asked developers to build innovative applications, such as decentralized marketplace mechanisms, using earth tokens.
1st Place $35,000: Arbiter DAO by Changhyun Park, Jeonghyeok Yoo, and JungHwan Tony Yun
The winning entry in this challenge goes to Arbiter DAO, a blockchain-built DAO using Cosmos SDK and Tendermint. With Arbiter DAO enforcing price rises in the carbon credit market by absorbing eco-credits and carbon credits into the protocol’s Treasury and by retiring them within the protocol, Arbiter DAO aims to start a movement for Earth within the Cosmos ecosystem. Visit DevPost for more details.
2nd Place $15,000: Boli Network by Hilal Agil, Roman Akhtariev, Pratik Kumar, Evangelos Pappas, sudddy Srinivasan, mud mud, wasim thoufiq, Niccolo Raspa, Mohamed Sathom, and Kelly Kim.
Second place goes to Boli Network, a platform for communities to build their own independent digital economies and tokenize the local ecosystems. Visit DevPost for more details.
Community Award Prize $10,000:
Bookverse by Amit Patel
The project with the most hearts on DevPost and winner of the Community Award is Bookverse, a platform that empowers book authors by providing a community of digital readers a marketplace for NFT books (think of Bookverse as an NFT books marketplace where users can mint, sell, and buy NFT books). Visit DevPost for more details.
Grand Prix Prize $25,000
There are two deserving winners of the Grand Prix prize, the projects that successfully combined at least two different challenges, Regen Network and IXO Foundation. Both projects take home $25,000 each.
Arbiter DAO by Changhyun Park, Jeonghyeok Yoo, and JungHwan Tony Yun
Geospatial Data Oracle for Cosmos by Kennedy Nganga
That’s a Wrap!
With a record-breaking number of submissions to HackAtom VI and so many high-quality entries, we’d like to extend our thanks once again to everyone who took part, especially the competition sponsors, Tendermint, and the Interchain Foundation, and congratulations to all the winners.
There were some challenges that received submissions that did not reach the minimum viable judging criteria to be considered for a prize. This was the case for BitSong’s Ethereum on Cosmos challenge, Starport’s Local Testnet and Build Process and Configuration challenges, Sentinel, Sifchain, Pylons, and Agoric’s Interoperability challenges, and Kava, Ki Foundation, and Tendermint’s DeFi challenges. In these instances, the prize money will be withheld.
We look forward to seeing you at the next iteration of HackAtom in 2022, be sure to stay tuned for news and updates!
