Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon Celebrates Innovative Blockchain Solutions and Crowns Winning Projects

The Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon has ended. It left no doubt that Web3 is moving at a record pace. A hackathon is a contest where teams build new apps in a short time. This one broke every past record:

• Over 14,000 people signed up
• Teams sent in 498 projects
• Builders came from more than 100 countries

Plenty of resources and support made it a great time for builders to bring their ideas to life.

Nearly 40% of those who signed up had little or no experience building with blockchain. This shows the hackathon’s power to draw in and grow new talent. Builders, judges, sponsors and mentors all helped make it the largest Chainlink Hackathon to date.

Chainlink is an oracle network. Oracles feed real-world data, such as prices or weather, into blockchain apps. For more background, see our guide on what blockchain is.

Here are the standout projects that won in each category.

Grand Prize ($25,000) – SecureChain

The top prize went to SecureChain. It is a new system that checks transfers before they go through. Its goal is to protect NFTs and tokens kept in hot wallets from attacks that drain them. A hot wallet is a crypto wallet that stays connected to the internet.

Eduard Lopez built SecureChain on his own. It mixes Web2 and Web3 tools. It uses Chainlink Functions to add a two-step approval to every transfer of digital assets.

SecureChain also proposes two new EIP standards. An EIP is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal, a formal plan to change Ethereum. These standards let users move assets between “normal” and “secured” tokens.

When someone starts a transfer of secured tokens, SecureChain uses Chainlink Functions to post the request. The user then approves the transfer in the web app.

Tech for Good Prizes ($20,000) – DREx and Agrosurance

The Tech for Good prize honors projects that use blockchain and Chainlink oracles for social good. It was split into two awards.

First place: DREx ($15,000)

DREx won first place and $15,000. The team was Joselyne Del Rosario, Tomás Cordero, Shobhit Goyal, Ahron Sotomayor and Trevor Chan. They built a platform that links solar developers, companies with possible project sites and investors. The goal is to speed up new solar projects.

DREx took the energy output of a solar site in Ecuador and turned it into tokens. These tokens are renewable energy certificates (RECs). It then split them into smaller e-NFT bonds. This lets the assets be used in decentralized finance (DeFi) apps. The project uses Chainlink Any API to pull data from solar sites and IoT devices.

Second place: Agrosurance ($5,000)

Agrosurance won second place and $5,000. Yash Goyal, Riya Jain, Spandan Barve and Ishpreet KaurBedi built it.

Agrosurance is a decentralized platform that offers open, fair crop insurance to farmers. It uses Chainlink Functions to pull real-time data from outside sources. Smart contracts then use this data to set insurance prices and check claims. A smart contract is code on a blockchain that runs by itself when set conditions are met.

NFTs and Gaming Prize ($15,000) – Data NFT for Data Licensing

Data NFT for Data Licensing won the NFTs and Gaming Prize, worth $15,000. Ricky Yuen, Fei Lin and Charles Cao built it.

The project lets data owners turn their datasets into NFTs. This gives them more control over who can access and use their data. Owners can build licenses into these DataNFTs. The licenses set the scope, length and terms of use, which protects the owner’s work.

The project uses Chainlink Functions to check who owns each asset. It also links the platform to users who want to license data. This creates a setting where users need little trust to check license ownership. It also makes it easy to create and share data licenses.

DeFi Prize ($15,000) – Prompt DeFi

Prompt DeFi won the DeFi Prize and $15,000. It was created by Anastasiia Kondaurova and Kyrylo Orlov.

Prompt DeFi makes DeFi apps easier to use. Users can act with simple text or voice commands. The app uses account abstraction to remove network fees for users. Account abstraction lets crypto wallets work more like regular app accounts.

Prompt DeFi uses a trained ChatGPT AI model to turn text or voice prompts into transactions. This lets even new DeFi users trade by giving simple commands. Chainlink Automation handles trades with conditions, such as limit orders.

AI Prize ($15,000) – StoryChain

The $15,000 AI Prize went to StoryChain, a decentralized app created by Cem Ad. The platform lets people write stories together. Different users add chapters to a story created with AI.

Here is how it works:

• A story creator picks the genre and an AI model for text and images.
• Other users read past chapters and add their own prompts to continue the story.
• Each page is minted as a unique NFT owned by the user who wrote it. It can be viewed on OpenSea.

Chainlink Functions link the app to the different AI models.

Chainlink Services Prizes ($13,000) – Top Three Projects

The Chainlink Services prize honors projects that improve the Chainlink Network. Winners either build Chainlink into core infrastructure or make it easier for developers to use. The prize was shared among three projects.

First place: Maven ($7,000)

Maven won first place and $7,000. It was built by Yash Jagtap, 0xthresh, Geoffrey Millar, Merdi Kimuha and Shobhit Sundriyal.

Maven helps social media agencies manage Lens profiles for their clients. Lens is a Web3 social network. Maven uses account abstraction to let agencies post from a client’s Lens profile safely. This lowers the risk of profile theft.

Maven also handles payments between agencies and Lens users through smart contracts. Payments are based on clear metrics from the Lens API, which Chainlink Any API delivers.

Second place: Chainiversity ($4,000)

Chainiversity won second place and $4,000. Muhammed Mustafa Savar and Ege Aybars Bozkurt created it.

Chainiversity is an on-chain learning platform. It aims to build a more active Chainlink developer community. It offers a game-like course with three levels, and each level covers a different Chainlink service. Smart contract work is checked on-chain. Developers who finish a level earn a soulbound NFT certificate, which cannot be sold or moved.

Third place: Vernari Protocol ($2,000)

Vernari Protocol, built by Jon Gregis, won third place and $2,000. Vernari is a decentralized escrow protocol. Escrow means a trusted holder keeps the money until a deal is done.

Vernari links smart contracts with Shippo, an online shipping tool. Smart contracts hold crypto payments for store items. The money is released once the tracking info confirms delivery. Chainlink Functions connect Vernari to Shippo’s data to check shipments. Chainlink Automation then starts the payment.

DAO Prize ($10,000) – The PAO (Private DAO)

The $10,000 DAO Prize went to The PAO (Private DAO). It was built by Nguyen Pham, Nguyễn Dương, Phạm Văn Nam and Tan Phan. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization, a group run by rules written in code.

DAO activity is usually recorded on-chain for anyone to see. The PAO is a DAO framework built to fix this privacy problem. It uses zero-knowledge circuits, a type of cryptography that proves something without revealing the data. This gives strong privacy for a DAO’s funding and voting. The framework also uses Chainlink Automation to run tasks on its own, which makes the DAO work more smoothly.

Women in Tech Prize ($10,000) – Super Cool AI

The Women in Tech Prize, worth $10,000, went to SuperCool AI. It is an NFT marketplace powered by generative AI. Users can create NFTs from AI prompts, from profile pictures and game items to metaverse avatars.

Chainlink oracle services power the platform in three ways:

• VRF (verifiable random function) adds random variations to prompts and results.
• Automation lets NFTs change over time.
• Price Feeds set the conversion rates for payments.

Top-Quality Prizes ($500) – Recognizing Excellence

Besides the main winners, 40 projects won a Top-Quality Prize of $500 each. These projects stood out for their strong builds. They showed the creativity and technical skill of the builders.

Winners included AI:1301, Applauds, AuthE, Boom Boogers Marketplace, BuildIt, Burn2Earn, C’mon, AI, check my skills, Card.Club and Ceptor Club.

Other winners in this category were Cexles Finance, Chainfluence, ChainHealth, ChainlinkGPT, Cloudbeam, CozyCove, CropLink, EcoVerse, EnergySwap, FINDR app and Flipper!.

The list also included Funding Open Source AI Models for Blockchain, Google AdmodConsumer & Chainlink Charity App, Hamslink, Hive, Island of Space & Time, Kash, LINKIT, LinkEvent, Notional and OTCNexus.

The final names were Peer Review, Posterity, Rainsurance, refLINK, SLI, ShillStreet, Token Wordle, Trypto, Upgoaled and Via Dappia.

The Spring 2023 Hackathon Comes to a Close

The Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon ended as a big success. Mentors, judges and sponsors made the event possible. It became the largest Chainlink Hackathon to date. It drew builders from around the world and a record number of projects.

The hackathon showed the power of blockchain and oracle technology. Builders used the latest tools to create new kinds of apps.

Chainlink Labs thanked all the builders for their hard work. The Chainlink Labs team will send written feedback to the top 100 projects in the coming weeks to help them grow.

The strong results from this hackathon point to a bright future for the blockchain industry. For more coverage, visit our crypto news today page.