The ETHGlobal Tokyo hackathon came to a close on Sunday, with developers from all over the world competing for a total of $375,000 in prizes. The event kicked off with the first-ever ETHGlobal “Pragma” summit, sponsored by Verse and other firms. Engineers and representatives from Bitcoin.com were also present at the summit and hackathon, sharing their thoughts on the event and its significance for crypto and economic freedom in the present and future.
The first-ever “Pragma” summit was held on April 13 in Tokyo, Japan, as the start of the wider ETHGlobal Tokyo hackathon, sponsored in part by Verse. Speakers at the event included Aya Miyaguchi from the Ethereum Foundation and author Balaji Srinivasan. Bitcoin.com’s engineers and representatives participated in the hackathon, which ended on Sunday. Andrei Terentiev, Director of Engineering at Bitcoin.com, who oversees the company’s engineering team of over 30 people, expressed his excitement about the event, saying, “I think most participants in the event are all striving towards the same mission of cryptocurrency, which is to create more economic freedom for the world. So being able to meet up in person helps spread those ideas and flourish across the world.” Bolun Zhang, a data engineer at Bitcoin.com, also spoke positively about the event, stating that he was always interested in keeping up with the latest trends in the industry and exploring cool projects being undertaken by his peers.
A total of $375,000 in prizes were available from various industry players and platforms, including 1inch Network, Gnosis Chain, Metamask, and more. At the event, Bitcoin.com’s growth marketing specialist, Alun Stern, revealed that they were building a decentralized lottery application. The first part of the application is a “reverse lottery,” where everyone wins except for one person. The loser’s funds will be distributed among the winning participants, and the loser will receive a rare NFT. The second part of the application works similarly to prediction markets, where someone can propose an event, assign an arbiter, and assign multiple choice options. Stern explained that these prediction markets could be used not only for people to bet on future outcomes but also to influence the future and change it.
Julie, a software engineer on the web team at Bitcoin.com, emphasized that the hackathon would provide many benefits, including getting people more familiar with the burgeoning world of Web3. She commented that the hackathon would give them an opportunity to share ideas and work with different people on interesting new products that can help users onboard into the crypto world and help developers hone their skills and dive into Web3 if they didn’t have any experience with it before. The Bitcoin.com team wrapped up the event with an implementation prize from Scroll, a “zkEVM-based zkRollup on Ethereum that enables native compatibility for existing Ethereum applications and tools.”
The ETHGlobal Tokyo hackathon was a great success, with builders from all over the world coming together to share ideas and build innovative new products that could help push forward the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole. The event showcased the power of collaboration and the potential of blockchain technology to create more economic freedom for people around the world.
