3rd Bitcoin SV Hackathon Finalists announced to compete for USD $100,000

ZUG, Switzerland – September 2, 2020 – Bitcoin Association, the global industry organization which works to advance business with the Bitcoin SV blockchain, has today named three finalists in its 3^rdBitcoin SV Hackathon to compete for a share of a USD $100,000 prize pool paid in BSV. The announcement follows yesterday’s release of a shortlist of ten semi-finalists, selected by a preliminary judging panel as the ten best entries from all projects submitted.

One of the premier events in Bitcoin Association’s developer education programme, Bitcoin SV Hackathons are global coding competitions designed to challenge developers to both learn about the technical power of Bitcoin’s original protocol and innovate on the fly. Organized by Bitcoin Association, run by leading blockchain research & development firm nChain, and sponsored by CoinGeek, Bitcoin SV Hackathons task entrants with developing an application or service within the parameters of a given theme that leverage the unique capabilities of the Bitcoin SV blockchain, all within a set period of time.

The theme for the 3^rd Bitcoin SV Hackathon was ‘Connecting the world to one global blockchain’. A distinguishing feature of the Bitcoin SV blockchain is its ability to scale unbounded, enabling greater data capacity and high volumes of low-fee transactions sent instantly across the globe.  These capabilities support the rise of a single digital currency (BSV) for micropayments, break down historical industry data silos, and facilitate technical interoperability in ways never before possible. Entrants were challenged to utilise these capabilities in their project, using the Bitcoin SV blockchain to establish new efficiencies and opportunities for inter-connectivity.

This edition of the Bitcoin SV Hackathon was the most competitive to date. In all, 418 people from 75 countries took part over an eight-week coding phase, with 42 final projects submitted for consideration.

The three finalists will be invited to present their projects at the upcoming CoinGeek Live 2020 conference, September 30 – October 2.  The Hackathon Final Round presentations will be on Day 1 (September 30) of the conference, with winners announced on Day 3 (October 2). The finalists will compete for a share of a USD $100,000 BSV prize pool – $50,000 for 1st place, $30,000 for 2nd, and $20,000 for 3rd.

Final placings will be determined by a combination of a Final Round judging panel and audience voting through an augmented reality experience for online attendees of CoinGeek Live.

The finalists for the 3^rd Bitcoin SV Hackathon are:

Kyrt
Kyrt integrates Bitcoin microtransactions with subscribable events available via Zapier – a major platform enabling easy integration workflows across more than 2000 applications. Zapier is an incredibly powerful tool and by integrating a micropayment rail into any application interaction, the possibilities are endless.

RepZip

Identity on-chain is a fiercely discussed topic in Bitcoin SV and a key missing piece of infrastructure. RepZip not only provides a real solution to the problem, but also integrates with Paymail and existing Bitcoin data infrastructure in a way that can satisfy a plethora of use cases. Identity is powerful and is a core link between the digital and the physical world. When the solution integrates 3^rd party attestation, this will become a core and central part of day to day Bitcoin interactions.

STOTASK
STOTASK is a new entrant in the ‘gig economy’ that allows owners of datasets to leverage the idle time of anyone to apply human interpretation to tag data. This is a missing link between human classification and machine learning. Classification tasks that are easy for humans but hard for machines can become machine-learned with an initial human input. Bitcoin SV is used as the payment rail for STOTASK, enabling work to be paid out in very small increments. Coupling this with Metanet data structuring in the future has huge potential.

Speaking about the finalists, nChain CTO Steve Shadders, said:

“With each iteration of the Hackathon, we’re seeing the quality and creativity of entries continue to improve. This time around, with the extended coding phase of the competition, it’s clear that the additional time has been put into really developing these ideas into high-quality, well-thought-out submissions. I’m excited to see each of the three finalists present their project at CoinGeek Live, but it’s certainly not going to be easy determining a winner!”

Also commenting on today’s announcement, Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen, said:

“The standard of submissions for the 3^rd Bitcoin SV Hackathon has raised the bar once again and reflects the continued maturing of Bitcoin SV development. What impressed me the most is the diversity of projects entered – business and consumer applications that each have a unique take on our theme of ‘Connecting the world to one global blockchain’ – but all with the common thread of leveraging the distinguishing powers of the Bitcoin SV blockchain. I’d like to thank all of the more than 400 people who took part in the competition.  While we select a champion in a few weeks’ time, all the participants win by building on BSV.”

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Association is the Switzerland-based global industry organization that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. It brings together essential components of the Bitcoin SV ecosystem – enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others – working alongside them, as well as in a representative capacity, to drive further use of the Bitcoin SV blockchain and uptake of the BSV digital currency. 

The Association works to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while facilitating innovation using all aspects of Bitcoin technology. More than a digital currency and blockchain, Bitcoin is also a network protocol; just like Internet protocol, it is the foundational rule set for an entire data network.  The Association supports use of the original Bitcoin protocol to operate the world’s single blockchain on Bitcoin SV.