Teams from over 32 countries attend Ethereum hackathon in Waterloo

ETHWaterloo hackathon — which calls itself the world’s largest Ethereum hackathon — hosted its inaugural competition this weekend.

The event, run by a volunteer group of hackers and Ethereum enthusiasts, developed what organizers and participants hope will be the future of decentralized technology over 36 hours.

The hackathon brought together 400 attendees from over 32 countries across the world. During the course of the event, hackers were mentored by leaders in the cryptocurrency industry like Joseph Poon, founder of the Lightning Network; Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin; and Ryan Zurrer, a Partner at Polychain Capital.

On Sunday, at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), the top eight teams pitched their projects to their peers and a panel of judges. In the end, the winners were awarded 1,000 tokens of their choice.

The top eight teams selected this year were:

• Happy ENS, a DNS server able to resolve .eth addresses in any browser, without any third-party plugins
• Third eye, a platform for developers to audit smart contracts.
• TrustUs, a simple platform to get started with smart contracts
• Pocket, a gamification platform created to educate children about the value of currency and developing good saving habits
• Provt, an application offering an easier way to safely download and verify files on the blockchain
• Congruence, a tool that allows the exchange of service tokens for healthcare and insurance providers.
• Rufflet, a tool that provides contract information and shows deeper insights to how methods are being used over a period of time
• MetaMask Brave Integration: added support for the MetaMask extension into the Brave browser, allowing the Brave browser to run ÐApps

Photo credit Ben Arnon