$25K Awarded to 9 Teams through Stacks Harvard Hackathon
Meet the winners and learn more about the latest Stacks Hackathon
by Adam Haun on May 10th, 2024
As the Stacks ecosystem gears up for the much-anticipated Nakamoto launch, the excitement is palpable. In February, ~9,000 developers engaged with Stacks Challenges through the EasyA app. But in just a few weeks, the number soared to over 90,000 developers.

To capture this excitement, the Stacks Foundation hosted an in-person hackathon. The event marks the beginning of the ambitious #360DaysofStacks Campaign, a partnership with EasyA designed to immerse thousands into the Stacks community.

In preparation for the event, a series of Stacks Workshops were conducted at prestigious campuses along the East Coast—including Harvard, PENN, Brown, Northeastern, and Boston University. The overwhelming response from the Greater Boston Area was a clear indicator: this was the ideal spot for the upcoming hackathon.
200+ Builders in Boston
The Hackathon took place on the final weekend of April, and over 200 passionate participants came together in Boston to compete for a share of $25K in prizes.

Over the weekend, 24 determined teams prepared their projects. By Sunday afternoon, these teams stood ready, each eager to showcase their hard work.
The Winners By Track
Bitcoin DeFi

1st Place ($6,000): Infinity Stacks
A cross-chain synthetic token asset management platform utilizing Stacks and Hiro Systems to provide crypto traders and investors with a game-changing platform that revolutionizes asset management. Supporting ETH and tons of other tokens, they’re bringing cross-chain trading to Bitcoin!

2nd Place ($3,000): Renaissance
A decentralized money lending platform where users can deposit Bitcoin and get a loan against it. The platform helps the users get loans against their BTC providing liquidity that they can use to tap into other potential market opportunities.

3rd Place ($1,000): Kratos
A DeFi application that introduces the idea of governance tokens to incentivize community participation. It works by giving gKRT (Governance Kratos Token) holders voting powers for the future direction of the crypto project apart from generating yields like transaction fees and yield farming with liquidity pooling.
Scaling Bitcoin

1st Place ($6,000): Raized
A fraud-proof crowdfunding platform providing project backers more power and oversight, preventing the frauds seen on Kickstarter.

2nd Place ($3,000): Coast
An iOS “buy now pay later” app letting users buy products with BTC as collateral and pay the rest in installments using fiat or crypto. Once fully repaid, the BTC collateral is returned to the user.

3rd Place ($1,000): StackCred
A reward and membership tool designed for Stacks L2, aimed at incentivizing user interactions and activities on the blockchain. It awards users with a dynamic NFT that updates their privileges without altering the NFT's pointer or URL.
General

1st Place ($3,000): NexPay
A secure and efficient payroll service that simplifies the way companies pay international workers, enhancing the stability and accessibility of the global workforce.

2nd Place ($1,500): Credentia
A digital wallet application to secure personal documents as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on Bitcoin. It’s designed to address the cumbersome and insecure nature of managing multiple physical identity documents, such as drivers' licenses and social security numbers, which are prone to being lost or stolen.

3rd Place ($500): Untold Stories
A platform that offers a secure, decentralized, and anonymous space for individuals to share important topics through text, images, or videos. These storytellers can then receive financial support from a community passionate about underrepresented issues while the donors earn interest on their investments into these stories.
EasyA and Hiro make it possible
The Hackathon was made possible by EasyA, an app that helps developers build on blockchains, and Hiro, a company that builds tools to unlock the full potential of Bitcoin through smart contracts, digital assets, & dApps.
What's Next
The journey for these talented developers has just begun.

Private groups are being formed to greet these newly minted Stacks developers into the ecosystem, where they will receive further support and resources to continue to build their projects.
Now It's Your Turn
If you would like to start your own developer journey in the Stacks ecosystem, the best place to start is the Stacks Challenge in the EasyA app. From there, you can participate in several upcoming virtual and in-person hackathons throughout 2024.

The next in-person hackathon the Stacks ecosystem will be at will take place in a few weeks at the Consensus conference in Austin, Texas, May 29-31st. If you’re interested in participating or planning to be there, get in touch! Email us at [email protected].

We look forward to seeing you there!