DevConnect & ETHGlobal Istanbul 2023 Cartesi Recap

And just like that, time flew by, and before we realized it, we wrapped up the final ETHGlobal hackathon of the year in the picturesque city of Istanbul. There’s no better way to end the year than an epic hackathon filled with the most innovative minds of the Ethereum ecosystem. With over $600k in prizes, 1350 hackers representing 90 countries, and 426 projects submitted, there's nothing else to feel but immense pride for this vibrant and talented community!

Immersing ourselves in Turkey’s thriving Web3 community

In the prelude to the ETHGlobal hackathon, we wanted to set foot in the Web3 community in Turkey, sowing the seeds for connections to flourish. We're seizing the opportunity to immerse ourselves in seriously epic side events with our sleeves rolled up because when it comes to building lasting connections, we mean business. Starting with the future generation - students!

We partnered up with the brightest minds of the future, the students of YTU Blockchain, BUChain, ÖDTU Blockchain and ITU Blockchain, for an X Spaces, all about blockchain innovation and how Cartesi opens up the BUIDLing space. Catch the replay here!

In case students were curious to see Cartesi tech in action, we also hosted a session on Discord with Gabriel and Arthur, where they explored app-specific rollups and PoCs using Cartesi Rollups to help students level up their building experience.

This was followed with an in-person Cartesi ideathon where we explored ideas and use cases for Cartesi tech where we also crowned 3 winners who came up with the best idea!

Taming the beast that is DevConnect

DevConnect was filled to the brim with events and bustling crowds, but let’s give it a shot at recapping! Starting the DevConnect week with Modular Day, Gabriel joined in on a panel all about Rollup Services. In case you want to see the full panel, you can watch it here.

It’s alt VM season! We hosted VM Day together with Fuel Network, where we had speakers from Risc Zero, Stackr Labs, Fluent, Arbitrum, Polygon Miden, Aztec & Movement. Needless to say, we had an epic time in a room with so many interesting and knowledgeable people!

You can watch the whole live stream of the day here. In case you want to watch the separate talks, you can find those over on our YouTube channel. Need something with a more personal touch? Felipe took matters into his own hands with a live commentary of the event.

The day after kicked off with Carsten doing a talk at the Restaking Summit - essentially a tutorial on how to run a PHP with a 5 billion USD economic security budget! 😄 For those more interested in permissionless and fraud-resistant optimistic rollups, Gabriel did a keynote session about it at L2days Istanbul!

Interested to learn how to deploy LLMs fully on-chain? Felipe’s got you, as he took the stage at Decentralized Scaling Summit, chatting about it. 😱

And Carsten was at it again at Scaling Bitcoin Together, discussing his experimentation on implementing Cartesi VM over the Bitcoin network using BitVM.

We also attended the Autonomous Worlds Assembly and were happy to mingle with the community! I mean, how could we not attend it after chatting with Topology on Autonomous Worlds and having talked about it during GBCC calls?

While it was a busy week with lots of running around from event to event, it was all smiles from the Cartesi bois! 😄

Off to ETHGlobal, we went...

…to the last ETHGlobal hackathon of the year. We wanted to make it one we won’t forget anytime soon. Starting off with our well beloved Recharge Station. Hey, just because a hackathon can be stressful doesn’t mean your shoulders have to be hunched all the time! We were back again, providing massages to those who needed to loosen up those muscles.

And for those who wanted an extra energy boost, we had juices at the ready to make sure hackers got some extra nutrients!

In case hackers were seeking a more engaging experience, we set up the World Arcade once more - this time with a fresh and upgraded look! Hackers were more than welcome to dive into on-chain games developed by the amazing Cartesi community, including epic games such as Ultrachess, DOOM, Antcopter, and Dazzle.

And so the BUIDLing with Cartesi begins...

A huge shoutout to our core contributors: Jathin, Shaheen, Gabriel, Claudio, and Joao! Not only did they provide exceptional support, but they did so by maintaining a contagious smile throughout the entire hackathon. Their dedication, combined with the incredible efforts of hackers on the Cartesi track, resulted in some truly extraordinary projects for the Ethereum community. The biggest kudos for your incredible work and for keeping the vibes sky-high! 🙌

I mean… look how happy Gabriel is 😄

A special kudo for Carsten, who was promoted from being a Cartesi Board Director to being a Cartesi booth babe. A huge upgrade if you ask me 😜.

And we’ve got to shout out Gabriel for hosting yet another workshop where he made it Rain Billions/tx on a Linux VM. Why wouldn’t you write dApps with the languages you already know and Linux tooling while simultaneously unlocking the potential of billion CPU cycle transactions?

And another shoutout to Claudio, who ran around the venue making sure content was shot for us to post! And, of course, that means more BUIDL videos, which I had a great time editing! You can find the playlist of the What Are You BUIDLing videos here.

And finally...

Time to highlight our winners!

Congratulations on our first-place winner: 🥇 Dub3.ai

They built an innovative marketplace harnessing the power of Cartesi, enabling users to transform their voice into unique NFTs and generate text-to-speech content using cutting-edge AI technology.

Check it out here: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/dub3-ai-h1riu

Congratulations to our second-place winner: 🥈 Protocol GPT

This project created a blockchain-integrated, tailor-made GPT specific to your protocol by leveraging the Cartesi VM, which is pivotal in ensuring scalability and efficiency in dApp development.

Take a look here: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/protocol-gpt-bisnw

Congratulations to our shared pool winners: 🏅

ZKvote.cc - Using Cartesi, they tackle cross-chain voting challenges. The protocol seamlessly integrates voting tokens with standard ERC-20 through a bridge, conducts voting off-chain, and utilizes ZK proofs for a secure L2 State transfer.

Read up on it here: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/zkvote-cc-rsvkt

P.S. A very special congratulations to the team for making it to the ETHGlobal Istanbul top 10 finalists! Watch them present their project at the closing ceremony here.

ChainedHabits - An on-chain platform built on Cartesi, designed to enhance accountability by allowing you to adhere to your habits.

More on it here: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/chainedhabits-vdpm6

That's a wrap for Cartesi’s ETHGlobal hackathon run of 2023.

We couldn’t be more excited and proud to have been part of the biggest ETHGlobal hackathon up to date! We’ll for sure keep pushing the boundaries of Web3 well after this hackathon is over. Stay in the loop by subscribing to Cartesi’s dynamic calendar!

A huge heartfelt thanks go out to this incredible community and all these incredible hackers who put their passion and time into something so exciting as advancing the Ethereum ecosystem and the Web3 space!

We hope that Cartesi contributed at least a little bit in making this hackathon not just productive but also enjoyable, providing a moment of relaxation and recharging amidst the creative coding chaos! What you guys built using Cartesi tech is nothing short of impressive, and it’s so exciting for us to see use cases and ideas come to life - we can’t thank you enough for that. Your projects are pushing, testing, and expanding the boundaries of Web3 space. How cool is that?

Inspired to get involved? Check out what other teams are building. Or want to take your hackathon project further? Apply for a Cartesi Community Grant.

Built something with Cartesi at this hackathon or any other time? Post about your idea in the Cartesi Discord's #spotlight channel to earn your Boundless Builder NFT. (And don't forget to upload your project to the Cartesi community repository for the world to see!)