ETHGlobal Bangkok Hackathon Guide

Hackathon/Nov 14, 2024/DevAd Unit

Hackathons are one of the tech industry's oldest traditions, welcoming participants from all backgrounds, offering networking, skill-building, and cash prizes that can reach thousands. Many notable web3 companies like Uniswap, Gitcoin, and OpenSea started as hackathon projects, showing just how powerful these events can be for launching the next big thing.

In this blog post, we’ll focus on presenting our perspective on what makes a project a worthy submission—a winning project. Our next focus is ETHGlobal Bangkok, where we’ll be hosting two Cartesi tracks for hackers to explore.

Track 1: Build a dApp using Cartesi Rollups

In this track, participants are challenged to develop solutions leveraging Cartesi Rollups. With Cartesi’s Linux-based VM, they are encouraged to integrate with other protocols, demonstrating Cartesi’s modularity within the broader Web3 ecosystem. This modular approach aligns with Ethereum’s vision of rollup-centric scalability, where rollups enhance programmability, cost efficiency, and user experience. Check out the guide here.

Track 2: Build a dApp Showcasing Avail Integration

This track emphasizes building a dApp that integrates Cartesi with Avail Protocol. We have prepared a solution on our experimental node as a proof of concept for this integration, along with a guide for you to use it.

Avail, with its focus on data availability (DA), enables Cartesi Rollups to handle data more effectively and reliably. Participants are tasked with leveraging Cartesi Rollups and the default smart contracts on the base layer for asset handling, while using Avail’s DA solution to manage off-chain data needs and send generic inputs with various data to the dApp.

The integration of Cartesi and Avail represents a step toward the next generation of dApps, where higher computational power and robust data availability meet to support complex applications. As shown in the Web3 cone of innovation, scaling both computational capacity and data availability is essential for creating dApps that can approach the programmability and efficiency of traditional software. By working with Avail, developers can contribute to advancing Ethereum’s rollup-centric vision and bring to life machine economy applications like IoT, machine economy, decentralized AI, and go far beyond everything we dreamed.

Essential elements for success:

Hackathons these days are streamlined, with multiple tracks and each track having different requirements and focus. Therefore, skills and innovation alone might not be enough to achieve success. That’s why it’s important that developers also evolve to think like judges, to discern the key elements expected from your project in advance and to incorporate them effectively. Below are a few of those elements which we feel might be helpful to keep in mind:

Rapid and proper Idea validation and iteration

Many hackathons are short. As little time as just a couple of days. It is important that you go through the list of sponsors / tracks and their requirements to thoroughly think of project ideas which would fit the tracks which you want to apply for.

Innovation and Real-world use case

Judges are excited to see fresh, bold ideas; however, it’s important to remember that there is a fine line between innovation and non-viability. When developing your next innovative idea, consider the target users, the real-world applications. No one wants a hackathon project that’s almost impossible to grasp or execute.

Showcase protocol's capabilities

It’s not just about demonstrating technical prowess—it’s about showing how the protocol can be applied in innovative, impactful ways. It doesn't make sense to create a simple order book on Cartesi when our goal is to show the flexibility of Linux and computation power of app-specific rollups. If you are participating in a hackathon we organize, and are unsure come talk to us, we are there to help!

Proper Time Management

Core tasks should be prioritised and handled before other less-important tasks to avoid getting bogged down by tasks that are not essential for the MVP stage. That critical functionality which will make or break your project? Tackle it first!

Prepare your pitch as soon as possible! A refined and properly rehearsed pitch shows you know what you’re talking about and boosts confidence and clarity in delivery. Narrative is important!

Common mistakes to avoid:

Participating in hackathons can be very stressful and challenging, but it's important to put in extra effort to avoid certain pitfalls that can hinder your chances of success. Here are some common mistakes that teams often make and how to avoid them.

Working on ideas that are too experimental or unvalidated

While innovation is important to success in hackathons, presenting ideas that are too experimental or not grounded in real-world applications can be risky. It’s important that before diving into development, you take time to validate your concept.

If the theme of the hackathon is focused on the best algorithm or unlocking new functionality, feel free to be experimental. But if the theme is a real-world use case, then focussing on an idea with proven demand will not only make your project more compelling but will also resonate better with your judges seeking practical solutions.

Business models that don’t scale or aren't appealing to judges and users

An innovative product is important, but without a solid business model, your project may not sit well with judges looking for scalable and marketable applications. Avoid proposing models that lack scalability or that may not attract the interest of potential users or investors. Judges often look for sustainable business plans that can grow beyond the hackathon.

Lack of Clear Presentation Skills

No matter how impressive your project is, if you can't communicate it effectively, it won’t be fully appreciated. Focus on telling a compelling story that highlights the problem, your solution, and its impact. A polished presentation can make a lasting impression on judges and set your project apart from the competition.

Hackathon-winning projects and possible reasons for success:

Ok. Let’s talk about Cartesi now! We are going to review some of our past prize winners and how they effectively convinced us that they are a great solution. Let’s go by categories and explain the dApps and what specifically impressed us.

Apps that made us connect

Peeps - Cartesi Nigeria Masterclass - Winners
Comet - Cartesi Experiment Week 2 - runner-up

One of Cartesi’s main characteristics is the powerful off-chain computations. Peeps approached that task by implementing in their javascript dApp logic the recommendation algorithm of their social network, making it public and verifiable, guaranteeing that users will have the expected experience, while Comet, which uses deroll (a typescript high-level framework for Cartesi), was able to use maths libs to calculate scores for the leaderboard based on the number of mints and contributions to the online texts and poems created in its collaborative format. Both have a very strong argument to be a social dApp used by lots of different people and can attract users and generate revenue!

Games we loved to play

DoomArena - ETHGlobal NY 2023 - Finalist
Nebula Duel - Cartesi Nigeria Masterclass - Winner
Cryptopolis - Cartesi Experiment Week 1 - Runner-up

We love games. Can you even argue with DOOM onchain? It was groundbreaking to be able to run a Cartesi Machine on the browser to verify gameplay. Nebula Duel took a different approach, it showcases how complex computations implemented in Rust can be done in an auto-battler which can make anyone addicted to collecting creatures by making them into assets.

Of course, one of the big advantages of going with games is that they already come with reasons to build on blockchain and business models almost by default: guarantee fair competition’s gameplay, waging tokens, and giving prizes in assets. Cryptopolis, which leverages the C++ original engine of Micropolis, went beyond and that’s why it is so magical. The game economy is a real one, where assets drive the entire in-game world!

Ideas that went beyond traditional DeFi

DCA.Monster - ETHGlobal Paris 2023 - Track Winner
CarteZCash - Cartesi Online Hackathon 2024 - Winner

These two cases won for very different reasons. The first one was a showcase of the protocol’s beauty. A Python-based approach leveraging Cartesi Rollups' computational strengths to overcome the limitations of traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) smart contracts, achieving such small granularity over token streams for an automated market maker.

The second one came strong with the use of integrations. It is something we are always looking forward to! With the support of Rust, it was possible to get shielded assets added to the solution. A completely new functionality to the protocol, a use case we hadn’t thought of before. Completely blew our minds in the presentation.

Experiments showcasing the future of AI

ChainGPT - ETHGlobal Lisbon 2023 - Finalist
TeachAI - EthGlobal NY 2023 - Track Winner

People love to associate AI with Cartesi. We got many submissions for AI being run inside our VM. Chain GPT was one of the first ones, an Alpaca LLM on the Cartesi Machine. But what differentiates it from most submissions is the attention to the narrative Deanna had when hacking this solution. She provided a strong rationale for why you would want that model to run verifiably. Think of doing that if you are taking this road! Narrative is playing a role here!

And then came Kiril! The man actually took everything we heard from LLM onchain to the next level. Instead of running the model there, he was able to do reinforcement learning with python libs on the Cartesi Machine. This makes not only the execution of the model verifiable, but the results of the training.

Good showcase of Cartesi’s capabilities

Bug Buster - Cartesi Experiment Week 1 winner

Bug Buster as a general bug bounty platform, shows why running these applications inside a Linux environment is so important: You can test exploits to almost any code piece submitted there. Then there is the power needed to run this, which is provided by use of app-chains instead of a shared rollup. Lastly, of course, the security guarantees it brings to devs. We can talk about Bug Buster for hours, but it is recommended that you join our discord to follow the progress of the solution. It’s turning out amazing!

Whether it’s your first hackathon or you’re back for another challenge, now is the perfect time to start gearing up! Join our Discord for more updates, support, team-building, and tips as you prepare. We can’t wait to see you at EthGlobal Bangkok from November 15-17. Let’s make this hackathon unforgettable!