Get BUIDLING With Polkadot at ETHDenver 2022

Polkadot returns to ETHDenver this year for more creativity, code, and chaos! Meet the teams in person, join the $15k bounty, or check out the talks, presentations, and workshops online; February 11–20, 2022. All free!

Polkadot is a lot of things in one decentralized network! At the base it’s a layer-0 blockchain infrastructure that supports multiple self-sovereign blockchains with shared security and interoperability services. In a nutshell, that means blockchains running on Polkadot — we call them parachains — can be optimized from the get-go for anything from DeFi to gaming to smart contracts to privacy…the options are boundless. Many of these parachains can also host level 2 dapps, including Solidity/EVM deployments. With trustless bridges to external networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin, and the ability to interoperate, this opens up an exciting new phase for Web3.

Polkadot is built on Substrate, a modular framework for building blockchains. You can use its pre-built components to create and deploy your own blockchain quickly. Substrate enables forkless upgrades, making changes painless as technology and needs progress. Substrate blockchains can be run independently, or can easily plug into Polkadot and Kusama, its wild-cousin canary network.

The Polkadot ecosystem also has a great community that includes everyone from experienced devs to people who are just excited by the tech and how it can be used. Come join us at ETHDenver on February 11–20, 2022. This non-stop community innovation festival shares Polkadot’s mission to advance Web3 and build connections.

Head to the Polkadot booth in the main venue at the Web3 Castle to meet Web3 Foundation, Parity Technologies, and ecosystem team members. Talk tech or just check out the swag — we’re looking forward to meeting people in real life again!

If you can’t attend in person, then sign in virtually for the talks, presentations, and workshops during #BUIDLweek. This year we’ll be hosting a Polkadot bounty worth $15,000.

Schedule of talks and workshops from the Polkadot ecosystem:

• Feb 15, 9–11am: Unique Network: Build an NFT Marketplace in an Hour!
• Feb 15, 11am-1pm: Phala Network: The Web3 infrastructure beyond smart contract
• Feb 15, 1–5pm: W3F: Polkadot Ecosystem Open House
• Feb 15, 3.20pm: Moonbeam: Workshop
• Feb 15, 3–5pm: Acala: Beyond EVM: Building Sustainable dApps & L1 Networks With Acala
• Feb 15, 7pm: W3F: Party with Polkadot
• Feb 16, 8am-1pm: Parity: Substrate Seminar — Fireside Chat With Polkadot Parachain Builders & Professional Networking
• Feb 16, 1–5pm: Parity: Substrate: Blockchain Framework in Rust — Workshops
• Feb 17, 9–11am: Manta Network: pEVM: Solidity Programmable Privacy Asset Powered by zkSNARK
• Feb 17, 11am-1pm: Interlay: interBTC — Insured Bitcoin on any Blockchain
• Feb 17, 1–5pm: Origin Trail: Asset knowledge graphs: BUIDL dApps leveraging advanced querying and discoverability with the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph
• Feb 18, 12pm: Moonbeam: Presentation
• Feb 19, 12:30pm: Moonbeam: Panel discussion
• Panel: Feb 19, 12:30 pm. Moonbeam presentation on Feb 18 ~12pm

Official schedule can be found HERE. Add all Polkadot events to your calendar HERE.

Polkadot Bounties at EthDenver

Bounty 1: Pitch the Next Polkadot Parachain

Prize: $1500 per team (x5)

At this in-person event, each team is tasked with creating a pitch deck (15 slides maximum). It’s your chance to let your imagination run wild and envision what a future Polkadot parachain can do.

We’ll be looking for high-level presentations that explain what the parachain does and what problems it solves. It must also feature solid technical overviews as well as a roadmap that explores the future of the project.

Bounty 1 Judging criteria

• Impact and Usefulness — How impactful and useful is the submission for the Polkadot/Kusama/Substrate and Web 3.0 ecosystem as a whole?
• Originality, Creativity and Innovation — How new and novel is the submission compared to existing technologies?
• Mass Usability — How feasible is the idea? How adaptable is it across other integrations?
• Technical Feasibility — Is your proposed implementation or MVP code viable?
• Economic Feasibility — Is your idea sound from a game theory and incentive design standpoint?
• Clarity — How clear is the writing, idea presentation and pitch deck structuring. If there is code that corresponds to the deck, it will be taken into account here (for code submission requirements see bounty #2).

Bounty 1 Submission requirements

• The submission must be tied to the Polkadot/Kusama/Substrate ecosystem (parachain in the Polkadot and/or Kusama ecosystem, built with Substrate)
• Max 15 slides, publicly available
• English language

Bounty 2: Build a Polkadot Parachain Using Substrate

Prize: 1st Place — $5000 / 2nd Place — $2500

This competition is for the virtual portion of the ETHDenver hackathon. Entrants are tasked with building a Layer-1 blockchain using Substrate, so dream big!

With Substrate, it’s possible to build incredible innovations on Polkadot. Be sure to consider its usefulness, accessibility, as well as all the other important details (full list in the link below), and who knows, it could one day become a fully-fledged Polkadot parachain!

Bounty 2 judging criteria

• Impact and Usefulness — How impactful and useful is the submission for the Polkadot/Kusama/Substrate and Web 3.0 ecosystem as a whole?
• Originality, Creativity and Innovation — How new and novel is the submission compared to existing technologies?
• Technical Difficulty — What level of skill or knowledge is required to build the submission?
• Mass Usability — How feasible is the idea? How adaptable is it across other integrations?
• Economic Feasibility — Is your idea sound from a game theory and incentive design standpoint?

Bounty 2 submission requirements

• The submission must be tied to the Polkadot/Kusama/Substrate ecosystem (parachain in the Polkadot and/or Kusama ecosystem, built with Substrate)
• The submission must be one of the following formats:
• a live running site or running chain and provide an endpoint, if you are running a substrate chain or ideally already connected to Rococo (highly recommended)
• a Docker image (highly recommended)
• a Linux executable (discouraged)
• code with detailed build instructions (strongly discouraged)
• Use the latest version of Substrate and use the latest release of Polkadot available for testing on Rococo
• Include in your submission’s README.md file:
• Project title
• Project description (minimum 150 words)
• Explanation why this is an ideal fit for a parachain, not just a solo chain.
• Create a video that includes footage that clearly explains your submission’s features and functionality through a comprehensive demonstration (max 5min, required)
• All code must have an open source license (GPL, MIT, Apache, and Unlicense are accepted, others may be considered on a case by case basis)
• Provide a way to access the project for judging and testing by including a link to a repo hosting the application’s code and any other deployment files and testing instructions.

Resources for both bounties

• Substrate documentation — learn how to build your own blockchain in hours
• Polkadot Wiki — the source of all knowledge
• Polkadot discord
• ETHDenver Discord (Polkadot sponsor channel)
• Technical Explainers on YouTube by our great educators
• Substrate Seminars on YouTube by devs and projects in the ecosystem
• Polkadot Github, and
• Substrate Github

Get BUIDLING With Polkadot at ETHDenver 2022 was originally published in Polkadot Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.