Internet Computer Hackathon ‘Supernova’ attracted 3,633 blockchain developers resulting in several breakthroughs in Web3

The Internet Computer Hackathon Supernova, organized by the DFINITY Foundation, resulted in over 400 submissions, making it one of the largest hackathons in the blockchain space. Judges from Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Electric Capital, Huobi and others selected the most innovative and interesting projects in DeFi, NFTs, Social, Metaverse, Gaming and more, awarding a $6 million prize and funding pool. The two overall winners were Cubetopia and Spinner Cash – a user-built, fully on-chain Metaverse that includes NFTs, markets, and games, and a platform that brings fully private transactions to ICP and Bitcoin.

The Supernova hackathon, based on the Internet Computer blockchain, entered its final phase this week with the Community Choice Award voting. The hackathon, organized by the DFINITY Foundation, a not-for-profit organization developing technology for the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), attracted 3,633 developers from around the world, making it one of the largest Web3 hackathons in the blockchain industry.

Between May 10 and June 20, 2022, developer teams submitted over 400 projects across six vertical development tracks, with 42 finalists demonstrating their projects to notable third-party judges on Demo Day on June 30, 2022. The event allowed participants to compete for an aggregated prize and funding pool of $6 million – $765,000 in cash prizes, $765,000 in grants, and up to $4,470,000 in seed funding opportunities.

Supernova hackathon judges and partners include Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Electric Capital, Huobi, Warburg Serres Investments, IRONGREY, SNZ, HashKey Capital, Fenbushi Capital, FBG CapitalBinance Labs, KR1, Messari, dao5, Scalar Capital, Amino Capital, Unity Technologies, Polygon, Chainlink Labs, SV Angel, Anmi Capital, Tomahawk, BlackComb Software, ASI GIG, Foresight Ventures, IOSG Ventures, BeInCrypto, CV VC, ICPort, Braintrust, Simplex, Spiral, Unstoppable Finance, Blockrocket, and more.

The six Supernova vertical development tracks consisted of SocialFi, GameFi, Metaverse and NFTs, Asynchronous DeFi, Public Good/Social Impact, and Blue Sky. The winners from GameFi and Asynchronous DeFi, Cubetopia and Spinner Cash, were crowned as Grand Champions, the overall winners of the hackathon. They both excelled in novel approaches showcasing the power of the Internet Computer, e.g. through a fully on-chain Metaverse built by users or a platform that allows other blockchains to be private (Spinner Cash).

Dominic Williams, Founder and Chief Scientist at DFINITY Foundation: “I’m incredibly proud of the ICP developer community that made this epic hackathon such a success. They submitted hundreds of projects that point to a bold future for Web3, which innovate in fields such as social media, gaming, the metaverse and DeFi. These online services and dapps are built entirely on a blockchain that is web-speed, web-serving, web-efficient, and can process unlimited amounts of data thanks to its advanced math. They run without any need for centralized IT, and because they run fully on-chain, community DAOs can take full control, which automates their management and realizes the key Web3 aim of distributing ownership, control and sovereignty to users through tokens. The full decentralization achieved makes services and dapps unstoppable and resistant to hackers, supports community fundraising into a DAO, and the provision of advanced token features that create richer user experiences and enable viral growth. Anybody that is interested in the future of Web3 should check out the amazing hackathon entries for inspiration.”

The Grand Champions:

The first grand champion and winner of the GameFi section, Cubetopia, is a Minecraft-inspired play-to-earn role-playing game with the potential to migrate hundreds of millions of users to Web3. The second winner and leader in the category Asynchronous DeFi was Spinner Cash, a project that combines zero-knowledge proofs with Internet Computer “chain key cryptography” to enable users to make private Bitcoin or ICP transactions that do not reveal the sender or receiver, or the amount of tokens being transferred (additional blockchains will follow).

The other four track champions are Kontribute, dSquad, CrowdFund NFT, and Kinic.

The Supernova Community Choice Award is still up for grabs among 239 projects. Voting takes place via DSCVR, a Web3 social media platform running 100% on-chain similar to Reddit, and is open until July 10, 2022.