How Do Solana Hackathons Help Build the Solana Ecosystem?

Building the Solana Community

As a low-cost, high-speed rival to Ethereum, Solana offers unmatched transaction throughput in the race to become the ultimate Decentralized Finance (DeFi) network. In addition, both beginners and developers with smart contract or Non-Fungible token (NFT) experience benefit from its high degree of composability.

Throughout the year, the Solana ecosystem organizes multiple hackathons to help developers improve their skills. Also, this way, Solana can bring the crypto industry to more mainstream users.

“The hackathon was an amazing accelerant to build our community, connect with users, and raise funding afterward. We certainly benefitted from the visibility and enjoyed the process greatly as well,” Ayush Menon, Founder and CEO of Katana (grand winner of the Solana Ignition Hackathon), told Web3Wire.

Developers can gain access to the following during the Solana hackathon process:

• A community of people who are passionate about creating in Web3
• Educational events and talks from industry leaders to learn how to build products using innovative technology and primitives
• Financial rewards for achievements
• Connections with Web3 investors, analysts, and fund managers.

“We’ve seen this explosive growth in the Solana ecosystem, and a lot of that doesn’t come from the hackathon, but the hackathons are a focal point to get everyone together to build a product and showcase what they’re working on,” Solana Labs Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko said in an interview with Blockworks.

Here’s a list of a few hackathons Solana has organized over the years:

Inaugural Hackathon

To accelerate the already rapid growth of the ecosystem, the Solana Foundation hosted its first online hackathon in November 2020. The two weeks event brought together industry leaders and builders together. Despite Wormhole being the focal point, participants were encouraged to build any project that could impact the ecosystem.

Season Hackathon

The season hackathon ran for three weeks from May-June 2021, bringing crypto pioneers and developers together. More than 13,000 builders registered for the hackathon, and 350 teams submitted projects covering DeFi, NFTs, and Web3. Further, additional regional tracks included East Asia, India, Eastern Europe, Africa, Vietnam, and Brazil.

“We had a great experience, our inception moment was obviously winning the grand prize at the Solana Season hackathon. Additionally, it was a great opportunity to get a group of people together and build something cool,” Tristan, Founder & Core Contributor at Zeta, told Web3Wire. “We are big believers in these hackathons as it’s a great way to kickstart a community and form an early team.”

Ignition Hackathon

The Ignition hackathon ran from Aug. 31-Oct. 15, 2021. Nearly 6,000 teams from around the world submitted 568 final projects to Ignition. Further, Solana Ventures, Microsoft, Jump Crypto, Standard Chartered, Forte, and Metaplex offered $5 million in prizes and seed funding. The Ignition hackathon was later renamed Solana Summer Camp Hackathon. The recent Summer Camp ran July 11-Aug. 16.

“Winning the Solana Hackathon brought us immense recognition within the crypto world. Not only did it give us recognition, but it also increased our brand awareness, in addition to letting us build our networks and forge new affiliations within the blockchain industry,” Alvin Lam, founder of DarleyGo (Community Choice award winner in Solana Ignition hackathon) told Web3Wire.

Riptide Global Hackathon

The fifth Solana hackathon presented new blockchain projects in Payments, DeFi, Gaming, and DAOs. Over 7,000 teams participated in Riptide from Feb. 2-March 17, submitting 550 final projects to the judges. In addition to Visa, Jump Crypto, Samsung NEXT, MonkeDAO and Mango, Solana Ventures offered prizes and seed funding of up to $5 million for the global hackathon.

Hacker Houses

Solana Hacker Houses are five-day offline event with in-person mentoring from Solana Labs engineers and other partners scheduled to run worldwide. The latest event in Stockholm, Sweden, took place from Aug. 24-28.

The event includes informative, educational programming about DeFi, NFTs, and how to get started with Solana. Additionally, you can expect advice and support from core Solana Labs engineers, plus a demo day to compete for local grants.

Solana hackathons have been valuable for the Solana ecosystem. To build a thriving ecosystem, the hackathons are able to connect talented builders and fund young startups.