CHAINLINK SPRING 2023 HACKATHON

Smart contract developers are reinventing applications in finance, gaming, insurance, art, and many more industries, creating a system that executes contracts based on mathematical certainty. Chainlink decentralized oracle networks are at the center of this evolution, enabling developers to leverage high-quality data from APIs and other data sources along with powerful off-chain computation resources to build the next generation of smart contract applications.

Whether you need secure market data for a DeFi app, verifiable randomness for a blockchain-based game, or low-cost off-chain computation to automate various contract functions, Chainlink’s flexible oracle infrastructure provides developers with the extensive suite of decentralized services they need to build more feature-rich dApps.  

This year’s Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon aims to empower developers of all skill levels to use Chainlink oracle networks to build decentralized applications that address a wide range of use cases and realize the full potential of hybrid smart contracts. Get hands-on experience with smart contracts, a fast onboarding to the Chainlink tech stack, workshops with top engineers, exposure to blockchain career opportunities, and a chance to win prizes from a total pool of $450k+

Past Chainlink hackathons have seen individuals and teams build hybrid smart contract applications that have redefined what dApps can do. For this event, we want to see even more creative applications that leverage the full power of Chainlink solutions. 

Hackathon participants will have an entire month to explore, experiment, and build together, as well as the opportunity to meet top developers from Chainlink Labs, who will be available to check out their work, offer feedback, and give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it’s like to build at the cutting edge of the smart contract industry.

The official hackathon runs from April 28th to June 9th, 2023. See below for more details about the event, including the prizes on offer and potential building opportunities.

Some important reminders:

• Project submission dates: April 28 - June 9 @ 11:45pm ET
• Closing Ceremony: June 24, 2022
• The Hackathon workshop schedule is available here. 
  
  

WHAT IS CHAINLINK?

Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications.

Chainlink Data Feeds provide a large collection of streaming market data. Developers can currently integrate easy-to-deploy code to retrieve Data Feeds for crypto assets, commodities, FOREX, and more market data, opening up a huge number of potential applications.

If you’re looking to call a specific API or type of data, build a straightforward External Adapter to call the API to your Solidity smart contract. Creating a new External Adapter is a fantastic hackathon project for those new to Chainlink, and can add a unique identity to projects from veteran smart contract developers. 

A popular solution for gaming, ticketing, and many other use cases, Chainlink VRF provides developers access to provably random numbers, enabling them to build any type of app that needs transparent and secure RNG (random number generation) on-chain.

Chainlink Automation enables conditional execution of your smart contracts functions through a hyper-reliable and decentralized automation platform that uses the same external network of node operators that secures billions in value.

Creativity is your only limiting factor—Chainlink empowers your smart contracts with any data source you can think of in a secure manner, allowing you to build end-to-end decentralized, secure, and reliable applications.

REGISTER TODAY AND GEAR UP WITH CHAINLINK HACKATHON RESOURCES

To help maximize the success of projects, hackathon participants will be provided with direct access to experienced mentors and technical support, extensive educational materials for learning about off-chain services, live workshops showcasing how to use Chainlink, and much more. We also encourage you to join the hackathon channel in the official Chainlink Discord to meet other hackers and to explore our collection of developer resources below:

• Chainlink Docs

• Smart Contract Developer Bootcamp On-Demand

• 16-Hour Smart Contract Developer Course

• 32 hour Smart Contract Developer course (JavaScript edition)

• Boilerplate, Starter Kits, and Tutorials

If you want to kickstart your blockchain development journey and #BuildWithChainlink to realize the full potential of hybrid smart contracts, register today to secure your spot today for the Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon. This is our biggest hackathon yet and is poised to spur a major wave of innovation across DeFi, the NFT economy, and the larger smart contract ecosystem. As always, we can’t wait to see what you build.

PS: See the Sponsor Challenges tab for details on the prize breakdown - each sponsor has its own challenge statement & prize breakdown. 

SWAG Disclaimer: Transportation companies are currently facing limitations when shipping items to Russia and Ukraine, and as such we won't be able to send the Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon SWAG to these countries. 

$448,000 in prizes
Prizes paid in cryptocurrency

• User Experience / User Interface
  How useable is your project? Does it look nice? Does it accomplish what it's set out to do in an easy to use and approachable way?
• Originality / Uniqueness
  Has this project been done before? Is it unique?
• Technicality
  How difficult is the problem you're solving? How many moving parts? Did you build it in an efficient manner? Did you give it too many moving parts? How clean is the code?
• Practicality
  Is this something people will want to use? Does this have business value? Is this something that could grow and have a mass following?
• Wow factor
  Buffer points for anything not captured in the above pieces of criteria!