What the Bitgesell Hackathon brought forth
So exactly one month ago, the kick-off was made for a hackathon. An online competition for blockchain developers organised by Phystech Genesis, a Russia based company with quite a few hackathon experiences under the belt. For this event in particular they successfully managed to enroll 275 enthusiasts comprised in 34 teams. Full stack developers, blockchain specialists or newbies, creative minds, everyone was welcome to chip in and work a weekend long on developing a desktop and a mobile wallet solution.
For at that moment there really was no one-stop solution for when the Bitgesell user wanted to store his or her BGL’s somewhere other than on an exchange. We all know that can always be considered a risky undertaking. If you wanted to store your BGL locally, one had to download and run the full BGL node client. Honestly, it was working fine but we can’t really say it was the best user experience or had modern security features. Rough around the edges and very basic in looks and functionality.
So the goal of the hackathon was to develop either a mobile or desktop solution. Or both of course, if there were teams out there with the necessary time, skill and courage to get a working version up and running. For each of the best solutions provided there was a 10k USDT prize for the top and 5k USDT for the runner-up.
For the contenders aiming for those top two spots and that prize fund there were of course some requirements. In general the wallets should be able to send and receive transactions into wallets that could be created. Safety wise would support of mnemonic seed creation and the possibility to recover or import a wallet thanks to that set of 24 random words, would be highly rated. All in all there were three big points in which the teams could take home plenty of points, basic usability, security and user interface.
Registrations opened October 19th and closed November 3rd. A couple of days later, 30 teams were selected and the 6th of December at 7 PM Moskou time, the opening ceremony and talks were held.
After day 1, there was a check point session with all teams. Tips were given and a couple of teams were either well underway in working towards the goal where others already gave up. About 48 hours after the opening , 10 teams were selected to present their solutions to the Bitgesell and Phystech Genesis representatives. After looking at all the solutions in detail a couple of changes were made to the prize fund, the decision was made that the following teams were in the prizes:
Mobile category:
1st place 10K USDT: Origin Dev
2nd place 5K USDT: CWK
3rd place 3K USDT: Chainify
4th place 1K USDT: Hackatigers
In desktop category we chose to not award 1st place, as the perfect one, however, there were 3 top places with different approaches and 2 bonus awards:
Top pick desktop 5K USDT: IBI solutions
Top pick new approach (unity) 5K USDT: Digital Rover
Top pick web 5K USDT: HXPNTR
Bonus pick web 1K USDT: Cryp-a-cryp
Bonus pick web 1K USDT: Belarus Freedom
So now a month later, a couple of things have changed and the teams have been busy. Origin Dev has further developed their mobile solution into a working and good looking Android app. For every Android 6+ device out there, there is now a beta version of the app that you can download here:
BelarusFreedom has been working at the web based wallet and Chrome browser extension which you can find here:
Again a big thanks to all teams who participated and specifically those who have stepped up and kept working!
