Highlights from Coinbase’s First Smart Contract Hack Days

By Michael Li, Vice President, Data at Coinbase

Hackathons have been a long-standing and necessary a part of Coinbase tradition, as they offer our engineering groups the chance to collaborate with each other and experiment immediately with the instruments which are enabling a brand new period of open finance.

At Coinbase, we acknowledge that Web3 unlocks an entire new realm of potentialities for builders which are largely but to be explored. In order to pursue these potentialities confidently, engineers must have a baseline data of the ecosystem, the Web3 stack, and key sensible contract ideas throughout completely different blockchain protocols.

This yr, we used the time put aside for the annual Coinbase hackathon to kick off Smart Contract Hack Days to provide all of our engineers a crash course in Web3 improvement for real-world purposes.

Time to BUIDL

In December, we assigned all members to challenge pods of 5–10 people which had been led by an skilled Coinbase crew member that had been by way of in-depth blockchain engineering coaching. Following a day-long crash course in Solidity (developer instruments and workflow), every pod had 48 hours to construct a demo that will be judged on product, engineering, and design.

Participating pods had an opportunity to attain one of many eight awards and crypto-forward prizes. Award classes included People’s Choice (chosen by your complete viewers), Learning Showcase (the pod that demonstrated probably the most studying by way of engaged on their challenge), Judges Choice (general choose favorites), Best Executed (evaluates high quality, teamwork and general execution), and Most Creative (probably the most thrilling and inventive tackle hack day tips).

Hack Day Showstoppers

Among the 44 pods that introduced on Smart Contract Hack Demo Day, the highest 5 classes of challenge submissions spanned Web3 infrastructure, gaming, DAOs, NFTs, and occasion ticketing.

While there have been many sturdy concepts introduced, a number of the key ones to spotlight (together with their taglines) embrace:

• (Gas)tly: Complete fuel transactions with confidence
• Concert-AMWest-2: A NFT live performance ticket and a market contract that may switch funds from the customer to {the marketplace} and royalty to the musician
• GenEd Labs: A charitable giving DAO that permits the moral investor to leverage the blockchain to shut the talent hole inside underserved communities.
• Real-Time Shibas: Capture the yield farms along with your Shiba military
• BridgeIt: Pooling deposits collectively for cost-efficient bridging
• Not So Bored Apes: Decentralizing and revolutionizing the on line casino world one step at a time

What We’ve Learned After Experiencing a Day within the Life of a Web3 Dev

We had been impressed by the variety of inventive product concepts that had been introduced throughout this time and took many necessary insights away to be utilized for future coaching and hackathons.

Some of those insights embrace:

• Teams want extra focus time to execute — many tasks felt they lacked sufficient time to execute as a result of competing priorities from day-to-day work. We will enhance by offering full devoted time for all members within the future.
• Participants would love extra autonomy in crew creation — crew dynamics are necessary. Finding teammates who share an analogous imaginative and prescient or vibe or could have complementary work kinds and views can go a good distance, particularly in high-pressure eventualities.
• Save room for ideation — quite than being assigned to tasks, members could really feel extra engaged or motivated to take an concept over the end line in the event that they really feel extra enthusiastic about what they’re constructing.

What’s Next?

One of probably the most thrilling issues about Web3 is its limitless potential. It is probably going that it’s going to contact each single business — whether or not that be because the infrastructure that underpins a wave of recent merchandise or because the software for interacting with manufacturers and companies in a extra trustless and equitable approach. This yr’s hackathon, in some ways, is a testomony to the efforts wanted to onboard builders from the world of Web2 to Web3.

At Coinbase, we stay optimistic about the way forward for the business and are dedicated to spearheading new initiatives that may permit our groups to proceed studying, creating and constructing collectively.

We are all the time on the lookout for prime expertise to affix our ever-growing crew and #LiveCrypto. Learn extra about open positions on our website.

Highlights from Coinbase’s First Smart Contract Hack Days was initially printed in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, the place persons are persevering with the dialog by highlighting and responding to this story.