The Stratis Virtual Hackathon has arrived! Registration is now officially open – it’s time to unleash your creativity and win some great prizes.

The Stratis hackathon is entirely FREE to enter and there is no entry requirement beyond the need to have a basic knowledge of the C#/.NET and Visual Studio environment. If you can build and deploy a blockchain-based decentralised application using the nStratis Development Framework (SDF) – this is the time to show your abilities.

Submissions will open on 23rd January and remain open until 23rd February 2017. In the next days will provide a link for you to register your interest in participating in the event. Stay tuned!

There will be a great first prize of $5000 but more importantly the kudos of being dubbed ‘Creator of the Genesis dapp’ – in years to come they will say your name in hushed tones, as a mark of respect. Runner-up will have plenty to be happy about too. All you need to do is come up with an idea and take your best shot at making it a reality.

You can freely select a topic but we particularly encourage the following themes: Fintech (lending, crowdsourcing, ICOs) Unity Gaming Platform Integrations or general dapps (Ledgers, Trust, Provenance, Governance, Voting, Proof of Existence, IOT)

If you need to get up to speed with the SDF then please take a look at the suggested resources on our website. We will be making a team of dedicated mentors available if you should need general support along the way. Our panel of expert judges will make the final decision and winners will be announced on 1st March.

So whether you are a seasoned hackathon veteran or have never taken part in one before, Stratis virtual hackathon is a great way to start the new year.

Developer News

This week we started a project to seek integration with the Unity game engine. This would give us, the possibility of integrating Stratis for in-game transactions, so that you can, for example, buy/sell virtual goods or operate a marketplace . We have also launched two Stratis wallet-related projects this week. One is to create a fork of the Electrum wallet that we plan for use with Stratis, and the other is the development of the C# Full Node wallet UI. We have now assigned developer resources to both these tasks.

Stratis is Official

We are concluding the process of company incorporation in the UK and establishing a physical, bricks-and-mortar location for Stratis. Details will be made available on the new website by the end of the year.

Last week we did a grand reveal of our new-look logo. We have now finished the logo refresh and all versions of the new design can be found in our media package here: Stratis_Media_Package_2017_V1.zip

Blockchain Expo

Last week we also brought you the news that we will be taking up a booth at the Blockchain Expo in London on 23rd – 24th January 2017. We can now confirm that our booth number is #312. For those of you who are planning to drop by to say hello, we would love to see you there. Entry to the Expo hall is free. Further details of the event can be found here: http://blockchain-expo.com/

Finally, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, please claim your Stratis tokens if you haven’t already done so. Thank you for trusting us with your STRAT but the wonder of cryptocurrency is that it allows you the freedom to be your own bank. Please exercise that right and claim your tokens today.

Don’t forget to update your wallet. V2.0.0.1 is available here: https://github.com/stratisproject/stratisX/releases/tag/v2.0.0.1