After the social event, everyone goes home to get a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s main event.

Miami Bitcoin Hackathon Main Event: January 19th 9:00am

We begin setting up as early as 7am. When contestants began to arrive, they were welcomed with a typical Miami desayuno[breakfast]: Croquetas, Pastelitos, Tequenos and Cafecito from Ricky’s Bakery.

It definitely wouldn’t be a Miami Bitcoin Hackathon without free bitcoin swag. Both contestants and observers got free t-shirts, coffee mugs and stickers.

After downing some breakfast and changing shirts, teams quickly claimed their seats and tables. Around 9am, I gave a brief speech to kick off the hackathon.

What were the resources and guides?

With the growth of the Bitcoin network over the last year, teams had even more resources to work with such as the Lightning Network, a “Layer 2” payment protocol that operates on top of Bitcoin. It enables fast transactions between participating nodes and has been touted as a solution to the Bitcoin scalability problem.

We put out a list of different resources and suggested guides for teams to work with.

Teams code all day and all night rushing to finish their bitcoin applications. Luckily, they don’t go hungry. We provide lunch from Pollo Tropical (Cuban food) and dinner from Papa Johns. Teams must finish their project by 11:00am the next day. Once hacking is over, we get set-up for pitches. Teams post a link to their github repo on their team page and get prepared for pitching.

What was the judging criteria?

Who were the Judges?

Judges: Ryan Brewer, Junseth, Doug Carrillo

DocBtc — Miami native and Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Bitstop, a Miami-based Bitcoin ATM software platform & Hodl Wallet, an open-source, simple, fast bitcoin wallet.

Rhunbre— Ryan is a Miami software developer focused on creating decentralized web applications (dwapps) built using Bitcoin and web technologies. He is the originator of the PEERD software project, a framework for implementing dwapps.

Junseth — South Florida founder of Merkle Report and host of bitcoin podcast Junseth’s World and owner of Alarm Grid.

What about the sponsors?

Miami Bitcoin Hackathon 2019 Sponsors

A Big Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this event happen! The Miami Bitcoin Hackathon has always been free for developers to participate and it will always be free thanks to our wonderful Bitcoin sponsors.

Bitstop — Hodl Wallet — Merkle Report —Biscayne Bitcoin — Carlton Fields —

Cold Card— Alarm Grid — Open Dime — Blockchain Beach

Who were the teams?

In order of pitching:

Miami Bitcoin Hackathon Teams in order of pitching first to last

Which teams won?

Winners of the 2019 Miami Bitcoin Hackathon

First Place Winner : Wiinode

Last year’s Miami Bitcoin Hackathon 2018 first place winner Evan Martinez came back to defend his title. This time he joined forces with Miami Bitcoin Hackathon veteran Bernardo Garciarivas. The dynamic duo put it all on the line this year. Together they created Wiinode, a GUI for your Bitcoin Core & LND Nodes. Excellent UI/UX that tracks your Bitcoin node stats, displays the bitcoin price, and pulls in external data feeds like r/Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency news sites. The app also monitors lightning node displaying channels, balance, and other general status.

Second Place: Notasithlord

Former Miami Bitcoin Hackathon contestant, CoinDesk writer and Ironhack alumni Ariel Deschapell decided to give it another go and compete.

Ariel created WebSat Messenger, where he utilized Blockstream’s satellite API to broadcast an encrypted message that was received by Grubles [his twitter friend] via satellite dish who then decrypted the message and posted it on twitter. All of this was funded for only 700 Satoshis over the lighting network!

Third Place: Esperanto Mcgibbly

The name is quirky. But that didn’t matter because the McGibbly’s threw down this year. They built an A/R application which would display the realtime BTC value just by pointing your mobile phone camera at a U.S. Treasury note.

Fourth Place: Fundingsecured

The Coconut Grove crew came to represent GE Digital Tech Center. They threw down some serious Bitcoin coding skills for first timers. Their Bitworker application allows companies to pay freelancers working abroad through a smooth easy to use interface.

5th: Bushido Labs

This Wynwood-based dev team is known locally for their sharp skills. They put together an escrow onramp using Bitcoin ATMs for decentralized exchange Bisq. Users could load their DEX account through a Bitcoin ATM. Their creativity really impressed the judges.

David Llaca

6th: One[Man]Show

He is forever alone. He is only one man. That’s ok because this one man show took home a very solid sixth place. He built an accounting system for those who want to keep better track of their bitcoin investment. Users can track their bitcoin investment and get insightful data in a nice UI.

That’s all folks!

When the winners were announced, they received their bitcoin on their Hodl Wallet. Even though it was a Sunday, it didn’t matter because Bitcoin works 24/7 without fail!

Cheers to the Miami Bitcoin Hackathon 2019!

Doug, Dan and I really enjoy throwing this hackathon every year. It’s a bunch of fun and we all learn a lot every time. Thanks for participating and we hope that you join us again next year.

Special thanks to:

Our sponsors

The Bitstop & Hodl Wallet team for helping with the coordination and organization of the event. I know it takes a toll on you guys, but we all know it’s worth it!

My wife for helping me out a ton with planning this Hackathon. Her support and help make this event happen.

Doug for helping me articulate technical things more clearly.

Anthony for the kegs. It’s a mission.