On August 17-19, the Bitcoin Association conducted its second Bitcoin SV [BSV] hackathon attracting developer teams from across the globe who worked on creating projects that enable people to actually use Bitcoin. The contest is run by blockchain advisory and development group nChain and is sponsored by CoinGeek. The virtual competition leads up to the next CoinGeek conference in Seoul, South Korea on October 1-2. Preliminary judging will select 3 top finalists, who will each send a representative to CoinGeek Seoul to present their project on October 1 for final judging by a panel of industry leaders and audience voting. They compete for a total prize pool of USD $35,000, paid in BSV.

Demonstrating the rapid global expansion of BSV development, this 2nd BSV Hackathon attracted teams from over 35 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunis, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America.

The competition’s theme is USE of Bitcoin. Contestants were asked to create an application on BSV that charges a very small amount for an action that has value to the user. The challenge is to find meaningful ways that ordinary people can use small amounts of Bitcoin to get users further engaged; this means micropayments of a few cents or even fractions of a cent.

Bitcoin Association chose this theme as part of its efforts to shift the cryptocurrency paradigm away from today’s model where people “buy and hold” coins. Instead, BSV’s roadmap for a massively scaled blockchain and micropayments capability will ignite a new self-empowering world where people “earn and use” Bitcoin in daily life as part of a recursive digital economy.

nChain’s Chief Technology Officer Steve Shadders commented: “Earlier this year, our 1st BSV Hackathon asked developers to solve the onboarding problem – to build projects that make it easier to onboard new users, as well as developers, to Bitcoin SV. We saw many entries address the issue by creating new and interesting ways for new BSV users to earn small amounts of Bitcoin. This approach can onboard new users to Bitcoin without the tedious process of purchasing coins through an exchange. We believe the future of Bitcoin is a never-ending cycle where people can ‘earn and use’ Bitcoin. So we are excited to see how developers in our 2nd hackathon address the ‘use’ part of the Bitcoin user experience.”

Bitcoin Association’s 1st BSV Hackathon concluded at the CoinGeek Toronto conference in May. There, UptimeSV won the top prize of 250 BSV; its project uses BSV to provide distributed performance and uptime monitoring for dedicated denial of service (DDoS) enterprise systems to thwart attacks. Second place went to TonicPow, which allows users to monetize their websites, and earn BSV, using the platform’s peer-to-peer advertising solution. The third finalist was Polyglot, a system designed to be an intuitive method for different Metanet protocols to interact via Python.

Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen remarks: “After the success of our 1st competition, I’m thrilled to see the global growth of our 2nd BSV Hackathon, with so many diverse countries represented. Every day, more developers across the world realize that BSV is the best blockchain for building their new technology visions. We want Bitcoin to be used for more than just trading. That’s why the BSV ecosystem is building applications that allow enterprises and people to actually use Bitcoin in daily life. I’m excited to see what the hackathon entrants create, and to meet the finalists at CoinGeek Seoul.”

UPCOMING: COINGEEK SEOUL CONFERENCE – October 1-2

Come to Seoul, South Korea to learn about “The Power of BSV Scaling” and Bitcoin SV’s massively-scaled blockchain enables developers and businesses to build more powerful applications. Join the top names in Bitcoin at the CoinGeek Seoul conference October 1-2.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.