La Maison du Bitcoin is hosting the very first French bitcoin hackathon. It will take place on June 13-14-15th in the brand new coworking space, 35 rue du Caire, 2nd arrondissement of Paris.

Many entrepreneurs are thinking about working on bitcoin projects in France, but so far only a dozen startups have been launched. The goal of this hackathon is to create a first spark in the French ecosystem and to offer visibility for the actors who wish to be a part of it. But above all, this hackathon will be the occasion to form great teams for potential bitcoin businesses.

I am very excited to see what projects will be created thanks to this event: a bitcoin hackathon is the perfect way to showcase bitcoin as an application platform. Beyond new payment methods, the bitcoin protocol makes it possible to transfer property rights in an unforgeable and transparent way. Property rights can refer to digital money indeed, but also to shares or any kind of certificates.

Here are a few examples of what could be created on top of the protocol:

Micropayment based applications – incentivised open wifi hotspots, pay-per-second ad free radio, etc

Smart contracts: building a crowdfunding platform completely managed through the bitcoin network

Hardware applications: physical locker or door controlled by the bitcoin blockchain

Paymium and Coinbase will be sponsoring the event. Paymium is a French startup which created the first EUR/BTC marketplace and also offers solutions for merchant to accept Bitcoin easily. Coinbase is a San-Francisco-based company, their mission is to make bitcoin easy to use: to do so, they provide merchant tools and a wallet to store, send, receive, buy and sell bitcoins.

The hackathon will begin on Friday at 7pm with the presentation of the sponsors’ tools and APIs, the pitch of the different projects and the constitution of teams. This will be followed by 48 hours of coding. The projects will be presented on Sunday at 3pm and the winners will be announced at 5pm. Prize money will be offered to the winners – the amounts are to be disclosed shortly.

As in any self-respecting hackathon, (soft) drinks and pizzas will be provided during the entire event, as well as internet connexion (wifi and RJ45), GPU based mining rigs if you need hashing, hardware bench (soldering stuff, tools). In short, all you need to spend a creative weekend.

La Maison du Bitcoin is expecting a hundred participants. Whether you are an all-time bitcoiner or “just” a hacker, you’re welcome to apply here.