Fireblocks will host the first-ever Fireblocks BUIDLathon at this year’s ETHDenver, the largest and longest-running ETH-focused event in the world. 

With $25,000 in prizes up for grabs, the Fireblocks BUIDLathon is an exciting chance to gain early access to a Fireblocks Developer Sandbox to build new Web3 products. Read on to learn everything you need to know about the competition.

Introducing the first-ever Fireblocks BUIDLathon

Today, Fireblocks is trusted by thousands of the biggest financial and web3 companies. However, many developments in web3 are simultaneously happening in start-ups. We recognize the importance of making Fireblocks available to help builders understand that building on web3 doesn’t have to be a trade-off between interoperability, scalability, and security. That’s why we’re hosting the Fireblocks BUIDLathon at ETH Denver – We want to create the opportunity for developers to explore everything the platform has to offer, by providing early access to the new Fireblocks Developer Sandbox. 

In this BUIDLathon, your team can compete to win attractive bounties by using the Fireblocks API and SDKs to build anything that requires wallets to operate. You can utilize the platform to create wallets for users, generate deposit addresses, run a cross-chain operation, deploy smart contracts, mint NFTs or fungible tokens, or perform many other blockchain-related operations.

Most bounties at ETHDenver are focused on a specific chain or protocol, limiting teams to choose between only one or two of them. The Fireblocks bounty, however, allows you to add on to most other bounties because our platform is compatible with a wide variety of chains and protocols. What this means is that you can work on the Fireblocks bounty in addition to most other bounties, making you eligible to not just one but two prizes for not much more work.

Here are the bounties we are offering:

• 1st prize – $10,000
• 2nd prize – $5,000
• 3rd prize – $2,500
• Three special recognition awards – $2,500 each – in the following: 
  • Web3, NFT, and GameFi Track
  • Fintech, DeFi, Security, and Cross-Chain Track
  • A unique wallet experience aimed to onboard the next billion users

The competition will run from February 24th, 2023 until March 5th, 2023. 

Judging criteria 

So, what will it take to win one of these bounties at the Fireblocks BUIDLathon?

We’re looking for a product that seamlessly utilizes the tools Fireblocks provides while delivering a great user experience. To be successful, we want you to fool us into believing there’s almost no blockchain involved in your project. 

Whatever the experience or goals of your creation, we want you to bring out the core values of blockchain technology while making it usable by everyone. We believe that there is currently an enormous gap in Web3 to service those who aren’t crypto natives, and your project has the potential to set the standard for experiencing Web3, making it possible to onboard the next billion users.

Along with user experience, we’ll also be looking at product security, creative use of Fireblocks’ platform, blockchain features used, applicability, and business case throughout the judging process.

In general, we’re looking for the most innovative and smooth use cases that rely on the Fireblocks Developer Sandbox and API. Be creative – we’d love to see a working MVP!

The judges for Fireblocks BUIDLathon are:

• Omer Amsel – Head of Web3 Products, Fireblocks
• Arik Galansky – Head of Technology Research and Innovation, Fireblocks
• Dhruv Sahni – Senior Product Manager, Fireblocks

How to participate in the Fireblocks BUIDLathon

Here’s what you have to do to participate:

• Sign up for the Fireblocks Developer Sandbox.
• Ensure your project utilizes Fireblocks wallets in some way, using the Fireblocks APIs or SDKs.
• Show your work! We’d love to see your thought process, architecture notes, design considerations or issue resolutions you had to make for your project.
• List out the challenges you faced using the Developer Sandbox, API or SDKs, as well as how you tackled them.
• Bonus points for providing valuable feedback – it’ll help us improve the developer experience.

We’re confident that a lot of really creative ideas and experiences will come out of this competition, and we can’t wait to see what you BUIDL on Fireblocks! See you at ETHDenver.