Binance, the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, has recently concluded its widely anticipated hackathon, in partnership with Bundle. The hackathon spanned 21 days and saw participants building DeFi and NFT solutions to solve real problems identified in the African systems in place today.
The blockchain company continues in its mission to ensure that Africans are known globally for exceptional blockchain talent, highlighting the expertise and providing the infrastructure required to thrive.
Kick Off
Following the opening ceremony of the hackathon on June 6, participants began building and showcasing their projects on the Hackerlink special landing page. 20 teams kicked off the hackathon building DeFi & NFT projects covering Savings, Lending and Borrowing, Swaps, Royalties and Renting, Elections, Identity Management, Land Ownership, NFTs marketplaces.
Workshops
In line with Binance’s commitment to blockchain education and the growth of the blockchain ecosystem, the community engaged in weekly workshops, as the hackathon progressed.
“Blockchain education is at the heart of our focus in the global market. As a blockchain infrastructure provider, we are committed to ensuring that more and more people have access to the right information about the workings of the ecosystem. Africa is a very important market for Binance because we see the profound opportunity blockchain brings to the entire continent.” said Emmanuel Babalola, Director at Binance Africa.
With over 40,000 participants, the workshops saw the community learning about DeFi and projects such as Autofarm, Xend Finance, Bakery Swap, Binance NFTs, Twinci, 1inch, Chemix, Project Hydro, Binance X, Mobox, Refinable, ForTube and Mathwallet. The workshops also consisted of AMA sessions, daily lucky draws and over $4,000 in giveaways.
Voting
Participants in the hackathon were rated by the community as well as an esteemed panel of judges based on the quality of technology, innovation, demo and pitch.
For community votes, a quadratic funding method was used to determine the distribution of the $10,000 pool donated by Binance. As a result, all community contributors had a direct impact on the allocation of the $10,000 prize pool. Community members also donated to their favourite project(s) – the donations totalled $5820.194.
The judges ratings were done following a demo day showcase by the top 9 projects towards the end of the hackathon. $20,000 donated by the hackathon sponsors i.e. Bundle, Mobox, Refinable, Quidax, ForTube, 1inch was allocated to the judges pick.
DeFi and NFT Solutions for Africa
The projects which were built showcased solutions that will potentially solve some of the real problems facing Africa and impact the DeFi and NFT spaces. WATCH
For example, in solving the issues with cross-border payments, a project called CryptoBank was built to provide a seamless integration that gives e-commerce businesses the power to accept digital currencies and connect Africa digitally to the rest of the world.
AFEN, another impressive project, has its existence centered on the digitization of contemporary and legacy African arts long kept undervalued. “The creation of an NFT marketplace where tokenized versions of legacy African arts will be bought and sold is capable of revolutionizing the African art sector by increasing the value of these arts and increasing inflow.” said AFEN group lead, Deborah. Top project, Qlip also set out to solve a similar problem – creating a solution that helps African artists tokenize themselves and their arts. Vhota, a project which emerged a winner in the “Africa hero” category alongside Qlip, is a decentralized application that can be used to manage elections and voting.
These and several more promising projects are being built by Africans and Binance remains committed to enabling African developers to build blockchain solutions to solve local problems, ensuring continued growth for the digital infrastructure in Africa.
Here are the top winning projects from the hackathon:
- Qlip -A project that helps African artists tokenize themselves and their arts
- Vhota – A DApp that can be used to manage elections and voting.
- Smartbet – A decentralized prediction (betting) and farming platform
- Afen – An NFT marketplace centered on the digitization of African art
- Piggy.fi – A Defi savings platform
- Hokk Finance – A p2p cryptocurrency with built-in Automated Rewards Farming (ARF) technology
Full list of participating projects HERE
About Binance
Binance is the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. Trusted by millions worldwide, the Binance platform is dedicated to increasing the freedom of money for users, and features an unmatched portfolio of crypto products and offerings, including: trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization and infrastructure solutions, and more.
For more information, visit: https://www.binance.com
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