GAS Station Winners: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Two teams walked away with Excellence Prizes from the second in-person stop on the Neo APAC Hackathon tour, which took place Aug. 12 and 13 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The event, dubbed a GAS Station, offered multiple workshops and dedicated hacking sessions.

The top two projects from the HCMC GAS Station each won US $5,000 and an invitation plus a $1,000 travel grant to the APAC Hackathon finale taking place in October in Hong Kong. XOX Labs and INTOverse secured victories in the DeFi and Payment, and AI, Social, and DAO categories, respectively.

For the hackathons, Neo Global Development has released an EVM-compatible version of the Neo blockchain on which hackathon participants can build their dApps. The NeoEVM Chain’s DevNet is the only running network, signaling the infancy of the softly launched platform. The website explicitly states, “Please be aware! This Neo EVM sidechain DevNet is in the internal testing phase, all data will be regularly cleared.”

Both of the winning teams at the HCMC GAS Station built on top of the NeoEVM.

INTOverse

INTOverse aims to improve online experiences by building a SuperApp that leverages user-friendly wallets, SocialFi, soul-bound tokens, and AI. SuperApps are mobile or web applications that offer multiple services (i.e., messaging, e-commerce, ID management, delivery apps, etc.) for personal or commercial purposes. INTOverse seeks to merge the Web2 and Web3 worlds by leveraging decentralized storage layers, distributed domain and identity services, multi-chain wallets, and browsers.

At the time of press, the platform boasts approximately 381,000 active users, 25 million onchain transactions, and more than 5 million messages facilitated.

The HCMC GAS Station hackathon team comprised the CEO, Alanna, based out of Lisbon, Portugal, Jun, INTOverse’s CMO, based out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and software developers. The INTOverse leadership first conceptualized its product after meeting through mutual friends at a Web3 conference. Alanna has prior experience working at Facebook and brings experience in Web2 social media product development. Jun is a former Binance Executive with experience leading marketing initiatives for various Web3 products throughout his career.

The INTOverse team worked on integrating the NeoEVM sidechain into its existing product at the GAS Station in Vietnam. In a conversation with NNT, Jun noted the user-friendliness and scalability of NeoEVM and the support from Neo’s onsite developer community. He said:

As an EVM-compatible product, we immediately identified Neo as our partner to support the EVM ecosystem. On top of that, deployment on NeoEVM’s TestNet was very smooth, and our tech team did not face many development hiccups during the event.

Looking forward, the team anticipates expanding on its platform for the finale taking place in Hong Kong. During the HCMC GAS Station, the team developed an MVP that only included two social features. Looking forward, it hopes to extend full INTOverse functionality on the NeoEVM sidechain. In the long-term, INTOverse leadership seeks to obtain 1 million users, ramp up development, and onboard new projects, communities, and protocols.

To learn more about INTOverse, visit the link below:
https://intoverse.co/

XOX Labs

XOX Labs launched in early 2023 with the vision to build a cross-chain DeFi platform that allows users to swap, stake, store, bridge, refer, and earn. The team consists of approximately two dozen employees in Hanoi, Vietnam. The team members include leadership, designers, and QC testers, as well as smart contract, frontend, and backend developers.

XOX Labs’ team is driven to build a comprehensive and user-friendly DeFi ecosystem that incorporates cross-chain functionality, and ultimately democratizes access to various permissionless finance protocols. Before joining the HCMC GAS Station, XOX Labs had laid the foundation for its DeFi platform with DEX v1, which will offer token swap and aggregation features upon launch. In the coming quarter, it intends to deploy support for its first chain, Ethereum, with plans to implement BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, zkSync, and Optimism afterward.

For the HCMC GAS Station, the XOX Labs team built upon the solutions it has developed since its inception. After entering the APAC Hackathon, it was most impressed by Neo’s community engagement and the support they received from developers onsite.

In a conversation with NNT, XOX Labs CEO Livan G.M. noted the Neo team was vibrant, knowledgable, and eager to collaborate with XOX Labs developers, which greatly accelerated the development process. However, the blockchain’s technical capabilities attracted XOX Labs to implement support. He said:

We chose Neo for its robust infrastructure, scalability, and focus on interoperability. Neo’s support for multiple programming languages and its commitment to enabling seamless cross-chain functionality aligns perfectly with our project’s goals. The Neo ecosystem provides a solid foundation for us to create a user-centric DeFi platform that can serve users across various blockchain networks.

Looking forward, XOX Labs intends to finish the first phase of its development plan with seven out of twelve products complete (including its stablecoin Coin, DEX v1, referral system, assets manager, yield farming, bridge, and liquidity farming). Afterward, it aims to focus on releasing its flagship product, the Mega Aggregator, to implement advanced cross-chain functionality across more blockchains than those mentioned above.

As for what XOX Labs seeks to submit for the finale in Hong Kong, the CEO said, “We are expanding and improving our current concept, as well as bringing some new features and developments.”

To learn more about XOX Labs, visit the link below:
https://xoxlabs.io/