Neo has officially launched the Neo X Grind Hackathon main event, co-hosted with support from IOSG Kickstarter, Web3Labs, Foresight Ventures, and Bitget. The hackathon, which includes over US $22 million in prizes and grants, is aimed at discovering and empowering talented developers as they create innovative projects on Neo X, Neo’s EVM-compatible sidechain.

Prizes and opportunities

The Neo X Grind Hackathon offers participants a variety of prizes and access to funding programs, including:

  • $70,000 in GAS in the main prize pool
  • Neo Foundation’s Elevate Program, offering $20 million in grants
  • IOSG’s $1 million Kickstarter Program, including the opportunity to pitch at Demo Day
  • The $1 million Web3.0 Global Acceleration Program, a collaboration between Web3Labs and Neo
  • Potential investment from Foresight Ventures
  • Participants with eligible submissions will also receive 10 GAS refunded for contract deployment on Neo X’s MainNet.

Submission requirements

Submissions for the hackathon open on Oct. 30 and close on Dec. 2. To qualify, projects must be deployed on the Neo X MainNet and fall into one of the following categories:

  • SocialFi
  • Gaming
  • Meme-related infrastructure
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks
  • Decentralized Finance
  • Infrastructure
  • Real World Assets

Judging and community participation

A panel of judges, including Neo founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, Foresight Ventures Co-Founder Forest Bai, IOSG Ventures Founding Partner Jocy Lin, and Web3Labs CEO Casper Wong, will select the top projects. The judging panel will award five $10,000 GAS prizes and two $5,000 GAS prizes to the best entries.

In addition to the main prizes, the Neo community will participate in the selection process, voting for 10 winners who will each receive a $1,000 GAS prize.

The Neo X Grind Hackathon builds on a series of satellite Grind Hackathon events held earlier this year, during which Neo collaborated with global development communities and hackathon groups. Each group received funding to operate its own event, choosing winners independently. The winners from these satellite events are now invited to join the Neo X Grind Hackathon’s main phase to compete for larger prizes and funding.

Commenting on the event, Hongfei said:

“Once again, we’re excited to continue our hackathon journey for the fourth year, offering the largest prize and grant pool we’ve ever assembled to discover and empower talented innovators. With the support of our incredible co-hosts—IOSG, Web3Labs, Foresight Ventures, and Bitget —we’ve made the incentives even more substantial, creating what we believe is one of the most rewarding packages available in any hackathon today. We can’t wait to see the groundbreaking projects you’ll bring to life!”

More information on the Grind Hackathon can be found at the link below:
https://medium.com/neo-smart-economy/neo-x-grind-hackathon-kicks-off-for-evm-innovators-with-over-22-million-in-prizes-and-grants-6be7e0c7ad5e

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