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Announcing Stellar HACKS Mini Hackathon Series
Recorded: June 17, 2025 Duration: 0:28:10Space Recording
Short Summary
The Stellar Hacks series of mini hackathons is set to launch, offering a total prize pool of $6,000 in XLM to incentivize innovation and collaboration within the Stellar ecosystem. Participants are encouraged to build on existing projects, with a focus on composability and new use cases for Blend, reflecting emerging trends in the crypto space.
Full Transcription
Thank you. It seems like we got kicked off.
And let's just wait a minute until people
get back on again yeah so last time record since record wasn't on i think we might as well even
though some people that are joining are gonna have to just sit around while we we go through
stuff they already heard but the recording here is what we're really after since we can add it to the assets on dora hacks so i think we can probably just maybe we'll try and condense it a
little bit but i say we can just start from the top just to make sure we get a good recording of
everything so okay apologies to everyone i know lindsey is remote trying to do her best from
probably not the greatest wi-fi and And I think something didn't go great.
I was hoping the co-host, the host co-host,
if the host fell off,
that a co-host would still be able to keep it running.
But apparently that was not the case
because right when you were talking, Karsten,
we all got booted.
So it's big fun.
Let's just wait one second for Raf to jump back in and then we can buzz through stuff real quick. Third time's the charm. So I mean, that's how the saying goes. So hopefully this works.
tell with that says they have a wired connection or something. Yeah. Ethernet cables only from now
on. If it drops again, we're just going to splice together all of the various hack on things.
We'll figure out some way to do it. Let me just go ahead and get the co-host set back up and we'll not waste any time and get going.
Sorry, everyone that's joining back.
You're going to have to relive the previous 15 minutes of your life over again as we go through things again.
But just a dry run.
No big deal.
All right, Raf, you there.
Did you have, I think I assigned co-host.
Approve, approve.
Let me know when you guys are good and we can get started.
So don't touch anything, Lindsay.
Just sit still, no moving.
It will be Wi-Fi. I know noticed because i couldn't use telegram either maybe you dropped some of the croissant or whatever you're you're
noshing on there on your keyboard and just accidentally paprika pringles my favorite
snacks in the world at least they're not ketchup like the the Canadian ones. Those are no good. So, okay. Ralph, you're there. Foxy, Karsten, Barry. I think we are fully set up. So yeah,
let's reboot this baby and get going again. So welcome everybody again for the third time.
We are here today to talk about a new series of mini hackathons we are launching. We are
calling them the Stellar Hacks series of mini hackathons we are launching. We are calling them the Stellar Hacks series of
mini hackathons, and they are all focused around composability. So using projects that exist on
Stellar, like little Lego blocks and building on top of them to create more complex things. So
the goal is to create cool stuff, but we're also trying to find holes in the documentation
or improvements that need made done to the SDKs of these projects. So as you're building your projects, please keep that in mind.
It'd be great feedback for the teams.
And so the hackathons themselves are going to spotlight live projects on Stellar with
existing user bases.
So what you build could be very important moving forward in the future.
And the first one we are going to highlight is blend.
So everyone, most everyone's going to be familiar with Blend.
If not, of course, we have links to their documentation.
We have a workshop, which we'll talk about in a bit.
Everything is listed in the Dora hacks,
which I will, I haven't pinned that tweet to this spaces,
but I will get to that.
So on the call today is myself, Jeremy,
and then Raf, together we make the Lumenloop team.
He's logged in under the Lumenloop account.
We have Karsten, which is on SDF's DevRel team.
We have Boxy, who is the project manager, essentially, for this hackathon series.
And we've also got Barry, who we'll jump on in a bit to explain a little bit about what Blend is.
a bit to explain a little bit about what blend is.
So before we get into the specifics of the project blend
that we're focusing on for this first mini hackathon,
there's some stuff that's going to apply
to the entire series of three mini hackathons.
So Raf, if you want to go over a little bit of that.
Yeah, so we are running the first hackathon
from the 18th this week to July 7th.
So you guys have about three weeks to participate in this first hackathon, but we'll be running
three of these this summer, Blend being the first one.
The other two will be announced later.
But again, focus trying to do one hackathon a month.
So we're going to do one June, one one july one august is the goal uh again
focusing on composability uh it is fully virtual so if you anywhere in the world that you want to
participate if you want to participate with the team or just yourself you're more welcome to it is
really on your own time so if you are used to doing all-nighters with hackathons well this
one's a little different you have a little bit more time if you can plan your time around it.
We are asking projects that are submitting
to have certain things ready
when they're submitting their projects.
We're asking them to have the code to be public
on a GitHub repo to have a working prototype,
demo video to show what they've built or talk about
it and then you can submit more and more than one project so if you are a go-getter
and you just really want to participate on stellar if you want to build more
than one thing or have different types of integrations you're more than welcome
to Jay you want to talk about how they can make some money kind of prizes that
are we offering?
I think your mic is off.
Yeah, of course. Oh my God, don't do that.
I thought the Y by broke.
Third time wasn't the charm for the mic unmuting.
So yeah, so the total prize pool for each of the mini hackathons
is six thousand dollars in xlm and we're splitting that up into three thousand for first two thousand
for second and a thousand for third so that'll be each one of the three has that six thousand
dollar pool so a decent chunk of change like i said we're we're not looking to have you change the world,
change the landscape of DeFi on Stellar
with this little mini hackathon.
These are meant to be a little bit smaller projects,
less time consuming.
So the prize pool is for that amount.
Yeah, and if you're looking to kind of jump in
and find more information, everything is managed
through the Dora Hacks hackathon platform.
In the details page on the Dora Hacks blend hackathon,
we do have a workshop video that kind of works through,
goes through the contracts and the SDKs.
So you guys can really kind of get a breakdown
from moots from the blend team on resources that you can use.
And then we are also, we recently launched a Telegram group,
again, in the Dora Hacks page,
to help support projects as they go through this,
or if they're looking for specific information.
And then you're more than welcome as well
to join the Seller Developer Discord
and then ask questions to our wonderful DevRel team.
Yeah, and that Telegram group is specifically for this project, this set of mini hackathons.
So please feel free to use that as much as you can.
It'll be, we will definitely be keeping a close eye on it
and anything that needs, you know,
if there's someone from SDF's DevRel that needs tagged in
or someone from the Blend team that needs tagged in,
we will definitely do that for you.
So please use that Telegram group. We created it just for this set of mini hackathon series.
This is a segue over to Carson.
Carson, if you wanna maybe,
oh, sorry, before Carson, my apologies.
Judging criteria, I think that's what it last time.
Judging criteria.
So essentially we're looking for certain
like things that you need to
fulfill when you're when you're submitting a hackathon submission we're targeting really want
technical innovation we really want people to kind of innovate and find really cool ways of
reusing the blend contracts and and what they're building so that's really the biggest priority but
we're also like looking for completion so 25% for completion, 20% for user experience, making sure that there's a product fit on Stellar.
It doesn't necessarily need to solve all the world's problems, but it does need to make sense that it is working towards something that's applicable on Stellar or something that we're trying to achieve. And then finally also organizing your materials, making sure that there's a
presentation quality with what you're submitting.
So again, there are certain judging criteria that we're aiming for.
And then, uh, here's a good moment for a segue into Carson.
Carson, you've run many hackathons.
Uh, what are tips?
What are things that people should be looking out for as they are
participating in a hackathon?
Yeah, I've done quite a few hackathons, both as a participant, but also as a mentor and judge.
And I love hackathons because it's a great way to learn some new stuff.
If you haven't built anything using Blend before, this is a great opportunity to carve out some time, get familiar with Blend, try to build something really cool.
You already talked about the judging criteria,
and I think that's probably the most important advice I can give.
Really pay attention to what is it we're looking for.
I have myself been in a situation where I did not pay attention to it. I created what I thought was an amazing application,
but I completely missed the mark because there were things in the criteria that I didn't meet.
I was not even in the running for a price.
Really pay attention to what is it we're looking for?
What is the judging criteria and have that in mind
throughout this hackathon.
I think it's also important to be
realistic about what you can do.
You may have a great idea, a huge idea, something
you want to build.
But even though this is three weeks
and it seems like a long time to build,
at least today on the first day,
compared to maybe some of the in-person
that may be 48 hours or 72 hours,
those three weeks will go by so fast.
So be realistic about what you can achieve
and what you can do
and kind of spec out what you want to do.
It's better to maybe finish a little bit early and then be able to add on features to it,
but at least make sure that you have something solid for
the day you're submitting your projects.
Done is better than perfect.
I think that applies very much in this case.
We're not expecting applications
built during the hackathon to be perfect.
It is allowed to cut corners here and there,
as long as you're transparent about it.
Let's say maybe you are using dummy data instead of live data.
That's totally fine in many cases.
But yeah, try to get the project in as good a state as possible.
I can't remember if we're doing for this,
if we're doing pitching sessions.
But I would say when there are pitching sessions
or if you have to record a video,
demos are really key.
That's where you're selling your idea and your project.
Everyone loves to watch these demos.
Also, when you submit your project,
some of the things that we are looking at,
we have very limited time to do judging.
A lot of times, especially if we have 50 or 100 or even more submissions,
we really can't spend more than a few minutes on each project. If you submit a description,
make it short and really just to the point,
so we can really quickly get an idea of what is it you built,
what is the idea behind it,
what did you want to achieve and what
features in Blend did you integrate with.
If it's a video, I've sometimes seen
like those teams have submitted like 20-minute video,
20-minute long videos,
and there's just no way we can watch through all this.
Try to be in the submission,
try to be very specific about what you built,
how you did it, what the goal was,
and how you integrated with Blend.
I think that helps us a lot to understand what you are trying
to get to and to see what you actually got done.
We always love to see something where we are thinking, wow,
we didn't think about that kind of use case,
or we've never seen anything like that.
I would say if you sit and judge maybe 100 projects,
if you have a few where you say, wow, that's pretty cool,
that's the projects that you remember. Even though it's a small part of the overall judging,
it still leaves us with a really good feeling when we see
something that is pushing a little bit what you thought you could do
and what is expected to be seen at a hackathon.
Try to wow us. I think that's at a hackathon. So try to wow us.
I think that's always a good thing.
Yeah, I think that's some of the highlights
of what I would say that this is some of my advice
and something I've seen teams do well
or maybe not do well in hackathons
that it can have a huge impact on your end result
and your hackathon judging.
So yeah.
JOHN MUELLER 1 I love what you said where it says
you don't have to have a finished product.
We're not looking for a complete project coming out of this.
But it is really exciting, people
seeing wanting to tinker on Blend.
If we could walk away from this with like, 10 kind of code examples of different ways people can integrate blend, that'd be super cool. Like, and I just think there's there's so much to win by not having to reinvent the wheel, by having people build on top of things, then to build their own solutions. And I think this hackathon really pushes that.
And I like what you said also, like, like that, the innovation aspect, you know, like people are coming up with these new use cases for things that already
exist. Like we're, we're pushing them to think outside of the box of,
of what's already there. So improvements, you know,
we're tailoring to a solution that serves something that someone's
trying to solve. Yeah, I think you brought up some really important points here.
By doing a hackathon like this, there's really two things that we always hope to get out of this.
One is a lot of good repos on GitHub where other developers can get inspired and see how other
people solved a problem. In this case, it could be how other developers, how they integrated with
Blend, how they use the different features. Having GitHub repos that serves as examples is so valuable.
And in these AI times, that's getting picked up by AI. So when you use AI agents, if you even use that as a part of your coding tool belt,
that's going to really have an impact.
And second, when we're doing hackathons,
I always hope that some of the developers
or some of the teams will say, this was really cool.
And we actually got a pretty good project out of this.
Let's continue to work on this.
Let's not have this just be three weeks of fun and learning.
Let's actually try to see what we can do with this.
I've seen multiple companies come out
of just a short hackathon, even like a 48-hour hackathon that
has sometimes been turned into a company and a project
and a product that many people enjoy using.
So getting those repos,
getting some really good examples of how to integrate with Blend,
and maybe even have a few that walks away from this hackathon and say, I actually want to keep building on this.
This is a good foundation for maybe doing something.
Yeah, I think you really nailed it on the head.
There's a lot of value of doing this for sure.
And being able to spotlight people like Barry and their projects is really rewarding.
And probably, Barry, if you want to maybe give a talk about what's Blend and how people could use it.
Yeah, sure. Can you guys hear me?
We can hear you.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I'm the one to specifically highlight for this project,
but I'll definitely talk about it.
Blend is a liquidity protocol primitive, so it's literally made to be built on top of.
So this hackathon is a great showcase to show how Blend can be built on top of.
Hackathon is a great showcase to show how Blend can be built on top of.
But what that means is the way Blend does it is it enables permissionless creation of isolated lending pools.
So users, DAOs, institutions, anyone who needs a lending pool or wants a lending product integrated with them or their app can use Blend to create a lending market, an isolated lending
market that has built-in insurance through the Backstop module. So anything, if you need like
a DeFi app, you want to integrate in a wallet or a bridging solution, leverage trading opportunities,
yield products, saving solutions, or even credit if you really wanted to. I mean,
there's a lot going on here.
I guess one thing to highlight that we did just do
is we updated a lot of our docs for integrations
and for pool creations.
So I know it's probably not exhaustive
because there's probably a lot of ideas
swirling in people's heads,
but we try to do our best.
But it'd be great if if you
have any questions like we're always here to help um yeah i guess that's basically it right now is
there any anything else you want me to touch on no you guys kind of did some some updates with
your contract as well moving from v1 to v2 and i think a big focus of your when you guys refactored your code and stuff was to allow people
to plug in a lot easier right yeah yeah we we made uh pool creation much easier it's a lot more uh
just like open the box and try to try to uh integrate for what your needs are um there are
set parameters already for each pool or for pool creation and everything like that but you can always change and
play with them a little more i guess uh my biggest thing is to just uh try to try to play around
with blend v2 there's a lot more fun stuff that we added for that and it made it simpler for
integration specifically um with that is the user docs or not the user docs, sorry, the dev docs and technical
documentation that we added with v2. So hopefully it'll be a lot more fun and easy to integrate.
Yeah, I would say just play around. We also have all of our SDKs and math modules out there. So if
you need any help with that, it's all out there.
We're also obviously always available for questions.
We have a working test net if you want to play out, play with some stuff.
Sweet.
Cool.
Yeah, I appreciate that overview.
I know we're excited to get some more stuff built on top of Blend.
And you gave a little sample of stuff that you'd like to see.
Boxee, Raf, and I are obviously longtime community members.
I think we've got a list of stuff that we would like to see.
So maybe Boxee, I know we've come up with a little bit of a list.
Maybe you can explain some of the things that some other people had ideas for this.
Oh, yeah, sure. Can you hear me? Yep.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Can you hear me?
Yep.
Okay, if you're unfamiliar with these projects and unfamiliar with what to build on top of these protocols,
we're going to have a set guide of resources and this and ideas for you to get started.
And there's going to be about for each month, we're going to have that for each protocol.
For Blend, we have a bunch of ideas that you can build on. there's going to be about for each month we're going to have that for each protocol for blend
we have a bunch of ideas that uh you can build on there's not like a hard like set and the limit
for this but a few things we did talk about were a front end for comet or yield blocks or pool
creation tools another popular integration uh that's built on top of Blend is wallet integrations like Beans or Meru.
And there's a bunch of other different stuff as well you could build.
There's really no limits on what you can do.
But we're going to have all these resources linked inside the DoraHacks page.
And you can check it out for each month.
And we'll be updating it throughout the three weeks. And if you need help and we'll be updating it for throughout two of three weeks and if you
need help we'll be here yeah and i think one as a user of blend i think one of the ideas we had was
like a liquidation alert system uh some some risk visualizers you know stuff like that can think can
be pretty cool um some game five stuff mean, wallet integrations are cool
and it's definitely useful.
I'm just trying to think of stuff
that me personally as a user
of some of these protocols would like to see.
So Raf, are there some things
that you think you'd really like to see?
I don't know what we're allowed
to ask for publicly,
but like there was like ideas,
like you said, you mentioned GameFi and stuff,
but you know, like, I don't you mentioned gamefy and stuff but you know like
i don't know if we're allowed to suggest prediction markets or lottery systems or that stuff but you
know if somebody was to choose to do some some some fun things it would be cool uh but i know that
uh barry barry's team suggested a list of ideas and they mentioned stuff like like buy now pay
later for like nfts on stellar would be kind of an interesting use case that hasn't really been touched.
So I'm just really excited for people to think outside of the box and start to think about how we have these typical things that we can add blend to.
before we kind of finalize here i know that uh palta labs built built um
built uh uh sorry went to mainnet with their defy index which allows for like adding blend with like
a couple lines of code so not to say that you need a quick way out of this hackathon but if
you're looking for a very quick blend integration with minimal effort,
DeFi index allows you to do that.
Yeah.
One thing I also,
one of the ideas that I thought was pretty cool is to abstract away all the pool creation, the parts in pool creation.
Cause it's when you read the docs, it's fair.
It's fairly simple, but executing those commands, you know,
you could be just anyone that wants to create a lending market, but you don't actually know how to structure some of these, some of these transactions to actually get it up.
So I think the pool creation of a tool to kind of simplify pool creation would be pretty cool, too.
So, but yeah, anyways, these, these ideas, we have a tab on the Dora Hacks page that kind of has a list of these.
They're by no means a comprehensive list.
This is not a list of stuff that you have to build.
These are just really just some high level things
to kind of throw some ideas in your head.
And if you run with one of them, great.
If not, you know, also great.
You can come up with your own idea.
So I think that covers that. And
then I know we were going to try and do some Q and A, but since we've had a couple of false starts
and we're running, running a little bit late here, I think we'll, we'll pass over the Q and A and
just refer people over to telegram. If you have any questions, which once again is linked under
the details tab on Dora hacks. So with that, is there anything else that you guys wanted to mention before we wrap up?
Good. Easy does it.
So just a reminder, we have $6,000 in XLM prizes for each one of these rounds.
The first mini hackathon kicks off in roughly 12 hours from
now. You can view the pinned tweet here or go to Dora Hacks and search for the Stellar Hacks
hackathon. And then of course, as we've mentioned a couple of times already, join the Telegram
group for questions and support. You can also feel free to message my personal account here or the
Lumenloop account or Boxxy's account.
We're all helping manage this set of mini hackathons.
So feel free to reach out to us personally or use that Telegram group.
So thanks, everyone, for joining.
Sorry about the false starts.
Thank you, Karsten, Boxxy, Barry, Raf, Lindsay, for getting us started a few times.
And please feel free to share the spaces once it's done with any of your friends
that are in the ecosystem,
want to join the ecosystem.
Great way to kind of get your feet wet
in the stellar ecosystem.
Obviously our smart contract platform is rather new.
There's a lot of opportunity here.
So a great opportunity for new builders
in the ecosystem to get started.
So thanks
everyone for dropping by and
we hope to see some submissions
from you all soon. Have a good day.
See you later. Thank you.
