ErgoHack III: Privacy & Security

The Ergo Platform is teeming with activity from the numerous projects that have been, and continue to be, developed from previous ErgoHack’s. Following the success of these hackathons, we are pleased to announce our next event, ErgoHack III: Privacy and Security. 

It is especially encouraging for the growth and adoption of the platform that many developers continue to stay on and build additional financial tools and decentralized applications on Ergo with each subsequent ErgoHack.

Are you a developer? If so, get acquainted with our hackathons and join us for ErgoHack III - your idea may be the next big project on Ergo! The event will take place in February 2022 as a virtual event on the Ergo Discord and will be broadcast across our communication channels. 

What is ErgoHack?

ErgoHack is a competition that brings together blockchain developers to work on building applications and tools on Ergo Platform. With each subsequent ErgoHack, the goal is to bootstrap Ergo development by onboarding more developers while supporting them with educational materials.

Those who complete the hackathon and wish to continue their projects will gain access to the Ergo Incubator Program which aims to help commercialize and bring projects to market. 

Topic: PRIVACY & SECURITY

The focus of this ErgoHack is Privacy and Security. Participants are encouraged to be creative and explore any concept, dApp, and/or any other tools related to these topics. It can be anything from a Wallet to Mixers, Non-Interactive dApps, decentralization infrastructure, and security-enhancing tools. There are no strict limits to your proposals - only that you focus on privacy and security applications on the UTXO model.

ErgoHack III Registration Information:

Acceptance of applications will begin on January 4th and remain open until January 31st, 2022. Participants should send their final applications by January 31, 23:59 UTC.

Participants are required to give a brief overview of their skill sets and an explanation for the technical proposal of the project. 

If you are interested in participating but are not yet familiar with ErgoScript, you are still encouraged to apply. ErgoHack is intended to be a place to learn and grow together. Please visit our Discord channels and get to know why our developer community is so welcoming and helpful. The “Idea Incubator” channel will serve as a communication hub to spark brainstorming for ErgoHack III. For more information on the Idea Incubator, please refer to the following video.

Participants can apply as an individual or with a team of 2-5 people. It is important that each entry (solo or team) submit a brief description of the idea and the skills of each participant. This will make the organization process more efficient and streamlined so organizers can effectively match participants and mentors.

Once your team is formed, please complete the following form to enter ErgoHack III.

Preparation For ErgoHack

Documentation and tutorials are available to all Ergonauts before the event. The most relevant material has been curated and is available on the Resources section of the ErgoHack website. 

Mentors will be available throughout the event to guide and help ErgoHack participants with Ergo-specific languages and frameworks (ErgoScript, Ergo Node Interface, Headless Dapp Framework, Ergo AppKit).

To prepare, we advise participants to focus on learning ErgoScript, consulting the available resources, and start exploring ErgoDocs.

Submission Rules: 

The submissions can be text, video or audio with relevant graphics and code repositories. You will be able to submit your proposals through the ErgoHack communication channels. 

The event will begin on Friday, February 11, and will end on Sunday, February 13. Participants will be required to submit their presentations in one of the following forms:

• a video or audio series
• whitepaper
• referencing GitHub repositories 

Evaluation and Prizes: 

The jury will convene the week after the end of ErgoHack III to decide the winners. Teams will be evaluated on their familiarity with ErgoScript and implementation of the ideas and their presentation. Please consult the results of ErgoHack I and ErgoHack II to see past winners.

All participants will be required to document their projects and submit their presentations at the end  of the event.

1st place 10k SigUSD
2nd place 6K SigUSD
3rd  place 2k SigUSD 

Additional prizes include several honorable mentions worth 200 SigUSD

Ergo Platform

Ergo is a Layer 1 proof of work blockchain that provides a platform for developers to build trustless financial contracts and enables true peer-to-peer, decentralized, grassroots finance.

Ergo has prioritized useful features without compromising security with a research-driven but practical development model.

Below you can dive deeper into some of the most important components of Ergo:

• Multi-Stage Contracts in the UTXO model open new possibilities for truly decentralized, permissionless, and scalable financial applications. Ergo’s implementation of Sigma Protocols and NIPoPoWs can provide secure and private noncustodial finance with high throughput. 
• Ergo Foundation is a member of the BPSAA and UTXO Alliance, collaborating to improve blockchain research and the adoption of zero-knowledge ecosystems. Ergo Foundation is a partner of Cardano’s research arm EMURGO, working to foster cooperation on the extended UTXO model.

Some of the dApps on Ergo’s Ecosystem:

ErgoDEX

Ergo Auction House

ErgoMixer (the FIRST non-interactive, non-custodial mixer for tokens in cryptography)

Ergo NFT's

Ergo Raffle

Ergo Utils

Oracle Pools

SigmaUSD (a crypto-backed algorithmic stablecoin protocol)

For a complete overview of Ergo’s dApp ecosystem, please visit: Sigmaverse

Ergo Team

The technology behind Ergo is robust and is representative of the immense knowledge and experience of the core development team. The project was founded by Alexander Chepurnoy and Dmitry Meshkov who are both alumni of IOHK - the research arm of the Cardano Foundation. Both Chepurnoy and Meshkov have numerous academic papers to their names and previously worked together on the Scorex project at IOHK. Chepurnoy (aka Kushti) was also a core developer for NXT and was the co-founder for smartcontract.com - now known as Chainlink.