In the quest to highlight the incredible diversity and expertise of our GalaChain Hackathon judging panel at GDC 2024, we’re proud to introduce Edward Chen – the Managing Director of HTX Ventures (previously known as Huobi)!
His insights and experience in the digital asset exchange sector have not only shaped the blockchain landscape, but they have also paved the way for groundbreaking innovations in the space. Chen’s role at HTX Ventures, a veritable titan in the world of digital assets, highlights his pivotal position in driving blockchain adoption and innovation forward.
Edward Chen: A Vanguard of Digital Finance
Edward Chen’s journey through the blockchain sphere is marked by significant contributions to making digital assets more accessible, secure and reliable. Under his leadership, HTX Ventures has grown into a bastion of digital finance. It has become renowned for its robust platform that serves millions globally.
His vision extends beyond mere transactions and trades, however. It encompasses a broader ambition to integrate blockchain technology into the fabric of global finance, thereby fostering a more decentralized and empowered future for everyone.
A Focus on Utility and Adoption
As a judge for the GalaChain Hackathon, Edward Chen brings a sharp eye for projects that not only showcase technical prowess but also demonstrate clear utility and potential for widespread adoption. His extensive background in digital finance suggests he will value entries that can bridge the gap between blockchain technology and real-world application.
Chen is likely to be drawn to projects that leverage GalaChain to solve existing challenges in the financial sector, offer innovative financial services or introduce new models of economic empowerment available to be adopted by even more people worldwide.
What Makes a Winning Entry for Edward Chen?
Edward Chen would likely champion a GalaChain Hackathon project that embodies three core principles: innovation, utility, and scalability. He would appreciate projects that:
Innovate in Digital Finance: Projects that introduce novel approaches to digital finance, whether through new forms of asset management, decentralized finance solutions or innovative financial instruments
Demonstrate Clear Utility: Entries that address real-world problems, offering solutions that could be readily adopted and have a tangible impact on the financial ecosystem
Show Potential for Scalability: Projects that not only work on a technical level but also show potential for widespread adoption, scalability and integration into existing financial systems.
Charting the Future with Edward Chen
Edward Chen’s participation as a judge is a significant step of the GalaChain Hackathon’s potential to prompt meaningful advancements in blockchain and digital finance. His expertise and perspective will guide participants towards creating projects that excel in technical achievement… but also hold true to the fundamentals of practical applicability and innovation.
Edward Chen’s role as a judge will hopefully inspire participants to blend technical innovation with strategic insights into digital finance. As we continue to build towards the hackathon, think deeply about how blockchain can revolutionize finance and beyond. With Chen’s guidance, the GalaChain Hackathon is set to uncover the next wave of blockchain innovations – and to potentially transform the landscape of digital finance. How will you break new ground with new ideas?
Here at Gala… and throughout any part of the tech world, we sometimes forget that the language we use in the course of business is… well, definitely not how normal people talk. We’ve come to terms with this on a personal level, but we want to make sure that nothing ever gets lost in translation with our community
It’s not embarrassing to not know things. In fact, it’s quite normal! We want to help break down some basic jargon and concepts that are thrown around in the development world in this new series. Welcome to DevSpeak!
A lot of concepts may be oversimplified here, but this is just some basic information to get everybody without a technical background some basic knowledge. Enjoy!
With our registration open for the March 20-21 GalaThon event during GDC, we’ve been talking a lot about hackathons this week! We suspect that there are quite a few people out there who smile and nod when that phrase comes up without really understanding what it means.
That’s OK! Not everyone is a developer or knows their jargon. Today we’re going to go over the basics of hackathons for those who may not have ever participated in one… or even heard the word before!
Hackathon Defined
A hackathon, in its most basic sense, is an event where developers and enthusiasts can gather for collaborative programming. This is an idea born out of the open source community, with decades of nuanced culture and variations.
While collaborative work has existed since long before the computer era, the first event called a “hackathon”, is typically agreed upon as the OpenBSD Hackathon in Calgary, June 4th, 1999. This was a semi-spontaneous gathering of 10 developers all working towards the goal of creating a program that would allow two devices to communicate with each other using an infrared port.
This right away set one of the standard cultural norms for hackathons – that there would be specific goals and parameters that participants were working towards. Often this takes the form of building up a particular piece of software or building tools to accomplish a specific task. In the case of our upcoming hackathon, the parameters are to build on GalaChain using the recently released SDK.
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As the idea of hackathons grew into the mainstream, an entire culture sprang up around them. More and more hackathons saw amazing results from their unbridled creative collaboration, more and more hackathons popped up. Now there is a robust circuit of hackathons happening all year long all over the world.
While in-person hackathons are still widely held, remote tools have allowed even more people to enjoy these short development sprints, leading to more innovation across the world of hackathons!
We’ve put together an amazing prize pool with a total value of $1m for our upcoming GalaChain Hackathon. This is a frequent feature of major hackathons in the modern day.
While not every hackathon goes as overboard on the prizes as we did, it’s pretty normal to see multiple awards with prizes at the end of development. These prizes will usually be decided by a panel of judges after reviewing the work from each team versus the criteria of the hackathon and the requirements of each prize.
Why Hack?
While prizes are cool, they’re not the biggest reason that people usually want to jump in and participate in a hackathon. Don’t get us wrong, there are some serious devs out there who are professionals on the hack circuit winning prize after prize… but there we see the real reason that a hackathon is an amazing experience. Getting to work with people like that.
The development world is not a place where you go to school, know everything, then stop learning. Tech is changing all the time, and hands-on experience is a huge advantage to both veteran and novice developers. Self-taught devs often hone their skills at hackathons, and those with the benefit of a development education get priceless real-world experience.
Sometimes hackathons are a great way to try out brand new systems and tech (GalaChain anyone!!!), sometimes it’s just an opportunity to work alongside devs who may have more or just different experience than you. A fresh perspective is often where the best innovations start.
Often in hackathons, people will be open to new teammates for their project as well. This is a great opportunity to get in and network – meet new people with obviously shared interests and maybe find future collaborators and fellow hackers.
Last, it’s just plain fun! Development is work for a lot of people. Hackathons represent a chance to actually get out and do something you love without long-term metrics and bottom lines to worry about. At a hackathon, you can build things that never would be built by a company and you may not have time for as a hobby. Creative development and building for the sake of building can truly flourish!
Come One, Come All!
Don’t take our word for it though! If you’re even remotely interested in development and coding, a hackathon is the time to take that passion to the next level! Anyone can join!
A hackathon is a free way to get in and get your hands dirty in the industry. Most hackathons will welcome amateurs, and will provide robust documentation so that anyone can come in and learn! Even if you don’t win in a hackathon, there’s no way to lose. No one’s efforts “aren’t good enough”. The only way to fail is to not try!
Are you ready to push the boundaries of gaming and experience the power of blockchain firsthand? Join Gala Games at GDC 2024 for an electrifying 24-hour hackathon dedicated to unleashing the potential of GalaChain, the next-generation blockchain built for gamers and customizable for developers from all industries.
We’re pulling out the stops here. We’ve teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Alienware to bring some massive prizes, a unique experience and a 1-day development sprint on March 20th like no other out there!
Why Join the Hackathon?
To participate in this event, you don’t need to be physically present in our dedicated San Francisco space during GDC 2024. Anyone can join from wherever you are! If you want to participate, just register here and let us know how you want to participate.
Of course, remote participants will not experience the live music and hospitality we’ve got planned for on-site developers. We’re excited to see developers from all over the world join together, but consider coming to GDC if you can. This is sure to be the nerve center of the hackathon and attendees will find a totally one of a kind experience.
Dive into GalaChain
Get hands-on with the revolutionary blockchain designed for fast, secure and user-friendly gaming experiences. Showcase your talent in friendly competition with fellow developers. This is your chance to build innovative projects to grab the attention of not only the Gala team, but the entire tech community.
GalaChain is built to handle gaming, but supports far more applications than games alone. This means you can create some pretty novel systems within games too by leveraging that versatility on GalaChain.
Win Prizes
We may be going overboard to reward your creativity and hard work. Prepare to be blown away by gifts for all participants and an amazing pool of prizes! Win a piece of a total prize pool worth $1 million.
The prize pool is sure to attract some great talent to the hackathon. We don’t usually think of that in terms of more competition though… just more amazing experts you get to collaborate with!
Network with the best
Mingle with some of the biggest industry leaders, Gala Games experts and fellow innovators in an unforgettable week. Get out of the office and make some friends who understand your excitement for web3! Be part of a movement: Shape the future of gaming with GalaChain and contribute to an ecosystem built by people just like you.
Don’t miss out! Registration opens soon, but space is limited. Mark your calendars for March 20th and get ready to join the GalaChain revolution at GDC 2024.
With the recent release of the GalaChain SDK, we couldn’t resist bringing the developers of the community together for a caffeine-fueled, remote hackathon to test it out. Take a rest now, hackers–You deserve it, and we salute you.
GalaChain Hackathon II: The Results
4 teams went head to head for the grand prize in this 48-hour Discord hosted event.
The Legendary grand prize token (only bragging rights)
Each team performed very well under pressure, making the most of the multitude of resources available in the GalaChain SDK, but one team shined brighter than the rest according to our distinguished Hackathon judges. The grand prize winner was our very own Last Expedition team!
The hacker team behind the extraction FPS you know and love exceeded our expectations in this Hackathon, creating a fully functional end-to-end product. They leveraged the SDK to deliver an application complete with chaincode, even with no prior experience with the GalaChain SDK!
Well done, Last Expedition team. It’s a good sign of things to come when a team of our internal game developers can take home this victory in the face of such tough competition from the other teams!
Every participant gets the Epic participation prize!
Runner-up Highlights
The Dex Team made excellent use of the SDK, incorporating chaincode and e2e testing. Their initial UI showed great promise, but unfortunately within the 48 hour time limit, a lack of complete delivery and integration landed them firmly in second place.
The GEXP Team went outside the box, opting to use the Explorer API rather than the GalaChain SDK, disqualifying them from the win in spite of a valiant effort on their part.
Until Next Time
We had a blast hosting this event, and our community is always awesome to work with. It was a great learning experience for everyone involved; in the future, we’ll lay out more clearly defined rules and goals. We may even experiment with additional criteria like GUI development.
Thanks to everyone who participated in GalaChain Hackathon II! Your success and dedication is paving the way for all sorts of future GalaChain developments and expansions.
Stay tuned for more GalaChain updates and keep pushing the boundaries of blockchain innovation!
Get ready, developers, because the GalaChain Hackathon is just 3 days away! It’s time to unleash your creativity, push the boundaries of GalaChain’s web3 technology, and build something amazing. Here’s what you need to know:
This Hackathon runs for precisely 48 hours, from 8am PT on February 12th to 8am PT on February 14th.
The Rules
Be kind and respectful to your fellow developers.
No warranties on the software (it’s still in development!).
Standard GalaChain Discord and EULA rules apply.
Two judges, Jakub Dzikowski and Jeff Eganhouse, will lead the official evaluation, but the entire GalaChain team will have their say!
The Prizes
Every participant receives an Epic participation NFT. Winning teams get Legendary NFTs in addition to the participation NFT. Bragging rights included!
Getting Started
This Hackathon will be hosted in the GalaChain Discord channel. Find the details at the link below:
