Heyo Gitcoiners! We’re just gonna start off by saying “May the 14th Be With You!” Yeah, we know that “May the Fourth be with you!” is how you greet a true Star Wars fan, but we’re talking about something else. Something bigger, better, bolder – something Blockstack would do!

So mark your calendars, set your alarms and clean up your desktops, ‘cause on May 14th Blockstack is coming to town(square) with their brand new, exclusive coding-fest: Clarity Hackathon!

Blockstack’s hackathon is following their very recent launch of Stacks 2.0 Testnet, and it’s going to test your innovation fibre! Clarity Hackathon is a 2-stage challenge, where you’ll create smart contracts and Clarity tools that make the most of their protocol. Here’s how that’s going to roll out.

[Stage 1] 14 – 29 May Clarity smart contracts

In sport terms, this stage would be the warm-up round, where Clarity protocol and its key features are in the spotlight. For 2 weeks you’re invited to develop fully-functional smart contracts of any type and submit up to 3 projects for a chance to win prizes.

The Clarity smart contract language is built for predictability and security, meaning you’ll benefit from its on-chain logic, reduced unintentional errors and ability to eliminate entire classes of bugs.

The sky’s the limit here – from simple contracts to more complex and innovative ones, any idea that highlights Clarity’s applicability is welcome and eligible for a reward.

And once the warm up is done, we’ll dive right into the finals round!

[Stage 2] 3 – 30 June Clarity tooling

Clarity is a sparkling new language and you’ll be competing for the title of the best Clarity Pioneer! In this round you have 4 weeks to build the kind of tool that future generations of Clarity developers will use to advance the protocol. The Blockstack team will be on the lookout for the most useful and valuable tool submitted in this round – from coding tools to linters and anything else that would make future development easier and faster.

Are you parsing ideas for submissions already? Great, then all you need to do is register for the Clarity hackathon and dive into Blockstack’s documentation here. You’ll also find the Blockstack Clarity Hackathon Resources page helpful, it’s a one stop shop for educational resources.

Don’t forget to check out the Clarity Hackathon Townsquare, to join the discussions and find team members for your project. And remember you can also invite your best hacker friends to join your team, using our new referral program (up to 75DAI rewards) – read all about it here.

Happy hacking!

P.S. Never attended a hackathon before? Check out this easy-peasy guide for an overview of this event, along with info on how to join the action and compete for bounties. Good luck!