January has flown by, and with it, the Take Back The Web hackathon is complete and in the review/payout phase. Fortunately, while you eagerly await the results, there is more on the horizon. For all 452 of you who successfully took the web back, we now need your help figuring out how to sustain it!
January has flown by, and with it, the Take Back The Web hackathon is complete and in the review/payout phase. Fortunately, while you eagerly await the results, there is more on the horizon. For all 452 of you who successfully took the web back, we now need your help figuring out how to sustain it! 
Corny jokes aside, the Sustain Web3 Virtual Hackathon just went live at midnight UTC, January 29th. This is a special one for us at Gitcoin because it’s leading up to our first ever Sustain Web3 Summit, a meatspace event happening in Denver on February 13th at the Sports Castle the day before ETHDenver!
We are incredibly excited to host the Sustain Web3 Conference during BUIDL Week with Monadic and Sustain. Join us for a one-day gathering to discuss active initiatives, learn from industry luminaries, and start designing the future of Web3 sustainability.
The event is 100% free, so if you’re in town for ETHDenver we hope to see you there! We’ll also be showcasing some select virtual hackathon projects on stage. For those who can’t make it in person, we’ll also be live-streaming the event on our Youtube. Check out the speakers and sign up as an attendee here.
To learn more about the Summit and what else Gitcoin has in store for ETHDenver, check out this blog post. Otherwise, let’s dive into the virtual hack.
The theme of this hack is very similar to our mission at Gitcoin: build technology and tools to help support and grow the open-source software ecosystem. The sponsor lineup is looking awesome: we have dfuse, FOAM, Xpring, Bancor, ConsenSys Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, Sablier, Kickback, SimpleAsWater, and likely more posting bounties for a wide range of skillsets!
Let’s start off with dfuse, a platform that provides higher-level blockchain APIs, which do more with less effort, than the native APIs provided by blockchain nodes. dfuse has been designed from the ground up to empower dapp developers with the capabilities they need to build modern blockchain applications that deliver an exceptional user experience (did you know your dapps can be slick?). Their Web 3.0 Data Stack offers unique features on Ethereum like dfuse Lifecycle and dfuse Search. To know more about delivering best-in-class customer experience and innovating integrations, take a look at their Gitcoin landing page. dfuse will be awarding 3 prizes to the teams powering their projects with dfuse, worth 1,700 USDT in total:
Up next is FOAM, a company providing the tools to enable a crowdsourced map and decentralized location services. FOAM is committed to building open and decentralized alternatives to current mapping and location positioning solutions. A vibrant developer community that builds their own solutions using FOAM’s open-source standards and protocols is vital. Using the FOAM token, you can contribute to their community crowdsourced map. Besides the consensus-driven FOAM Map, the FOAM team is currently building secure location services that will be independent of centralized sources like GPS. You can find the FOAM developer portal here for tutorials, documentation, and API docs. FOAM has posted 4 bounties, totaling a whopping 4,000 DAI:
Our third sponsor is Xpring, which is Ripple’s open developer platform for money. Xpring provides developer tools, services, and programs to integrate money into your apps using open source software, open networks and open protocols. Check out their documentation to get started with the Xpring SDK, XRP Ledger, Interledger, Web Monetization and more. Xpring believes that in order for blockchain to reach mainstream adoption, there needs to be more interoperability among the relatively siloed blockchain networks. Thus, Xpring is sponsoring a few interoperability bounties to help achieve that:
Bancor, a permissionless liquidity protocol, is a returning sponsor many of you are likely familiar with from past hackathons. Bancor is moving towards becoming a DAO by making token holders part “owners” of the protocol who earn trading fees from the network. Third-party developers are building front-ends that make it easy to interact with Bancor liquidity pools (some of which were built in past Gitcoin hackathons). A wave of new developers are launching staking interfaces integrated with Bancor, making it easier than ever for users to add liquidity to Bancor pools, generate fees off conversions, and optimize ROI on their pool holdings. Across the industry, we’re seeing innovative liquidity pool designs that maximize profitability for stakers while offering competitive prices for traders, enabling the first “user-owned exchanges” to emerge. With this in mind, Bancor is offering 2 bounties for Sustain Web3 with 4,000 DAI up for grabs in total:
ConsenSys Labs is another returning hackathon sponsor (for the 5th time?) we all know and love. Labs is the venture arm of Consensys, investing in open protocols, infrastructure, and applications that provide contributors greater agency and shared value. Lab’s Relays Grants program provides ongoing funding and advisory to promising startups in the blockchain space, many of which began during hackathons. With up to $4,000 in ETH up for grabs between 8 possible winners, ConsenSys Labs will post two bounties for Sustain Web3:
The Ethereum Foundation, Sablier, SimpleAsWater, and Kickback are also likely to make a sneaky appearance in Sustain Web3, so keep an eye out for those bounties and any other last-minute additions!
You can register for Sustain Web3 here. If you don’t have a Gitcoin profile you can create one by linking your GitHub account. Make sure to join Gitcoin Chat for easy access to the Gitcoin team and sponsors. You can find the prize explorer here, live after midnight UTC on January 29th. Remember, the hackathon ends February 12th at 23:59 UTC, so don’t hesitate to dive right in.
Happy hacking!