Compound Hackathons Participation Summary
First and foremost, I’d like to thank @adam and the CGP domain allocators for their valuable contributions and data inputs for this proposal.
Summary
The CGP team sponsored and organised hackathons at various events, including Eth Waterloo, Eth New York, and Eth Online, from June 2023 to November 2023. These hackathons were aimed at attracting high quality builders to the Compound ecosystem, enhancing Compound’s brand recognition, and promoting Compound grants.
At each event, the hackathon sponsorships offered bounties ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. 100s of teams worldwide participated in these hackathons, with ~40 submitting proposals to the Hackathons specifically sponsored by Compound. We conducted several sessions, both in-person and online, to guide builders on project development and ensure alignment with Compound’s growth objectives.
Submissions Received
Below is a detailed breakdown of each submission received at various hackathons :
ETHGlobal Toronto (Waterloo)
| Team Name | Description |
|---|---|
| a(i)udit | A(i)udit is a platform for engineers that gracefully adds security best practices earlier in the developer loop to help write safer, more secure smart contracts. Engineers can use natural language to author, audit, and deploy - all with a single tool. |
| Compound Notify | A standalone application with a user-friendly interface to configure alerts |
| Uniswap V4 Hooks - Stop Loss Orders | Onchain stop loss orders courtesy of Uniswap V4 Hooks. Guaranteed execution offers great UX for spot traders, leveraged positions, and protocols |
| Wealthsimpler | A secure way for enterprises and users to invest in crypto and digital assets on-chain. Real-world investment platform UX with social login, account permissioning, and auto-investment in low-risk assets. |
| Savings DAO | Permissionless creation of simple interest bearing vaults and strategies. |
| chainml-copilot | An AI agent that is trained on documentation of projects and is then able to answer user questions related to that project. |
| ETHStacks | ETHStacks.xyz is an account management interface for token bound accounts (TBAs). Stack your assets through token bound accounts and manage them all through a simple interface. |
ETHGlobal New York
| Team Name | Description |
|---|---|
| LevYieldX | Cross-chain leveraged yield farming strategies based on users’ risk tolerance and portfolio. |
| SNOW | Snow allows users to interact with web3 using natural language. For easy onboarding, the AI agent guides the person in a friendly manner through wallet creation, money management, coin swapping, and explaining NFTs—anything. |
| Ape-I | Ape-I revolutionizes the DeFi landscape by integrating AI Apes that act on users’ behalf. |
| Lime | Active Hooks Manager with Offchain Pricing Mechanism / Bringing institutional grade profitability to onchain liquidity |
| Upper Social | Upper allows creators to borrow from the fragments pool and create more content. |
| UniHedge | Onchain impermanent loss insurance for Uniswap V3/V4 liquidity providers |
| Arb Controller | A uniswap v4 hook that sets dynamic fee for a pool based on the price movements. The dynamic fee partially discriminates informed order flow from arbitrageurs. It gives LPs similar efficiency to the dynamic spreads in tradfi, while still allowing LPs to be passive. |
| Porta | Porta is a platform that bridges bot and user wallet. It allows bot notifying users via telegram message when certain event is triggered and send tx_request to user wallet dirrectly. |
| PODIUM | Incentivize public goods impact reporting via payouts of yield generated from quadratic funding pools. |
| zero-loss-bet | A Zero-loss-Lottery Protocol leveraging Liquidity Protocols and Chainlink Automation. |
| GreenYield | PWA on-ramp/off-ramp using using a payment processor and account abstraction to boost Defi mass-adoption. |
| OracleFlow | A more efficient solution for oracle updates using MEV-Share |
ETHOnline (Remote)
| Team Name | Description |
|---|---|
| DecOpt | Decentralized Stock Options Trading Platformas powered by Chainlink & Compound |
| Bwise | A Chrome extension leveraging Uniswap v4 hooks for optimized impermanent loss mitigation in DeFi ecosystems. |
| Kindred | A platform for 0% interest loans amongst trusted peers that generates compound interest in large group sums |
| SpendNest | Decentralized banking app: deposit, withdraw, transfer between accounts, grant spending access, prioritizes transparency, no information withholding. |
| Send it! | A mobile app easing cross-border remittance for non-crypto geeks, social media web2 login, collective collateral, lending, and borrowing. Simplifying crypto to cash conversions with local intermediaries(exchangers) |
| COMPensator | COMPensator is a Vote Marketplace for Compound Governance for Delegates |
| DaiDaddy | An easy-to-use web app (or pwa) that allows anyone to earn interest. |
| CompoundCharts | A dashboard inspired by DefiLlama and TokenTerminal, designed for Compound v3. |
| Block-DeFi | Using block based programming the application will allow users to easily interact with DeFi |
| ZKredit | ZKredit encompasses a world where every individual, irrespective of their government credit score or financial history, has equitable access to financial resources. |
| AztecLend | AztecLend allows for private lending operations to DeFi lending protocol, such as Spark and Compound from Aztec, a private zk-rollup. |
| Eth Maintenance | Developers tools to enable preventive and reactive maintenance of industrial grade machine using iot devices, sensors and Ethereum blockcahin, Web3 ecosystem tools |
| Space Command | As a space cadet navigating the DeFi universe, it is the ultimate spaceship. It’s equipped with advanced tools from Mask, XMTP, ZK Rollups, and more, making a users’ journey smoother and safer. |
| Shout Protocol | A social media platform that lets user boost their content reach with yield. |
| CryptGate | Crypto Payment Gateway for web2/web3 applications with account abstraction and zk-based identities |
| EventCrib | EventCrib is a decentralized event management and ticketing platform for event managers and event planners. |
| BUYNBY | A smart wallet that uses lit protocols MPC wallet technology |
| pmnts | A payments focused superapp with defi integrations. Scan to pay, p2p payments, and earn points! |
| SparkDeltaPrime | Spark Delta Prime optimizes user liquidity by placing liquidity, leveraging capital managers through zk proofs, generating effective and sustainable returns. |
Winners
Of the ~ 40 submissions received across various events and hackathons, 3 (7.5%) projects were awarded bounties by the Compound Hackathon team. The details of these projects are outlined below:
“Stop loss orders: "if the price falls below a trigger price, market sell the asset”
”With the Uniswap V4 preview, hooks introduced programmability to the swap lifecycle – this feature creates new opportunities for trading UX. The project defines a Hook contract which will enable new V4 pools to support stop loss orders. To showcase potential use-cases, the project includes example orders that are used to repay loans on Spark (MakerDAO) and Compound III.”
“This project built a browser-based frontend that allows users to convert their fiat into crypto and stake it into lending protocols, all on the blockchain. Greenyield is powered by Privy, a simple toolkit for web3 authentication, while Fiat deposits are enabled by Unlimit, the users’ one-stop-shop to online payments. The project uses Compound as lending protocols in order to offer yield to the users. For now, the yield is pegged to stable coins. Fiat onboarding is enabled by Unlimit that allows a seamless experience of converting fiat to crypto.”
”COMPenstator is a decentralized platform allowing COMP token holders to delegate their voting power and earn COMP rewards. COMPenstator enhances participation and engagement in the Compound Governance ecosystem with rewards for delegated voting. It brings a new mechanism for delegates to compete for voting power. The protocol contracts also provide a framework for multiple delegations, where delegators can delegate to multiple delegates.”
Learnings
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Increased Awareness of Compound V3: Most developers were familiar with Compound, but there was a lack of awareness regarding the release of v3 and its deployment across multiple chains and layer - 2s. Being present at the events significantly boosted protocol awareness.
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Difficult to find long term committed builders: The majority of developers we onboarded were enthusiastic about building a fun project during the hackathon to win prizes, learn something new, and make friends, without a long-term commitment to further development. The hypothesis for participating in these hackathons was to find the next big project such as Instadapp, which would continue to develop and use the Compound protocol as a key part of their infrastructure, thereby increasing Compound’s TVL. However, such committed builders were fewer in number.
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Higher Prize Pool Attracted More Builders: The number of submissions was average compared to our prize pool. Other sponsors in our tier observed similar submission rates, while top-tier sponsors with larger prizes attracted more submissions.
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Difficult to measure the ROI for the Hackathons: While participation was beneficial for the Compound community by enhancing awareness and engagement, the return on investment for the sponsorships in terms of tangible outcomes like increased TVL or the emergence of significant projects was difficult to measure.
We invite community members to share their feedback and comments below, and to offer suggestions for improving future iterations (if any) of Compound hackathons.