OpenBuild Dev Digest #44 | DePIN's Real World Link, App Sequencing & EVM Scaling Frontiers
Mar 29 - Apr 4
Welcome to OpenBuild Dev Digest #44!
This issue explores the tangible impact of DePIN bridging crypto to physical systems, delves into app-specific sequencing for enhanced UX and MEV retention, and examines the latest in the EVM scaling race. Alongside these technical insights, discover exciting hackathons like MIT Bitcoin and ETHBucharest, plus new grant and bounty opportunities.
MIT Bitcoin Hackathon: Freedom Tech
📅 April 4 – April 6📍Boston/Online 💸 10,000 USD Apply
The MIT Bitcoin Hackathon 2025, themed "Freedom Tech," will take place April 4th-6th, offering a 30-hour hybrid (in-person/online) event for global participants to build innovative cryptocurrency projects. Competitors can vie for $10,000 in prizes across three tracks: Bitcoin/Lightning/Taproot development, a unique "Warnet Game" focused on network stress-testing, and Decentralized Applications. Welcoming everyone from students to professionals, regardless of prior experience, the hackathon emphasizes learning, collaboration, and building impactful solutions with mentorship support.
ETHBucharest 2025
📅 April 3 – April 5📍Romania 💸 40,850 USD Apply
The second ETHBucharest Hackathon invites developers, designers, and others to build at the National Library of Romania, running concurrently with the main conference (free entry for hackers). Participants can compete in the $5,000 General Track focused on "Real Life Utility" with societal impact (requiring a business plan), or tackle specific challenges in the $40,500 Bounty Track from sponsors like Akasha, Arbitrum, and Base. This event aims to foster practical blockchain solutions and connect builders with potential employers and ecosystem partners.
The UK AI Agent Hack
📅 March 15 – April 10 📍London 💸 72,100 USD Apply
The UK AI Agent Hackathon invites top developers and researchers from leading UK universities to build cutting-edge AI agent technology over a month, offering a flexible schedule without the usual time crunch. More than just a competition, this event acts as a launchpad for AI businesses, with top projects selected for incubation through partnerships with leading AI & Web3 incubators like AgentStarter and Solana Talent Group. Participants gain the chance to innovate, pitch to investors, scale their ideas, and access exclusive internship and hiring opportunities.
✍️ The Real World: How DePIN Bridges Crypto Back to Physical Systems 👉Read(EN)
DePIN potentially represents a promising frontier in blockchain technology, offering innovative solutions for global resource allocation. While some may claim that the crypto industry is limited to speculative or financial use cases, many DePIN projects provide compelling evidence to the contrary.
✍️ App-Specific Sequencing: How Apps Can Retain Their Generated MEV & Provide Better UX 👉Read(EN)
Sequencing in blockchain, specifically the ordering of transactions, is integral to the system's functionality. It prevents the blocking or manipulation of transactions and maintains censorship resistance. The process ensures that valid transactions are processed without undue delays, supporting system liveness. Transaction sequencing also facilitates the distribution of fees to validators, sustaining their participation in the network. It influences opportunities for Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), allowing validators to benefit from transaction ordering.
✍️ EVM Wars: Between Giga Gas and Giga Gimmicks 👉Read(EN)
Blockchains have quite some room to scale, increasing compute capacity and lowering costs, which may open up possibilities to some truly novel use cases instead of the same five DeFi protocols being copy-pasted on every chain. EVM chains have forever been optimizing for scalability but have always lagged behind alt VM chains like Solana, Sui, and Aptos when it comes to throughput and latency. But now we have a lineup of several EVM L1s and L2s that are breaking past 10,000 (Theoretical TPS) and reaching beyond 100,000 (TTPS) with milliseconds block times. Most chains are scaling their giga gas/s, choosing a more capable DA layer, and optimizing their DB for improved state access and controlled state growth.
💸 Resolv Bug Bounty
Maximum Bounty $500,000 👉 Apply
Resolv is a protocol maintaining USR, a stablecoin natively backed by Ether (ETH) and pegged to US Dollar. Rewards are distributed according to the impact of the vulnerability based on the Immunefi Vulnerability Severity Classification System V2.2.
💸 Metastreet Yield Pass Bug Bounty
Maximum Bounty $50,000 👉 Apply
MetaStreet Yield Pass is a yield tokenization pool for node NFTs. Rewards are distributed according to the impact of the vulnerability based on the Immunefi Vulnerability Severity Classification System V2.2.
💸 Threshold Network Bug Bounty
Maximum Bounty $500,000 👉 Apply
Threshold is the first ever on-chain merge between two existing networks and communities, Keep and NuCypher. Rewards are distributed according to the impact of the vulnerability based on the Immunefi Vulnerability Severity Classification System V2.2.
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