Neo Global Development (NGD) has announced the winners of Polaris Launchpad’s Hackathon phase. NGD dedicated a total prize pool of $500,000 to the event, which saw close to 600 registrants. The judges evaluated all qualifying entries and awarded five grand prizes worth $35,000 each in NEO tokens. The five grand prizes were given across five competition categories.

Grand-prize-winning projects that receive a multiplier award in the Planathon phase will have their prizes multiplied by a factor ranging from 1.1 to 1.5. Each winning project team also receives a custom-tailored set of post-hackathon incubation opportunities through participation in the Neo Global Development EcoBoost program. EcoBoost is designed to enhance the Neo ecosystem by offering end-to-end lifecycle support for small- and medium-sized project teams developing on, looking to integrate with, or migrate to, the Neo blockchain. 

Fifteen additional project entries have been selected as Polaris Launchpad award winners: 14 Excellence Awards and one Special Mention Award. Each winning project will receive $8,000 in NEO tokens. Award-winning projects that receive a multiplier designation in the Planathon phase will also have their prizes multiplied by a factor ranging from 1.1 to 1.5. Along with the prizes, the winning project teams will receive customized consultation time with the NGD EcoGrowth team regarding their projects. 

“The high-quality and innovative nature of these award-winning projects point to a bright future for Neo, the blockchain industry and Web3,” said head of Neo Eco-Growth John Wang. “I commend the efforts of the many skilled participants in this event. I expect to see more achievements from them in the coming events in the Neo Launchpad hackathon series.” 

“Best Middleware Project Incorporating NeoFS/Oracle” was awarded to Greenfinch, a decentralized data storage solution on Neo N3 and NeoFS. Greenfinch will bring a range of capabilities such as granular permissions, privacy and more to decentralized storage on Neo N3. 

“We are ecstatic about winning the grand prize for the best middleware project incorporating NeoFS/Oracle. We set out to build a product that will ultimately benefit the community, but also show the world the incredible functionality of Neo and NeoFS,” said Alex Walker, a member of the Greenfinch team. 

”Best DAO project” was awarded to Neodao, a smart contract and client-side Javascript library that allows a developer with only typical website development skills to create robust DAOs on the Neo N3 blockchain. 

“The best thing about winning in the Polaris Launchpad is knowing that I have a chance to play an important role in helping people discover, use, and learn to love the most powerful and innovative blockchain platform in the world,” said Neodao developer Robert Oschler.

Dogerift was awarded “Best NFT/Metaverse Project.” It is a GameFi built on Neo. Players use their NFTs as playable characters to earn tokens that can be used in-game to improve a player’s gameplay or be traded for profit. Players use their NEO wallets as game accounts to log in to the game and can use NFTs as playable characters and items.

“We have followed Neo’s blockchain development for years, and as game developers, we saw this as a perfect opportunity to make our ideas possible. As passionate game developers, we hope DogeRift will become a very fun and exciting way for players on the Neo blockchain to play-to-earn,” said Zoxyi, a member of the Dogerift team.

“Best DeFi Project” went to Pumpkin Swap, a decentralized crypto trading protocol with swap, staking and liquidity pool features.

“'I chose the Neo N3 network as the easiest and most complete solution for my ideas. The Neo Polaris Launchpad hackathon has been a perfect opportunity to show my idea. My passions are coding and bringing my ideas to life. This has given me a chance to share my work and passion with the Neo community,” said Sky, a member of the Pumpkin Swap team. 

Bamboo, a social platform on Neo N3 that natively allows users to explore the integration of Web2 and Web3, was awarded “Best General Category Project.” Bamboo is a new Web3 social platform that generates exclusive NFTs by linking users’ existing centralized and decentralized social information. Users can use this exclusive NFT to participate in personal information upgrades, play social games, and add value to their own data and behaviors. 

The final phase of the Polaris Launchpad event, Polaris Plus, will begin on June 8 and run through June 21. The best-performing projects submitted in the Hackathon phase, regardless of whether they received awards or not, will be invited to join Neo on DoraHacks for a round of voting, where Neo GAS token holders can use their funds to vote for their favorite projects. Neo has set aside a minimum of $57,500 to match these votes through quadratic means. 

More details about all Polaris Launchpad hackathon winners here.

About Neo 

Neo is an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform established in 2014. It is the most feature-complete blockchain platform for building decentralized applications. Neo enables developers to digitize and automate the management of assets through smart contracts. It also provides powerful native infrastructures such as decentralized storage, oracles and domain name service, creating a solid foundation for the next-gen internet.

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