BUIP201: NEXA 1st Hackathon
Submitted by log1, Sponsored by Paul Church
19 October 2023
As I am not a member of Bitcoin Unlimited, Paul Church sponsors and endorses this BUIP
Motivation
After a dedicated 16-month journey marked by commitment, extensive learning, and relentless effort from every BU and our community / marketing members, we’ve successfully constructed a substantial infrastructure, including wallets, valuable development tools like Tokenize and Nexscript, comprehensive documentation, and more. With this remarkable progress as our foundation, we believe the present moment is ideal for harnessing our momentum to propel Nexa into its next phase of growth.
We should start a movement with the goal of inspiring and fostering a community of builders promoting technological advancements via a hackathon for Nexa. To ensure the success of Nexa, it is imperative that we provide the tools and resources for a thriving ecosystem that is built upon its foundation.
The Event
The Builders Fest, scheduled for February (date to be announced), is an upcoming online NEXA hackathon. It offers a substantial prize pool and extends an open invitation to individuals interested in creating products, services, or tools on Nexa.
Participation is not limited to developer-only teams; in fact, teams are encouraged to diversify their skill sets by including members with expertise in business, graphic design, project management, marketing, and more, as this diversity is likely to enhance the overall value of the teams.
In order to optimize participation and outcomes, we acknowledge the necessity for certain modifications compared to conventional hackathon events. Therefore, we recommend implementing a fixed hourly rate of $25/h, based on 20 hours per person. It is important to note that this rate will be disbursed only after the teams have successfully delivered their respective products or tools. The introduction of a fixed rate provides us with greater confidence in securing active participation from quality teams who register for the fest.
Total costs: 10 teams * 20h * $25 * 4 (pers. average) = $20,000
On top of that, the best teams / projects will be eligible to receive at least four prizes (paid out in $NEX):
- $5,000 top prize
- $3,000 Category A prize
- $2,000 Category B prize
- $1,000 Category C prize
Total cost: $11,000
The hackathon will be publicized through all our social media channels, articles on Medium, Reddit, Bitcoin forums and other developers forums and pre-recorded and live-streamed video content to will be published to the Nexa and Bitcoin Unlimited youtube channel. Content will include:
- Interviews with each team during the hackathon.
- Presentations by each team to explain what they are building.
- Presentations by each to showcase what they have built.
- Awards ceremony.
We will be asking highly talented members of the Nexa development community and Bitcoin Unlimited team to provide some input and direction to teams that enter the hackathon - we will provide channels and servers for everybody to be able to communicate.
Hackathon Rules
- The product, service or tool must be developed from scratch during the hackathon.
- The hackathon will be hosted digitally and will not require in-person meetings.
- We will be providing a set of predefined tools and products that we’d like to see developed on the Nexa platform. However, we are also very open to and encourage teams to bring their own innovative ideas to the table.
- Teams can have from 2-5 members (average 4).
- Projects will be judged on a number of factors.
- Teams will be expected to prepare a one-pager / pitch-deck, which will be used for screening after which we’ll conduct interviews with selected teams prior start of hackathon. This pitch deck should outline the specifics of what they intend to build during the event. This ensures that we can select only high quality teams for the best tools to be build.
- Teams will be asked to write a long form article after the hackathon is finished giving their thoughts on their experience during the hackathon.
- Teams will be required to create a video presenting their hackathon idea for release at the beginning of the hackathon.
- Each teams will be given a public channel within the Nexa Discord and this is to be used for discussion during the hackathon.
Objectives & Key Results
Bring new developers into the Nexa ecosystem
- Have roughly 10 teams attend the hackathon.
- Get the best documentation marketed in order to achieve this.
- Implement a fixed rate for participant teams to encourage active engagement and create an obligation to attend.
- Provide a predefined set of tools, services and documentation while remaining open to innovative ideas from teams.
- Require teams to prepare an one-pager / pitch-deck outlining their project as application, followed by an screening interview to judge team and product quality.
- Establish a long-term goal for the event’s growth and expansion within the Nexa ecosystem.
- Develop a diverse range of marketing initiatives to promote the hackathon to developers across the industry.
- Get each team to generate three pieces of quality content about why building on Nexa is worth it.
Post-event
- Consider hosting additional events under the same brand and explore the possibility of future in-person gatherings.
- Create reusable graphics and documentation branding for Nexa and strategies for future events.
- Keep close and direct communication for future purposes, organise files that stores details of those developers and the progress they’ve made.
Our long-term, high-level goal for this event is to position it as a valuable asset for the broader Nexa ecosystem. Should the initial event prove successful, we envision the possibility of hosting additional events under the same brand in the future. It’s important to note that the groundwork laid for this inaugural event will serve as a valuable resource for any subsequent events, streamlining the execution and minimizing (overhead) costs.
Deliverables
- Branded graphic assets:
- Official event logo provided in all required formats.
- Graphic designs for use on social media.
- Graphics for ads.
- Branded video assets:
- Video intro animation.
- Video lower thirds toolkit.
- Video outro animation.
- Livestream waiting animation.
- Video content:
- 3 items of video content generated by each team hosted on the Nexa youtube channel.
- 8 hours of interview/livestream content hosted on the Nexa youtube channel.
- Written content:
- 3 articles generated by each team.
- 1 article announcing the event.
- 1 article announcing the judges of the event.
- 1 article announcing per teams entering the event to showcase their projects.
- 1 article summarising the progress being made by each team.
- 1 article summarising the final entries of each team.
- 1 article announcing the winners of the event.
- 1 article as a wrap up and request for feedback on the event.
- Social accounts:
- Official Telegram group.
- Official Twitter account.
- Official Discord Channels on Nexa
All rights to the branding and content generated by the event will be retained by Bitcoin Unlimited. An exception to this is the content generated by the teams, where they will retain the rights to this content, but B.U. will have the right to publish this content on its channels. The articles will be published to the official Nexa media pages and the most important articles will be published to the official Nexa website. Video content will be published to the official Nexa and / or B.U. youtube channels.
Marketing and promotional
To ensure that the hackathon receives widespread promotion and gains recognition among developers across the industry, we propose implementing a diverse range of marketing initiatives and strategies. Below a summary of items that we’d have to deliver in order to maximise results.
- Hackathon website.
- Branding package, including graphics and video packages fully Nexa branded.
- Pitch Deck for Hackathon as well as a Pitch-Deck for pre-defined projects.
- Written content and graphics for public forums.
- Promotional videos, i.e. animation, interviews, project reviews.
- Administration costs, i.e. webhosting, support, organisation.
Expenses Breakdown
$2,000 = Website,
$2,000 = Branding package (reusable for Nexa),
$2,000 = Paid ads for promotion e.g. r/CC forums and other websites,
$2,500 = Video interview production,
$1,500 = Buffer for extra unexpected costs.
Total costs: $10,000
Expected Impact
By expanding the Nexa ecosystem through the use of visually rich, digestible, and branded messaging for this Hackathon, Nexa will emerge as an even more capable leader within the digital peer-to-peer cash ecosystems across the industry.
This approach will allow Nexa to gain widespread recognition, effectively reaching a broader audience. This BUIP will encourage further engagement and participation not only from the Nexa community but also from developers who are new to Nexa. This will offer significant long-term advantages.
We believe that this is also a key marketing activity to increase the visibility of Nexa, alongside the direct promotion and encouragement of developers to build on the Nexa blockchain. In contrast to previous hackathons organized by BU, where BU was the primary brand being promoted, in this case, it is the Nexa blockchain and ecosystem itself that takes the forefront.
Total Budget
This BUIP requests a total of $46,000 in funding for this event. The breakdown of how this funding will be spent is as follows.
$20,000,- = Total costs hourly rate participants
$11,000,- = Prize pool
$10,000,- = Marketing and promotional activities
$ 5,000,- = Overhead costs / unexpected expenses
$46,000 = TOTAL
The elected B.U. officials: President, Secretary and Developer will jointly agree expenditures for this BUIP and will monitor progress through regular reviews.
Cancellation policy
In the unexpected event that we do not receive enough applications to fill the maximum capacity of 8 out of 10 team seats, the hackathon will be canceled no later than the last week of January. We anticipate the hackathon starting in the middle to end of February (subject to unforeseen events). This allows sufficient time to finalize the cancellation agreement with the respective teams.