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Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency. It pioneered the industry, is the most dominant in terms of value, and it’s even legal tender in some countries. Yet, many Bitcoin owners remain dormant with little to no way of using their holdings for DeFi, NFTs, gaming and other verticals where cryptocurrencies thrive.

That’s changing, however, and ZetaChain is excited to announce that we are co-hosting alongside Buidlbox a BTC Hackathon Challenge — a competition to encourage developers to build novel dApps that use Bitcoin. ZetaChain is the only layer-1 blockchain that adds utility for the Bitcoin ecosystem with Omnichain Smart Contracts. This event will showcase the type of innovation that’s coming to the Bitcoin community.

The event will be online, and it runs from 23 August to 29 September. There are big prizes on offer to those projects selected by a panel of esteemed judges, including Ronak Pakzad from Wrapped.com and Trevor from Bitcoin Frontier Fund and many more, on the demo day next month.

Sign up here for the competition, and read on for more details.

The BTC Challenge Prizes

Competitions are all about prizes, and here’s what’s on offer:

Prize Pool $20,000:

• $10,000–1st Place Top ZetaChain Award

• $6,000 — Second Place Prize

• $4,000- Third Place Prize

But, there’s more: the winners will also be eligible for consideration for the ZetaChain grants program, which was announced in April 2023 with an initial purse of US$5 million. We are always looking for quality projects that can be mainnet launch partners.

Get started

Looking for more specific guidance? Builders can leverage ZetaChain’s Bitcoin capabilities to develop and experiment with the following ideas.

The BTC Challenge Prizes

Competitions are all about prizes, and here’s what’s on offer:

Prize Pool $20,000:

• $10,000–1st Place Top ZetaChain Award

• $6,000 — Second Place Prize

• $4,000- Third Place Prize

But, there’s more: the winners will also be eligible for consideration for the ZetaChain grants program, which was announced in April 2023 with an initial purse of US$5 million. We are always looking for quality projects that can be mainnet launch partners.

Get started

Looking for more specific guidance? Builders can leverage ZetaChain’s Bitcoin capabilities to develop and experiment with the following ideas.

Build with Bitcoin on ZetaChain

ZetaChain is an EMV-compatible Layer-1 blockchain that empowers Bitcoin with smart contract capabilities. DApps built with ZetaChain can allow Bitcoin holders to directly interact with ZetaChain and the broader crypto ecosystem in a single step.

Developers can utilize ZetaChain’s unique ZRC-20 Bitcoin capabilities for the following actions:

• Call omnichain contracts on ZetaChain from Bitcoin by sending a BTC token transfer

• A BTC token transfer mints ZRC-20 representations of BTC on ZetaChain (think of it as wrapped BTC, but protocol managed on ZetaChain’s L1 blockchain)

• An omnichain contract can mint new tokens, NFTs or execute any logic triggered by a BTC transfer

• Swap ZRC-20 representations of BTC on ZetaChain for any other token

• Withdraw any swapped ZRC-20 (BTC, ETH, MATIC, BNB) to its native chain

Next steps

Head over to the Buidlbox X ZetaChain landing page for full details and information on how to participate in the hackathon.

Take advantage of the following resources to understand more about how to build on ZetaChain:

• Check out our ZetaDocs to learn more about building with ZRC-20 Bitcoin

• Looking for a team? Start collaborating with other BTC builders in ZetaChain 🟠⼁btc-hackathon discord channel

• Get support from our technical team in ZetaChain 🤖⼁dev-general Discord channel

• Follow ZetaChain on Twitter and stay tuned for details on our upcoming live ZetaRadio Twitter Space, which will include an unparalleled lineup of Bitcoin thought leaders discussing the hackathon

About buidlbox.io

Buidlbox is an end-to-end hackathons platform enabling buidlers and guidls with everything needed to gain novel skills, earn prizes, grow communities, and buidl a better web together.

About ZetaChain

ZetaChain is the world’s first and only decentralized EVM-compatible L1 blockchain with built-in cross-chain interoperability, connecting all blockchains, even non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin and Dogecoin. With ZetaChain’s complete Omnichain toolkit, developers can build true omnichain dApps from a single point of logic, and users can access all of their assets, data, and liquidity in a single place, securely.

Follow ZetaChain on Twitter @zetablockchain and join the conversation on Discord and Telegram. Reach out to [email protected] if you’re building on top of ZetaChain.