Have you ever just hung out and received a random text from an old friend asking to meet up and create something for the DeFi community? Well, that was our case with lead developer Augusto Lemble from DXdao. It was another regular week of building in the bear market when we first received word of this new, first-of-its-kind Hackathon. In this hackathon, hackers would come together in the city of Bogota, Colombia for ETH-Latam, Devcon, and the first-ever Infinite hackathon. The Infinite hackathon, from October 7th through October 9th, would create a place for hackers of all experience levels to participate in an intimate hacking environment with minimal interruptions.
The goal of Infinite hackathon was to motivate, inspire, and support hackers to unleash their innovative, creative, and out-of-this-world ideas into the ecosystem. Our goal as organizers was to protect our hackers from distractions, and inefficiencies, while guiding them to create never before seen protocols, that will contribute to & expand the Ethereum ecosystem. Along with DXdao, Brink partnered with other great organizations like Hopr, Swarm, & Kleros. This lineup of organizers brought a collection of deeply experienced mentors & judges, throughout the Ethereum ecosystem to guide the hackers whenever they needed during the event.
Along with mentoring and guidance, hackers were provided with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and an array of snacks and refreshments throughout the day. In addition, we wanted everyone to be comfortable and have a work-life balance with some bean bags, side activities, massages, and a special punching bag to release some stress. There were workshops focused on eCrypto intro, Solidity intro, security, and debugging in depth which provided hackers with something new to bring to their protocols. We even had a professional photographer capture all the moments of the hackathon, as we shared organizer swag and Infinite swag to ensure memories last forever. While winners were given an Infinite medal to take home and keep a piece of the hackathon with them.
Judging was conducted publicly on Sunday the 9th, by event organizers and members drawn from the involved communities. Both the project presentations and judging were public, featuring real-time results. This method of judging empowered and encouraged hackers to get out of their comfort zone and present live to all the members of the hackathon. All 15 amazing and innovative hacker projects can be found in this link: https://infinite.devpost.com/project-gallery
The first-place trophy was awarded to a protocol called “Fairbid” created by Tomas Moreno, Sebastian L, Giorgio Villani, Alejandro Cardona & Leandro Conti. Fairbid proposed a new bidding system, which disincentivized bots and scalpers, to avoid first-runner problems and maximize the value of the auctioneer. This system would work while allowing participants to increase their probability of getting their desired result through bids. Fairbid used a blind “modified dutch auction” system, in which participants can make their bid, depending on how much is their desire to pay for the mint/ticket. With Fairbid each participant would be able to bid the maximum amount (or range) that they would like to purchase the NFT. Since the bids are blind, people do not know how much the other person is bidding. Their protocol can be found here: https://fairbid.webflow.io/
Fairbid was one of our favorite projects to work with, as it used our Brink API to sign message limit orders & pull data, while Fairbid relayed pre-mint NFTS from Brink to send NFTs to the front end. We spoke with Tomas Moreno, to tell us a bit more about their thought process behind this:
“At Fairbid, we wanted to revolutionize the way digital assets are sold through a revolutionary bidding system to avoid rush, bots and scalpers. Brink limit orders are part of the core of our product. We are really thankful for the Brink team for all its help during the building process. It would have been impossible without them.”
Another great protocol project was called “Knirb” created by Carson Case, Sergio Santiago & Tomas Pulenta. Knirb wanted to create stop-loss orders to create a liquidation engine. Knirb would be Brink’s opposite which does limit sells instead of buys using the same Brink architecture. Knirb was built by using Javascript for the backend, frontend on React, and Solidity for the smart contracts. Knirb used a pricing oracle to sell at any time and validators can keep the difference, so by using oracles you are ensured the order is not priced too high. By working with Brink’s architecture, the team was able to learn about proxy contracts on the smart contract side. This led to Knirb connecting a full working frontend to Metamask, deploying tested Goerli smart contracts and a live REST API.
We hope to continue working with the bright minds of Fairbid & Knirb for future projects, as they implemented the Brink protocol and continue to push the bounds of the Ethereum ecosystem.
As Infinite Hackathon came to an amazing closing end, we headed to the 20th floor for a closing cocktail hour, with views of all of Bogota, Colombia. Brink networked with many teams, learned, and sought opportunities for the future, and was able to bring the hackathon spirit along with us during our Devcon days that followed. Infinite Hackathon was the first of many upcoming community projects, Brink would love to participate in. We hope to continue to invest, grow and develop those around us with our one-of-a-kind protocol. What will you build next with Brink? The possibilities are endless!
Devcon 2022
Devcon began on Oct 11th, with a huge welcome celebration from the members of the Ethereum Foundation. This Devcon was different from any other because it had never been held in Latin America, it was 3 years out, due to Covid & the conference was open from 8 am until 11 pm. There was a hacker basement with great WiFi to co-work, meeting points on all levels if you lose your team, workshops of all kinds, swag, and refreshments. Lots of companies had booths to interact with their protocol and provide feedback. Everyone in the Ethereum community was happy to be back amongst peers to reconnect and collaborate on projects together.
We met some amazing teams and attended some impactful talks to better Brink for the future.
One of my favorite talks was by the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, Aya Miyaguchi. Aya mentioned the infinite garden, & its ability to grow as organically as possible, and how the Ethereum ecosystem with all its parts can contribute to it. Subtraction plays a big role in how we balance and refocus our improvement in protocols. Of course, it’s hard to subtract, we always want to add more features to our protocol. But by subtracting we can increase the standard of our product and fix our gaps to have a complete and infinite protocol before moving on to new things. You can also “add” by subtracting, and by inviting new change-makers to bring in new ideas to the app or network. By doing so, you create an open space for others, to collaborate, get involved, and work towards the same goal.
Another great talk was by Sasha Tanase from the Threshold Network. Sasha spoke about UX- Design and its crucial contribution to improving & communicating transparency on Web3. In Web3 we often gravitate towards the technical nodes, APIs, and coding processes of an app, but UX design is most impactful on being the first thing you see when you enter a new app. By having the design team and smart contract team work in parallel, having periodical check-ins, and constant collaboration, the front-end can mirror that of the back-end. It should have 4 phases: discovery, define, develop and deliver.
To do this, each team must have a voice with transparency and collaboration. Assumptions, ideas, and protocols must all be tested and researched in the early stage. Ideas can then be probed against the market needs and feedback can be obtained. This generated user journey can then help improve the product, while stakeholders validate them. By doing so, a protocol can save a lot of time & money and create a more efficient product for the masses.
Lastly, we met with Sergi, Business Development for Chain-link labs. Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network, that provides tamper-proof inputs, outputs and computations to support advanced smart contracts on the blockchain. Throughout the use of secure oracles, Chainlink extends the functions of the blockchain by adding smart contracts to data. It was great to join their cocktail hour and learn more about ways Chainlink supports smart contracts in the Ethereum ecosystem. We hope their high-quality data can be something we can partner with in the future.
All in all, Devcon brought many new ideas to our team to continue to improve Brink and continue to grow alongside the ever-changing ethereum ecosystem. We look forward to future connections with different teams and will continue to strive for decentralized conditional orders. Developers can continue to use Brink to build limit orders, stop loss orders, and many more order types. Users can specify an order they want at specific market conditions, and the executors on Brink can provide the optimal transaction to satisfy those conditions. Brink will satisfy those user-defined orders and get you the best pricing for NFTS.
Our automated protocol can be found at: https://app.brink.trade/
Along with our twitter Brink.
We thank you for taking the time to read our recap & look forward to seeing you at the next Devcon!
