ETHTokyo 2025 hackathon

🥷 Cypherpunks Anonymous (Privacy & Security) - $3000

In a world where surveillance and data exploitation have become the norm, privacy is not just a right — it’s a necessity. The Cypherpunk movement emerged to challenge this status quo, using cryptography as a tool to empower individuals to reclaim control over their digital lives. Today, Ethereum provides the perfect platform to extend this vision through programmable cryptography — enabling privacy-preserving applications, secure computations, and anonymous transactions. Cypherpunks Anonymous is a track for builders who share this vision and are ready to push the boundaries of privacy, security, and censorship resistance with cutting-edge technologies like ZKPs, MPC, and FHE. Join us and help shape the future where cryptography safeguards freedom for all.

Requirements

• Core Use of Cryptography: Project must incorporate applied cryptography (ZKPs, MPC, FHE, etc.) as a fundamental component.
• Privacy-Preserving Design: Prioritize protecting user data and ensuring confidentiality.
• On-Chain or Off-Chain Feasibility: Solutions should be implementable on Ethereum or compatible networks.
• Real-World Applicability: Address practical privacy, security, or censorship resistance challenges.
• Open Source Ethos: Preference for projects that align with cypherpunk values of transparency and decentralization.

✊ Counterculture Capital (Financial Innovation) - $3000

Five years after DeFi Summer, we've witnessed the evolution from simple token swaps to sophisticated financial instruments rivaling traditional markets in complexity and capability. From lending protocols to prediction markets that democratize forecasting and information discovery, DeFi continues to drive the ongoing financial revolution. Yet, this revolution is far from complete. As traditional finance continues its slow integration with blockchain technology, DeFi builders are crafting the financial infrastructure that will ultimately bridge these worlds—creating systems that are not only more efficient and accessible than their traditional counterparts but fundamentally more equitable.

At ETHTokyo, we recognize that DeFi innovation represents the most profound challenge to established power structures in the global economy. DeFi remains the beating heart of Ethereum's revolutionary potential; behind the composable legos and liquidity pools lies a radical vision: financial services that operate without gatekeepers, accessible to anyone with an internet connection, transparent in their mechanics, and governed by their communities rather than centralized authorities.

This track welcomes builders who share this vision of democratizing access to sophisticated financial tools, who work to reimagine capital efficiency, create robust risk management systems, thoughtfully bridge institutional capital with DeFi principles, bring real-world assets on-chain, extend financial services to the unbanked, or develop governance models that truly embody decentralized ideals—united by a shared vision of transforming finance for greater accessibility and equity.

Requirements

• Security as Freedom: Approach security not merely as technical robustness but as protection of user autonomy and economic sovereignty.
• True Interoperability: Design for genuine ecosystem collaboration rather than siloed value capture, rejecting the extractive patterns of traditional finance.
• Cooperative Scaling: Address scaling in ways that distribute benefits across all users rather than concentrating advantages to large capital holders.
• Radical Transparency: Go beyond open source to create systems where operations, governance, and economics are comprehensible to average users, not just technical experts.
• Regulation Reimagined: Rather than simply complying with existing frameworks which were established far before DeFi existed, articulate how your project might inform a more equitable regulatory future.

💚 Actually Intelligent (AI & Society) - $3000

The well-praised technological breakthrough that is Artificial Intelligence faces a dilemma. Behind the convenience it offers, the technology is increasingly being appropriated into manipulative ad engines and corporate-enterprise surveillance. At ETHTokyo, we’re here to flip that. This track embraces AI as a power tool to empower individuals to 10x and 100x, but insists on liberation over manipulation, consent over capture, commons over enclosure. Building systems that make people harder to coerce and easier to coordinate. Private by default. Local-first. Proof-carrying. Forkable. 

Actually Intelligent is a track that leverages the programmability of Ethereum’s decentralized system and the flexibility of AI systems to explore actually intelligent solutions; grounded in the real world, human experience, social dynamics, and lifestyle. Here, we challenge existing paradigms and aim to return to the core values that users truly need.

Requirements

1. Autonomy delta: Core functions must be available via user-owned infra. No GPT wrappers.
2. Verifiability: Project must have at least one of the following - (a) zero-knowledge proof of inference/training property, (b) TEE attestation with verifier, or (c) bit-for-bit fully reproducible build. In any case, a minimal verifier script must also be attached.
3. Forkability: Project must be able to reasonably run on consumer-grade hardware. If it also has a one-command (`docker compose up` or `make run`) install-flow, even better.
4. Composability: Project must support one or more cypherpunk primitives; IPFS for storage, key-based auth (wallets/passkeys); zkp library interop.
5. Innovative and Open-Minded Approach: Embrace radical rethinking of existing systems and encourage an open source ethos, fostering collaborative improvement and creative breakthroughs that redefine what’s possible in everyday life.