ETHIstanbul

🏆 ETHIstanbul Hackathon Tracks - $41,000 Prize Pool

In this year's ETHIstanbul Hackathon, we distribute a total of $41,000 in our prize pool to our hackers! With 7 different tracks from various technologies, there is something interesting for all of our builders.

Please make sure you read below to learn more about each track and their details.

⚠️ IMPORTANT⚠️ In order for a submission to qualify for a track, you must ensure that it is in accordance with both general hackathon rules and the track's respective requirements. If it ensures all requirements, a single submission can be sent to multiple tracks at once.

General Tracks

⚠️ IMPORTANT⚠️ General tracks are judged by the ETHIstanbul Hackathon judges.

In order to apply for a general track, your project must fall under its respective category. There is no limit in the technology used as long as it is relevant to the track.

All rewards will be given in USDC in the few weeks following the hackathon. All prizes are distributed evenly between team members. You may be contacted by our team about additional details through Telegram and Email.

1. Real Blockchain Use Cases

Use any blockchain technology to make a difference in the real world. Put blockchain into anything, show the world the future.

In order to qualify to this track, you should be solving an actual real world problem using decentralization. UI is not a must, but recommended.

Project will be judged based on:

• code quality
• technical competence
• originality of the idea and the solution
• meaningful usage of blockchain
• decentralization
• completeness of the submission
• real life impact
• chances of success for the project in real life

🏆 1st Place: $3,500

🥈 2nd Place: $2,000

🥉 3rd Place: $1,000

🏊‍♀️ General Pool*: $1,500

* General Pool will be divided evenly among all projects that qualify to this track but did not achieve the first three.

2. Blockchain + AI = ?

21th century is huge, not because of one reason, but two. Use blockchain and AI together to discover the new frontier.

In this track, the only condition is to use AI and blockchain together in the same product. There is no other limits, but your imagination.

Project will be judged based on:

• code quality
• technical competence
• originality of the idea and the solution
• meaningful usage of blockchain
• decentralization
• completeness of the submission
• meaningful usage of AI

🏆 1st Place: $3,500

🥈 2nd Place: $2,000

🥉 3rd Place: $1,000

🏊‍♀️ General Pool*: $1,500

* General Pool will be divided evenly among all projects that qualify to this track but did not achieve the first three.

3. 10 Years of Ethereum

Ethereum has turned 10 this year, and we are celebrating it in the best way we know: backing builders.

The 10 Years of Ethereum Track is open to all Ethereum projects in the hackathon. No limits, no minimums; just bring something meaningful to the ecosystem.

🏆 1st Place: $4,500

Company Bounties

RISE - $10,000

About Rise

RISE is a high speed Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain built for mass adoption. It enables near-instant transactions at scale with as low as sub-5ms latency, while upholding Ethereum’s core principle of decentralization. RISE is on track to exceed 100,000 transactions per second throughput capacity, enabling it to support millions of users simultaneously.

By eliminating long-standing barriers to adoption, RISE offers a radically improved experience for both developers and users, unlocking a new generation of onchain applications.

Track 1: DeFi 3.0 - $6,000 in Prizes

Ethereum has cemented itself as the home of DeFi where all major DeFi innovation takes place, from AMMs & money markets establishing the core primitives of DeFi all the way to advanced money legos. This lead has been driven by a number of factors such as superior developer tooling and the permissionless and composable nature of the EVM which enables builders to easily deploy new products. However, performance has been a bottleneck in advancing DeFi. CEXs still dominate in terms of volumes & AUM. A big reason for this is that EVM chains today still lack the capacity and latency to compete with CEXs. Solana has attracted significant trading volume, boasting much higher throughput and better latency relative to currently live EVM chains. This shows that higher throughput and lower latency can attract more onchain volume and allow for more efficient trading per $ of liquidity provided. With RISE’s high throughput and low latency stack, a new wave of DeFi applications becomes possible.

For this track, any innovative DeFi protocol that takes advantage of RISE’s high performance will be eligible.

Ideas to Explore

Onchain Options Protocols – options have yet to see major adoption in DeFi, however in TradFi they are extremely prominent. This means there is a large gap to potentially build a fully onchain options protocol. The composable nature of DeFi means this could be built either as a primitive or on top of other protocols such as AMMs or CLOBs.

Structured Products – structured products help solve user pain points. For example, Pendle structures yield by splitting and trading future yield. By combining tokenisation and the EVM’s composable nature, there is an opportunity to build other structured products which can solve user pain points.

Yield Protocols and Money Legos – With RISE’s performance, onchain CLOBs within the EVM are poised to see huge growth. This will unlock a number of new yield opportunities and money legos. For example, building a fully trustless yield-bearing stablecoin with Ethena-like mechanics becomes possible. Other more advanced DeFi strategies also become possible by combining CLOBs with other DeFi primitives.

Other innovative ideas will be considered.

Prizes

🏆 1st Place: $3,000

🥈 2nd Place: $2,000

🥉 3rd Place: $1,000

Track 2: Open Track - $3,000 in Prizes

Beyond DeFi, RISE enables developers to push onchain UX into real-world usability. Wallet upgrades like EIP-7702, gas sponsorship and passkey-based auth remove friction and allow seamless onboarding.

Ideas to Explore

Onchain Games – Over the past 20 years the gaming industry has grown exponentially. With RISE’s high performance on the EVM, new possibilities for onchain games are unlocked. The EVM provides unique possibilities for multiplayer experiences in addition to composability, permissionless customisation and modifications.

Mobile-First dApps – For a majority of the population, the primary way of interacting with various applications is via mobile. However, the majority of onchain apps are still browser based. With RISE, tech builders can build mobile apps that provide users with a seamless UX leveraging session keys and gas sponsorship.

SocialFi Apps – A number of SocialFi apps have gained prominence, however none have gained mass adoption. Combining the performance of RISE with a seamless UX means builders can build fully onchain social apps ready for mass adoption.

Other innovative ideas will be considered.

Prizes

🏆 1st Place: $2,000

🥈 2nd Place: $1,000

Track 3: Community Favorite - $1,000 Prize

After the hackathon, the RISE Community will vote on their favorite hackathon project.

🏆 1st Place: $1,000

Resources for Builders

• Shred API

RISE Toolkit –The Shred API is RISE Chain's revolutionary approach to blockchain transaction processing, enabling real-time confirmations and state updates while maintaining full EVM compatibility.

• RISE Wallet SDK (MVP)

npm package – A fork of Porto deployed on RISE enabling gas sponsorship, session key usage, and passkey integration.

• RISE Vibe Kit

GitHub – Full-stack templates for building dApps on RISE

Docs : https://docs.risechain.com/

Rules & Requirements

1. Projects must be deployed on RISE Testnet.

2. Open-source submissions only (GitHub repo link required).

3. Teams must provide a demo + pitch deck during final submission.

4. Code originality: No direct copies of existing projects, but forks with major new functionality are allowed.

5. Long term: Projects built with long term intentions will be prioritized.

6. Teams can have up to 5 members.

7. Winners will be judged on:

Technical implementation

Creativity / Innovation

User Experience & Design

Market Fit / Potential Impact 

Total Prize Pool: $10,000

DeFi 3.0 Track: $6,000

Open Track: $3,000

Community Favorite: $1,000

Yellow - $5,000

About Yellow

Yellow is a global Web3 ecosystem of products and services, building the infrastructure that lets developers create apps with Web2 speed and Web3 trust.

At its core is the Yellow SDK - a high-performance, chain-agnostic toolkit powered by state-channel technology. It enables teams to build fast, low-cost, user-friendly dApps without heavy smart contract complexity or endless gas fees.

Builders are already using the protocol across fintech, payments, trading, gaming, and marketplaces - and now, we need your help to onboard the next 1000 builders.

Hackathon Project Requirements

• Integrate Nitrolite SDK: demonstrate the use of ERC-7824 in facilitating state channel mechanisms within your application
• Provide a Working Demo: submit a functional demonstration of your application, showcasing the integration
• Open Source Your Code: ensure your project’s codebase is publicly accessible for evaluation

Prize Pool

🏆 1st place: $2,000

🥈 2nd place: $1,500

🥉 3rd place: $1000

💡 Protocol / Documentation Contribution: $500

Resources and More Details

Check out our Notion page for more details!

https://yellow-net.notion.site/ETH-Istanbul-2025-26375b8feb048071adabc0b22870353b

Aptos - $3,000

About Aptos

Aptos delivers parallel execution, sub-second finality, and low fees at scale, providing infrastructure that works for both developers and users.

Build the Future of DeFi on Aptos

We’re looking for projects that rethink finance in an open, scalable way. This is your chance to build what DeFi is missing: liquidity engines, payment rails, lending protocols, and next-generation trading apps.

What can you build?

Here are some ideas to spark inspiration:

• Trading & Market Infrastructure: matching engines, limit order books, strategy vaults, DeFi dashboards.
• New Financial Products: RWA marketplaces, prediction markets, social investing apps, gamified vaults, mobile-first interfaces.
• Payments & Value Transfer: real-time payroll or remittance streams, cross-border stablecoin rails, embedded wallets, fiat on/off ramps.

Why join?

• With Aptos’ parallel execution and sub-second finality, your projects won’t just remain prototypes, they can be ready for real-world use.
• Build user-friendly products with global scalability in mind.
• All the resources you need to get started are here:

https://aptos.dev

https://learn.aptoslabs.com

Expand Your Impact!

Aptos is also running the CTRL+MOVE: A Global Online Hackathon with a $100K prize pool, bringing together builders from around the world. Projects you build for this bounty can also be submitted there, as long as you expand on them with meaningful additions.

This gives you the opportunity not only to compete here, but also to showcase your work on a global stage, unlock larger rewards, and gain visibility across the broader Aptos ecosystem.

https://aptosfoundation.org/events/ctrl-move

Prizes

🏆 1st Place: $1,500

🥈 2nd Place: $1,000

🥉 3rd Place: $500

Citrea - $2,500

About Citrea

Citrea is the first ZK Rollup that scales Bitcoin while preserving its security and decentralization. By ensuring on-chain verifiability and data availability directly on Bitcoin, Citrea makes it possible to build everything on Bitcoin.

With Clementine, Bitcoin’s first trust-minimized bridge (1-of-N), Bitcoin’s trillion-dollar asset base can finally be utilized in DeFi and money markets, unlocking massive untapped liquidity. As Bitcoin’s execution layer, Citrea brings smart contracts to Bitcoin without needing any change to its consensus or current form.

Bounty Theme: Build Bitcoin Apps (“Bapps”) on Citrea

We’re rewarding teams that ship meaningful Bitcoin-powered applications leveraging Citrea’s zk-rollup. Start something new or extend an existing project—just integrate Citrea in a real, verifiable way.

Tracks (choose one — or submit under Open):

1. DeFi BappsEG:

BTC Options & Structured Products: onchain options, covered calls, yield vaults.

Privacy Trading / Dark Pools: anti-MEV trading, hidden order books with ZK.

Money Markets: non-custodial lending/borrowing for BTC or BTC-correlated assets.

Miners’ Tools: incentive/hedging tools, payout rails, dashboards.

2. Social BappsEG:

Stacking Circles: saving clubs with streaks, leaderboards, shared goals.

Social Gifting & Micro-Patronage: gifting flows, milestone sponsorships.

3. Open Innovation

Anything novel that uses Citrea meaningfully and pushes Bitcoin UX forward.

These themes are prompts, not limits. Surprise us.

What Makes a Valid submission

To qualify for a Citrea bounty, your project must:

• Integrate Citrea (contracts deployed to Citrea testnet and/or frontend using Citrea RPC).
• Be open source (public GitHub during judging).
• Provide a working demo (video or live link).
• Include on TAIKAI: project description, repo links, deployed addresses/tx hashes, and how you’re using Citrea.

Judging Criteria (100 pts)

• Originality & Impact (20%) — Is this a fresh, valuable contribution to the Bitcoin app ecosystem?
• Functionality (15%) — Do core features work? Is the demo credible?
• UX/UI (15%) — Clear flows, approachable design, smooth interactions.
• Technical Excellence (15%) — Sound architecture, smart contract quality, prudent security assumptions.
• Documentation (15%) — Setup notes, architecture overview, how to run/redeploy.
• Citrea & BTC Alignment (20%) — Depth and quality of Citrea integration; clear Bitcoin-centric value.

Getting Started (Resources)

• Docs:https://docs.citrea.xyz/developer-documentation/deployment-guide
• GitHub:https://github.com/chainwayxyz/citrea
• Deployment Guide:https://docs.citrea.xyz/developer-documentation/deployment-guide
• RPC (Testnet): https://rpc.testnet.citrea.xyz
• Faucet:https://citrea.xyz/faucet
• Ecosystem Examples:https://citrea.xyz/ecosystem
• Discord Support:https://discord.com/invite/citrea
• Telegram Support:https://t.me/+cFuc78hdp2xlMTk0m @myilmaz3 , @otaliptus 

Technical Requirements (Quick Checklist)

• Uses Citrea testnet RPC in the app.

• Contracts deployed to Citrea (share addresses + at least one tx hash).

• If bridging or using BTC semantics, describe your approach and trust assumptions.

• Include README with: setup, environment, deploy script/commands, and how to reproduce the demo.

Rules & Eligibility

• New builds and extensions are both welcome, but your ETHIstanbul submission must be new work created during the event.

• Forks/templates are fine if you deliver meaningful improvements.

• Teams may submit to multiple company bounties; ensure your Citrea integration is clear and self-contained.

• Follow all ETHIstanbul event rules and deadlines

Submission Format (on TAIKAI)

1. Title & short pitch (what it is, who it’s for).

2. Problem & solution (why Bitcoin + Citrea).

3. How you use Citrea (what runs on Citrea, why zkEVM helps).

4. Links: GitHub (public), demo/live URL, Citrea contract addresses & tx hashes.

5. Screenshots / short demo video (1–3 min ideal).

6. What’s next (roadmap beyond the hackathon).

Prizes

🏆 Best DEFI Bapp: $1,000

🏆 Best Social Bapp: $1,000

🏆 Open Innovation: $500