SpiderHack, the inaugural Botanix Labs hackathon, is complete.

After two months of building, the competition to build creative new projects in the Spiderchain ecosystem has ended, and the winners have been selected. Deciding which projects were the best out of dozens of submissions — everyone who competed has earned the congratulations and gratitude of the entire Spiderchain community and Botanix Labs team.

Keep reading for a list of the winners and what they built.

What is SpiderHack?

From February 5 to March 31, the SpiderHack 2024 event was an open invitation for Bitcoin builders around the world to experiment with a new Layer 2 network built by Botanix Labs. The Botanix EVM, powered by the Spiderchain, makes innovation on Bitcoin easy as the first and only fully EVM-equivalent Layer 2 running on Bitcoin. It transforms any Ethereum application into a plug-and-play solution on Bitcoin!

Botanix Labs believes that the world of decentralized applications needs to be disrupted and rebuilt on Bitcoin, and the Spiderchain community’s goal is to empower and motivate developers to build better dApps running natively on Bitcoin.

In total, the event garnered more than 80 completed submissions.

Who won the hackathon?

All SpiderHack participants competed for three winning placements – a first-place prize followed by two runners up. Two additional prizes were also awarded to the Most Creative Project and the Best Technical Project.

The third place award goes to BotanixCraft, a simple, no-code solution for designing, building, and developing onchain games. The BotanixCraft solution also utilizes IPFS to provide developers with a natural way to upload and manage their audio, video, and 3D model assets, which can be used across their projects. (Watch the demo here.)

The second place award goes to Anansi Wallet, an innovative wallet that eliminates private key management with secure passkey login and offers gas-free transactions. Built on cutting-edge technology, Anansi leverages ERC-4337 standards to showcase the power of account abstraction implemented on the Botanix EVM. Anansi prioritizes user-friendliness while safeguarding user assets with industry-leading security practices. (Watch the demo here.)

The first place award goes to the Botanix Lightning Bridge, which solves the Lightning Network integration problem for the Botanix EVM and other Bitcoin-based EVM layers. This project includes smart contracts with tests, a frontend, and a Lightning Service Provider (LSP) server which facilitates the lightning payments. (Watch the demo here.)

The Most Creative award was given to BotanixCraft.

The Best Technical Project award was given to Botanix Lightning Bridge.

In addition to these winners, a handful of other submissions are worthy of honorable mentions.

• TradeGuardian – a digital asset protocol designed to offer protection for onchain buyers and sellers by leveraging the principles of game theory – specifically the Prisoner's Dilemma – to ensure a safeguarded trading environment. (Watch the demo here.)
• Playmask – an SDK designed to seamlessly integrate Web3 functionalities into games on the Botanix EVM using Azure PlayFab to provide a simplified user experience with automatic onchain wallet management. (Watch the demo here.)
• XCrypt – a privacy-focused solution for the Botanix EVM that draws inspiration from existing privacy-focused blockchains like Monero and tools like Tornado Cash to enable transferring funds anonymously without revealing a user’s real address using stealth addresses. (Watch the demo here.)

Learn more about the winners.

In the coming weeks, the Spiderchain community will dive deeper into each of the winning projects submitted during SpiderHack. All of these builders and their ideas will be explored in more detail across social media and the community channels on Discord.

Botanix Labs is pushing the limits of what is possible with Bitcoin-native finance, and the entire community – and even some industry partners – is excited to share more in-depth information about the winning SpiderHack projects. Stay tuned for more information on these innovative Spiderchain builders!