A Quick Overview of 24 Outstanding Projects from the ETH Shanghai Hackathon

The ETH Shanghai Hackathon was held online from May 20 to 31, and officially concluded on June 3. During the hackathon, over 900 participants registered and more than 200 projects were submitted. After scoring by the judges, 24 outstanding projects that utilized the development tools provided by sponsors stood out and showcased their hackathon works on the online Demo Day on June 3.

The ETH Shanghai Hackathon is a parallel event of the Ethereum Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit, led by Mask Network and co-organized by Gitcoin, aimed at encouraging emerging developers to build creative and innovative applications that can create a new landscape for the Web 3.0 world.

The Ethereum Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit is hosted by members of the ETH Shanghai organizing committee (Low Dimensional Technology and Omniverse), co-organized by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (referred to as "China Green Development Association") and Tongshang China, with strong support from the Ethereum Foundation. The Ethereum Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit and hackathon activities were selected for the "Important Academic Conference Guide (2022)" by the China Association for Science and Technology, reflecting the association's professional recognition of the summit and its concern for current internet technologies.

This hackathon's sponsors provided developers with over $140,000 in prizes to attract developers to utilize their networks or technologies for building the next generation of social networks. The developer teams participating in the Demo Day came from all over the world, with judges from top Web 3.0 projects and related venture capital institutions, including the Ethereum Foundation, ConsenSys, Polygon, NEAR, Mask Network, Dragonfly Capital, Digital Currency Group, Hash Global, and Y2Z Ventures (you can visit the hackathon official website for the complete list of judges). At the same time, the Ethereum Foundation also supported the smooth holding of this hackathon.

The ETH Shanghai Hackathon saw the emergence of over 200 teams building projects across multiple applications, with decentralized social networking being the focal theme. Several teams responded to popular concepts such as Soul Bound Tokens (SBT) and Decentralized Identity (DID), covering many very specific Web3 application scenarios, such as email sending, dating, private messaging, crowdfunding, business scenarios, on-chain gaming, and more. This paints a rich and diverse picture of the future of Web3 social networking.

ETH Shanghai Hackathon Award List (with display ranking in parentheses):

Overall Awards

Gold Award

• MetaMail (1) provides Web3 email services. Users of MetaMail can use their wallet address/ENS as their email address, encrypting or signing to ensure security. All features of MetaMail are free, and during this hackathon, MetaMail developed a user recommendation feature using KNN3's user attention relationships.

Silver Award

• Kwildb-cli (19) is an interactive terminal, command-line client, and database import tool.

Bronze Award (two winners)

• DAOU (10): DAOU (++io++) uses Soulbound Tokens and Social Oracle to convert users' daily activity data in the DAO (such as Discord activity, DAO contributions, social relationships) into on-chain verifiable data.
• VokaAI (6): Voka embodies the new generation of Web 3.0 technology. Voka not only generates unique anime avatars through proprietary AI technology but also uses existing NFT PFPs to create digital identities.

Category Awards (project introductions are detailed below)

• Best Decentralized Identity Project: Def Network (11)
• Best On-Chain Data Project: Web3 Shop (14)
• Best Permission Control Project: TogethDAO (4)
• Best Web2-Web3 Bridge Project: Scam Sniffer (12)
• Best Social Gaming Project: Arche Network (16)
• Best Arweave Ecosystem Project: Kwildb-cli (19)
• Best Communication Project Award: Xmtp-Lit (22)

The following are the Demo Day showcased projects (arranged in display order):

1. MetaMail ( ++@MetaMailInk++) (Gold Award Project)

MetaMail (metamail.link) provides Web3 email services that are compatible with regular email, allowing users to freely send and receive emails with any other email (such as Gmail and QQ Mail). Users of MetaMail can use their wallet address/ENS as their email address, enhancing email security through digital signatures and end-to-end encryption. All features of MetaMail are free and without gas fees. During this hackathon, MetaMail developed a user recommendation feature using KNN3's user attention relationships.

2. ETHChat

ETHChat provides filtering services in XMTP and CyberConnect, allowing users to filter private messages from people they follow. The user interface consists of three parts: following, followers, and mutual follows, and users can send follow requests through ETHChat.

3. Art By City ( ++@artbycity++)

Art By City (artby.city) aims to create a Web3 art storage protocol. This hackathon developed the first Art By City node, which will track the status of art assets stored on Arweave through the Meson Network to reward creators.

4. TogethDAO (Best Permission Control Project)

TogethDAO is a crowdfunding platform guaranteed by smart contracts that is secure and transparent. It allows users to pool their tokens together to solve the problem of purchasing Ethereum FT token gas fees and the high cost of blue-chip NFTs. The proposal is closed-loop through four steps: creation, cross-chain, purchase, and sale. Participating users will receive tokens after the proposal is completed. More DAO features will continue to be developed in the future, including but not limited to using funds to purchase FT or NFT, allowing users to flexibly participate in the formation of micro VCs within social circles, co-investing, fund management, and more.

5. Proof of Soul (Fast Red Wood)

Proof of Soul is a permissionless soul token issuance and proof protocol that establishes rich human connections for decentralized societies.

6. VokaAI (Bronze Award Project)

VOKA AI is a new form of the next generation of Web3.0 natives. VOKA AI can generate exclusive anime avatars through AI technology and also use existing NFT PFPs to create digital identities. At the same time, VOKA AI will collaborate with top designers and clothing brands worldwide to create various virtual outfits and sell them through the OpenSea platform. Users can traverse different application scenarios with their digital identities, such as video conferencing, online live streaming, virtual socializing, and even Web3.0 gaming.

7. Popula ( ++@beepopula++)

Popula aims to establish a new Web3 creator economy infrastructure, building a reputation system through non-transferable fungible tokens (NFTs) and creating a value network to help creators monetize and incentivize community participants to co-create.

8. CryptoIn

CryptoIn aims to create a LinkedIn for Crypto, building a social platform for blockchain professionals using decentralized technology. Users can introduce their professional skills, seek suitable job opportunities or entrepreneurial partners; project parties can seek cooperation, raise funds, and find Web3 professionals. All data and chat content are stored in a decentralized manner, allowing everyone to connect freely in the world of Crypto.

9. Tai-Shang Soul Card

Addressing the social needs of various groups in distributed societies (DeSoc), the NonceGeek team created the SoulCard product ------ an on-chain business card that signifies the soul's group identity.

10. DAOU (Bronze Award Project)

DAOU uses Soulbound Tokens and Social Oracle to convert members' activity data in the DAO (Discord activity and participation, forum Q&A, GitHub code contributions, DAO roles, and connections) into on-chain verifiable data. Social Oracle refers to incentivizing members within the same DAO to sign and verify the data generated within the DAO, making this data more credible. Verified data will be published to members' Soulbound Tokens and can be accessed by third parties. This functionality can be used for credit loans, targeted airdrops, and whitelisting to prevent DDoS attacks, etc.

11. Def Network (Best Decentralized Identity Project) (++@NetworkDef++)

Def Network is a collaborative tool for creating user tags for wallet addresses. Def Network allows developers and analysts to more easily obtain on-chain user profiles. The organized on-chain behavior data of Def Network is integrated into easily understandable and usable Events and Properties, allowing any user to query a list of addresses that meet the criteria. Users can use Def Network for airdrops, recommendations, building on-chain user profiles, or developing trading tools, etc.

12. Scam Sniffer (Best Web2-Web3 Bridge Project)

Scam Sniffer is a browser extension built on the Mask Network ecosystem that helps users identify potential phishing risks in real-time, protecting users' asset security. Meanwhile, if the extension detects a phishing site, it will report it to the MetaMask anti-phishing center to timely block related sites and phishing addresses, minimizing the phishing risks faced by Crypto users.

13. ZkSafebox

zkSafebox - Zero-Knowledge Safe: An asset safe based on zero-knowledge proofs, requiring a password to withdraw assets, which does not touch the network. If the password is stolen, the safe remains secure; if the private key is stolen, the safe also remains secure; only if both the password and private key are stolen will the safe be at risk. If users forget their passwords, they can recover through social means.

14. Web3shop (Best On-Chain Data Project) (++@Lab3_Web3Shop++)

Web3Shop is a next-generation e-commerce social platform built specifically for Web3. The concept of Web3Shop is to bring designers and users together in a community to collaboratively complete product design and production, establishing new social relationships for social e-commerce and injecting incentive models. Web3Shop aims to eliminate the drawbacks of Web2 e-commerce, returning traffic and power to users, and achieving growth by expanding the network of social e-commerce, dedicated to building the most user-friendly Web3 community.

15. Marry3 ( ++@marryinweb3++)

Marry3 is a social experiment project, initially inspired by the underlying thinking of 0x addresses as natives in Web3, and the grounded idea is based on reflections on some unhealthy phenomena in the Web3 ecosystem. Ultimately, Marry3's phased answer is a non-tradable, non-transferable, paired binding non-financial NFT, perfectly aligning with the concept of SBTs (soulbound tokens), which Marry refers to as Paired Soulbound Tokens. Around this idea, Marry3 has built a basic SBTs contract and upper-layer multi-signature negotiation and DAO arbitration business contracts and dApps. In the future, the issuance of tokens and the investment of all income into the pool as ecological economic incentives cannot be ruled out.

16. Arche Network (Best Social Gaming Project) ( ++@Arche_Network++)

Arche Network is a community-driven Web3 gaming ecosystem. By developing and integrating Web3 protocol tools, it helps players create beneficial impacts within the community, exchange value, share creations, and collaborate. During this hackathon, Arche shared the DID system and its practical solutions in the DID field with Project Galaxy.

17. RomaN-Date

​​RomaN is a SocialFi dating dApp that operates on the principle of trust and transparency through the LIKE option for pre-payment, payment, and earning. Blockchain and the sponsorship agreements from this hackathon provide RomaN with excellent solutions to leverage content, interoperability, and incentives to shift the Web2 dating industry towards Web3. RomaN's user interactions will be based on decentralized protocols, with users receiving referral links through CyberConnect, viewing pre-generated profiles through RSS3, and being able to communicate with their digital identities via XMTP.

18. Starlight Social

Starlight Social is a refreshing new social platform built on the Moonbase Alpha blockchain, aiming to leverage the exclusive pre-compatibility advantages on Moonbeam to provide a new social experience while maintaining protocol security.

Starlight Social allows users to share media information and rewards them for doing so. At the same time, the value brought by users is collateralized using Moonbeam's unique pre-paid protocol, allowing users to gain additional collective benefits while sharing with each other.

19. Kwil db-Cli (Silver Award Project + Best Arweave Ecosystem Project)

Kwildb-cli is an interactive terminal, command-line client, and database import tool. Conceptually modeled after mysql and psql terminal clients to provide a comfortable developer experience. It allows users to interactively input queries, issue queries to the Kwil database (with an option to sync to the blockchain), and see the query results. SQL input can be read from files as a database import tool. A configuration wizard allows for easy creation and quick recovery of Kwil Data Moat configurations.

20. Shorum

Shorum is a social value derivative platform for the Web3 network, using relationships generated by RSS3 and KNN3 to derive a payment scheme with social attributes. It can be used in scenarios such as community payments, fan payments, and DAO salary distributions. It supports whitelisting, NFT verification, and other features.

21. Web3nft.social ( ++@Web3HackerNinja++)

Web3NFT.Social aims to build a Web3 version of Linktree, with browser plugin support so that users can see the ratings of various accounts on Twitter and link to the platform's homepage. Based on this, Web3NFT.Social will gradually launch NFT SaaS services to serve more Web2 users in using Web3. For example, providing automated NFT generation services, and allowing on the homepage to set up on-chain permission verification based on LIT (https://litprotocol.com/) to achieve various services on the platform. This hackathon also developed a prototype for filter chat based on LIT + XMTP + CyberConnect, which will be developed into a basic functional service on the platform in the future.

22. Xmtp-lit (Best Communication Project Award) (The darkrai07)

Xmtp-lit is an embedded chat application of Xmtp and CyberConnect, allowing users to send messages to others through the application. Xmtp-lit also has features for adding friends by address and filtering friends' messages.

23. Fraction Interface

Fraction is a protocol that allows users to earn yields on specific assets, capable of wrapping assets (usually stablecoins) on ERC1155, and earning yields in the form of custom token superflows. Fraction also provides the functionality to mint soulbound NFTs, binding users to their assets and earning more benefits.

24. Superfluid Ceramic AddressBook

Superfluid is a smart contract framework on EVM networks that allows users to transfer assets on-chain according to predefined rules called protocols. Through a single on-chain transaction, funds will flow in real-time from the payer's wallet to the payee.

For more information about the ETH Shanghai Hackathon, please follow the Twitter account @ETHShanghai2022.