Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest digital asset exchange and blockchain protocol – Binance Smart Chain, announced Semiott Protocol, Whrrl and GoSats as the top three winners of the Build For Bharat, the first DeFi focussed Hackathon in India, initiated to bridge the gap between blockchain and mass adoption. The hackathon is sponsored by Google Cloud, Polygon ( Previously Matic Network ), Marlin Protocol , Band Protocol , Ankr cloud infrastructure under the Polaris Accelerator Program.
The winners were selected from a pool of 350+ developers and startups that had applied for the Build for Bharat program and were challenged with multiple tasks including a 48 hours long hackathon and Binance Smart Chain integrations. The top 8 finalists battled it out at a virtual Demo Day with participants attending from across the globe. The event also saw an opening address by Changpeng Zhao, CEO, Binance and a panel discussion featuring Nischal Shetty, CEO, WazirX , Ryan Fang, Coo and Co-Founder, Ankr, Pratik Reddy, Head of Research at Marlin Protocol and Raghu Mohan, CEO, Lumos labs.
The winner of the Hackathon, the Semiott Protocol by Gokul Alex , a serial entrepreneur, is an algorithmic stablecoin for value veracity. Whrrl , the first runners up is a blockchain platform connecting custodian of assets (warehouse) and banks with integrated commodity trading platform, while GoSats , a Bitcoin stacking app that lets users earn bitcoin rewards when they shop with partnered merchants, were the second runners up. The Top 3 winning projects will secure prizes from a pool of 40,000 USD that includes Google Cloud Credits.
“This hackathon has been an interesting and enriching experience. We are happy to provide the catalyst for the growth of the DeFi economy in India.” said Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO at Binance . “The disruptive projects and ideas that we have seen through this engagement has been a testimony to India’s readiness for a decentralized economy and at Binance we are happy to provide the necessary fuel to augment this innovation.” he added.
Build for Bharat aimed to identify creators, innovators, startups, and developers from all over India working on unique and creative products utilizing digital assets and blockchain technology around decentralized finance (DeFi) such as mini-Tokens, micro financing products, blockchain datasets, blockchain-AI solutions and more.
Additionally, this month Binance launched the Most Valuable Builder Program under the $100M fund set up to connect defi and CeFi. The program aims to help BSC-based startups gain industry exposure and accelerate their business growth. Participants from existing hackathons, including Build for Bharat can participate in the program. Applications for the first round of MVB Program will close by 28th Feb.
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