NEAR, MetaBUILD 2, and Brave Head to ETHDenver

NEAR will be at ETHDenver, as will our MetaBUILD 2 Hackathon, and the Brave browser. The mission: support the global community of developers in building a multi-bridge, multi-chain world! 

The NEAR community, in partnership with Brave, will give attendees at ETHDenver, the world’s largest and longest-running Ethereum event, the chance to take part in MetaBUILD to reimagine gaming on the world’s biggest crypto browser. 

Brave currently has over 54 million monthly active users and recently launched the Brave Wallet, a browser-native crypto wallet. The team is challenging ETHDenver and MetaBUILD hackers to formulate new ways of issuing game skins for the simple, yet addictive, Dino game, available on the Brave browser. Hackers have the choice to either use one of NEAR’s ecosystem’s NFT platforms or develop their own smart contract to complete the task. 

For this MetaBUILD 2 challenge, Brave is putting up a bounty of $20,000 $BAT. This $BAT Match is just one of many fun and creative MetaBUILD 2 challenges driving applicant demand. Both MetaBUILD and ETHDenver empower the global developer community to build leading decentralized Web3 technologies, so we encourage hackers to submit their projects to both hackathons.

When MetaBUILD 2 launched on December 22, 2021, there were 300 participants. To inspire and reward MetaBUILD 2 hackers, we announced $1,000,000 in prize money across 35 sponsor challenges to be awarded to winning projects and development teams—from building decentralized storage and game development to NFT marketplaces and more!

As of today, there are over 3,500 applications—all taking advantage of NEAR’s easy-to-build infrastructure, and bringing their own unique ideas and skills to the task of building with NEAR and the cross-chain Open Web and Metaverse. 

To satisfy hackathon applicant demand, we’re extending MetaBUILD 2 until February 21st, which coincides with the last day of ETHDenver. That means you’ve got more time to submit your ideas for NEAR, the Open Web, or the Metaverse.

More MetaBUILD Hacking at ETHDenver Means More Cross-Chain Collabs

For the Open Web to be fully realized, cross-chain collaborations are absolutely vital. With blockchain platforms working as allies, the future is bright and anything is possible. 

Most crucially, users and developers will be able to move assets, projects, and experiences without friction back and forth across blockchain platforms. By collaborating, tools and products like atomic swaps will preserve privacy across blockchains, instead of exposing identities in transit. 

More upsides to collaboration between NEAR, Ethereum, and other blockchains include efficiency gains in areas like transaction speeds, security, and sustainability.

In other words, cross-chain collaboration will help expand and supercharge decentralized app ecosystems, changing the Internet as we know it—for the better. 

Reimagine Gaming, DeFi, and NFTs for Cross-Chain Future

NEAR is designed to be simple to use, no matter what ecosystem you’re coming from. This simplicity also makes it an ideal platform for cross-chain collaboration projects. 

For MetaBUILD, participants can use Rust, Web Assembly, or other familiar programming languages to build DeFi, Web3, Gaming, Digital Art/Collectibles, as well as infrastructure apps and tools. You can even migrate an existing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) app to the NEAR ecosystem. 

Gaming will be a big focus for the NEAR ecosystem in 2022. After the successful rollout of sharding last year—and an aggressive roadmap designed to increase speed, scalability, and security this year—the gaming ecosystem has flourished. 

With some 30 gaming titles either launched or due to launch in the coming months, it’s never been a better time to jump into the space. And what better way of taking part in NEAR’s gaming ecosystem than by entering NEAR and Brave’s $BAT Match?

Or maybe you want to build an NFT marketplace? Aurora, an Ethereum scaling solution on NEAR, is challenging MetaBUILD 2 participants to hack together an NFT marketplace on its platform. Aurora has experienced massive growth since launching in May 2021, which makes this one of the most popular MetaBUILD challenges. Migrate your ETH project onto NEAR using Aurora and the Rainbow Bridge.

NFT marketplaces Paras and Mintbase are also offering NFT challenges. And lastly, but not leastly, there are opportunities for hackers to build solutions for blockchain oracles, governance, or even for The Graph’s explorer.  

Check out the full list of MetaBUILD 2 sponsor challenges and get hacking for a cross-chain future!

You can visit NEAR and Brave at ETHDenver during the main conference at the Sports Castle (Shill Zone, Floor 2, Booth P5). Also, don’t miss talks by Sampson, Senior Developer Relations Specialist at Brave, and Luke Mulks, VP of Business Operations at Brave, at the NEAR Lounge, located on the 3rd floor of the Jonas Bros Building on February 15-17th during BUILD week. Talks will also be livestreamed.