[ 01 / DFI ]
Unstoppable DeFi
Markets that never close
Build exchanges, perps, lending, vaults and trading agents that settle across chains through NEAR Intents. Deep liquidity, no custodian, nobody to switch it off.
NEAR HACKATHON
The era of programmable money starts here...
Make it real on NEAR
Autonomous payments. Intelligent agents.
Money with a mind of its own.
01 / BUILD DIRECTIONSCHOOSE YOUR
CHOOSE YOUR
BUILD CHANNEL
Pick a problem worth solving.
Bring your own perspective. Build on NEAR.
[ 02 / INV ]
Investment Thesis
Make the long-term case
Build a long-term investment thesis for NEAR and back it with data: onchain analytics, live dashboards and models anyone can re-run. Judged on the evidence, not the conviction.
[ 03 / PRV ]
Privacy & Private AI
Private by design
Explore confidential computation, private finance and AI that protects sensitive data. Build intelligence without exposure.
[ 04 / BUS ]
Autonomous Business
The company of one. Or none
Build AI-native businesses with treasury, sales, procurement, cross-chain payments via NEAR Intents and revenue sharing. Humans only set the constraints.
[ 05 / SWM ]
AI Swarms
Many agents. One economy
Build coordination markets, bidding, collective purchasing, intent-based settlement and emergent economies between agents.
[ 06 / SEC ]
AI Security & Defense
Trust, but verify
Build spending limits, policy engines, sandboxed wallets, reputation and scam detection. Give AI money without giving it the keys to everything.
[ 07 / AGT ]
Agent Economy
Give AI a wallet
Build agents that earn, spend, negotiate, hire other agents and pay for APIs, compute or data — with crypto directly or through NEAR Intents.
[ 08 / RWM ]
Real-World Money
Bring the boring money onchain
Build payroll, invoicing, remittances, merchant payments and stablecoin rails for real businesses. Something a normal company could use tomorrow.
[ 09 / GAM ]
Games With Real Economies
The economy is the gameplay
Build NPCs with wallets, player-owned markets and economies that evolve without a dev patch. Judged on the game loop, not the token — bonus if players never notice the chain.
[ 10 / NFT ]
NFTs That Do Something
What comes after the JPEG
Build NFTs as accounts — assets that own money, earn royalties, hold inventory, carry credentials, memberships or access rights. Ownership with behavior.
[ 11 / MEM ]
Memecoins With Mechanics
The joke needs rules
Build memecoins where the meme does something — supply that reacts to the community, treasuries with rules, onchain rituals and challenges. Judged on the mechanic, not the chart.
[ 12 / SOC ]
Social Money
Coordinate value together
Build shared budgets, programmable rewards, collective ownership and reputation-based access on top of Sputnik DAO and Trezu. Don't rebuild the multisig — build what communities do with it.
[ 13 / NEW ]
Open Innovation
Something we haven't seen
Have an idea that refuses to fit a category? Explore new ways for money, intelligence and ownership to work together.
02 / EXECUTION PLAN
IDEA > BUILD > DEMO
Four stages. One thing to show for it:
something that works.
01
Assemble
Bring your team and choose a track. No sign-up needed to start.
02
Build
Turn your idea into a working prototype. Test the assumptions that matter.
03
Show it
Publish your repository and post your demo on X, with a video or screenshots of what you built.
04
Submit
Send the form with both links: your repository and your demo post.
03 / THE PEOPLE
MEET THE JUDGES
The people reviewing what you build.
Illia Polosukhin
NEAR Protocol
Eddy Lazzarin
a16z crypto
Mert Mumtaz
Helius
Avichal Garg
Electric Capital
Kain Warwick
Synthetix & Infinex
Haseeb Qureshi
Dragonfly
Stepan Gershuni
cyber•Fund
Claude Code & Codex
Anthropic & OpenAI
04 / THE ECOSYSTEM
CONNECTED BY BUILDING
Tools, teams and resources for your next build.
NEAR Intents
Cross-chain execution
Aurora
Ethereum on NEAR
HOT
Chain abstraction
Rhea
DeFi on NEAR
meme.cooking
Memecoin launchpad
HEX
Cross-chain swaps
NEAR.AI
Private AI
SVRN
Sovereign technology
Trezu
Multisig treasury for Web3 teams
SputnikDAO
DAO infrastructure
OutLayer
Secure transactions for AI agents
GoMining
Bitcoin mining superapp
05 / BUILDER TOOLKITLESS SETUP.
LESS SETUP.
MORE SHIPPING
[ START HERE ]
From your first smart contract to your next big idea. Find the guides and building blocks to make it happen on NEAR.
Rather ship than read? Hand HACKATHON.md to your coding agent. It knows the tracks, the dates and the submission steps, and can file your submission. You just build.
THE BUILD DOESN’T HAPPEN ALONEFIND YOUR
FIND YOUR
CO-BUILDERS
Meet collaborators and ask questions in the NEAR Discord. Follow the hackathon on X for the latest updates.
06 / FINAL SUBMISSIONYOUR PROJECT.
YOUR PROJECT.
LANDS HERE
No sign-up to start. Build with your team or solo, then submit once before development ends, 14 Nov 2026 · 23:59 UTC.
01Build your project during the hackathon
02Publish the repository. Judges can’t open a private one
03Post your demo on X: say you built it at NEAR HACKATHON and attach the demo video or screenshots
04Submit the repository link and the link to your demo post. Both are required
07 / FREQUENT QUERIESQUESTIONS?
QUESTIONS?
START HERE
Who can take part?
Developers, designers and people with ideas for the NEAR ecosystem. No wallet connection is needed to submit: you only enter a NEAR account address, and if you win, the prize is sent there.
Do I need a team already?
No. Build as a solo builder or with a team — one submission per team. Looking for teammates? Join the NEAR Discord and find them there.
When does it happen?
The hackathon starts 1 Nov 2026 · 00:00 UTC. Development runs for two weeks and ends 14 Nov 2026 · 23:59 UTC, and results are announced by 18 Nov 2026 · 23:59 UTC. The full schedule is in the at-a-glance panel.
What should we submit?
A working prototype in a public repository and a public demo post on X: say you built it at NEAR HACKATHON and attach the demo video or screenshots. Send both links through the form before development ends, 14 Nov 2026 · 23:59 UTC.
How will projects be judged?
Projects are reviewed by the jury above, with Claude Code & Codex joining as AI judges. Previous NEAR hackathons evaluated technical implementation, design, impact, originality and sustainability — a good guide to prepare by.
Can I build something across multiple tracks?
Yes. Select every track your project fits in the submission form. It is still one submission per team.