Solana Hackathon
Partnered Hackathon
Event Description
Welcome to the Solana Hackathon! Join us online from November 6–8 for a weekend of building apps that are fast, affordable, and ready for millions of people. Solana is built for speed. Transactions settle in about a second and cost a fraction of a penny. That’s fast and cheap enough to send money across the world instantly, sell concert tickets that can’t be faked, or let players truly own the items they earn in a game. You bring the idea, and Solana handles the speed and scale, so you can build something real this weekend and share it with the world.
No blockchain experience? No problem.
You don’t need to be a web3 veteran to take part. Whether you’re writing your first lines of code or you’ve shipped dozens of dApps, this hackathon rewards creative, practical ideas. A simple app that lets people pay a friend instantly, prove they own something, or play a game where every move counts can have a real impact when it’s built to run at Solana speed. You can use Solana as a powerful backend for almost any project: consumer apps, payments, games, DeFi, or AI agents that act onchain.
Stay tuned for additional details about the event schedule and prizes you can win!
Schedule
Hackathon Schedule
| Day (ET) | PT | ET | UK | IST | Event |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday | 9:00 AM PT | 12:00 PM ET | 5:00 PM UK | 10:30 PM IST | Hacking Begins |
| Friday | 9:00 AM PT | 12:00 PM ET | 5:00 PM UK | 10:30 PM IST | Opening Ceremony |
| Friday | 10:00 AM PT | 1:00 PM ET | 6:00 PM UK | 11:30 PM IST | Team Formation Mini-Event |
| Saturday | 7:00 AM PT | 10:00 AM ET | 3:00 PM UK | 8:30 PM IST | Solana 101 w/ Chaerin |
| Saturday | 7:30 AM PT | 10:30 AM ET | 3:30 PM UK | 9:00 PM IST | Build with AI on Solana w/ Mike |
| Sunday | 7:00 AM PT | 10:00 AM ET | 3:00 PM UK | 8:30 PM IST | Initial Submission due on MLH Challenges |
| Sunday | 8:45 AM PT | 11:45 AM ET | 4:45 PM UK | 10:15 PM IST | Hacking Ends / Final Submission due on MLH Challenges |
| Sunday | 9:00 AM PT | 12:00 PM ET | 5:00 PM UK | 10:30 PM IST | Closing Ceremony |
Opening and closing ceremonies will stream on MLH Blue. Use the linked OHQ pages above to join and check in for workshops.
Additional Information
Prize Tracks
Top 3 Overall
$1,000 USD microgrant for your team to continue building
The three strongest projects at the event. Every eligible submission is automatically entered. We're looking for a working product that uses Solana for something it's good at (speed, low fees, composability, on-chain ownership), not a chain bolted onto a web2 app.
AI Track
Each winning team member will receive a $100 digital gift card.
Build something where AI and Solana each do real work. The best projects use AI to make on-chain activity smarter, safer or easier, or use Solana to give AI systems something they can't get elsewhere, like payments, ownership, verifiability or coordination.
Ideas to Get Started:
- Autonomous agents that hold a wallet and act on-chain: trading, paying for APIs, managing a treasury, or executing tasks with spending limits
- Natural-language interfaces that turn plain requests ("swap half my SOL to USDC") into transactions, with clear confirmation before signing
- Security tools that explain what a transaction will do or flag risky programs, tokens and wallets before a user signs
- Machine payments: AI services paid per request with micropayments or stablecoins
- Verifiable AI: on-chain records of model outputs, datasets or provenance
DeFi Track
Each winning team member will receive a $100 digital gift card.
Build financial applications and protocols that take advantage of Solana's speed, low fees and composability. We want products that move value in ways that are faster, cheaper, more open or more accessible than what exists today.
Ideas to Get Started:
- Payments and stablecoins: checkout flows, payroll, remittances or subscriptions using Solana Pay or SPL stablecoins
- Trading tools: order routing, portfolio rebalancing, automated strategies or analytics dashboards
- Lending, borrowing and yield: new collateral types, credit models or simpler front ends for existing protocols
- Real-world assets: tokenized invoices, savings products or other off-chain assets brought on-chain
- Composability plays: products that combine existing Solana protocols into something new
Gaming Track
Each winning team member will receive a $100 digital gift card.
Build games, or the tools behind them, where Solana makes the experience better. Fun comes first. The blockchain should add something players care about, like true ownership, open economies, verifiable fairness or player-made content.
Ideas to Get Started:
- Fully on-chain games where game state and rules live in Solana programs
- Player-owned assets: items, characters or achievements as NFTs or tokens that players can trade or carry between games
- Game economies: in-game currencies, crafting or marketplaces with on-chain settlement
- Provably fair mechanics: verifiable randomness for loot, matchmaking or outcomes
- Gaming infrastructure: SDKs, wallet onboarding for players, tournament tools or leaderboards
Best Beginner Hack
Each winning team member will receive a $100 digital gift card.
For teams building on Solana for the first time or attending their first-ever hackathon (or both). We want to reward people who took the leap, learned something new and shipped a working project, however small. Teams made up of >50% first-time hackers are eligible for this prize track.
Ideas to Get Started:
- A simple token, NFT collection or on-chain voting app for a club or community
- A Solana Pay checkout for a real or pretend small business
- A wallet-connected app that reads and displays on-chain data in a useful way
- A beginner-friendly tool that helps the next person learn Solana
Hacker Resources
Want to get a head start learning how to build on Solana? Check out these resources.
- Solana Quickstart Guide - Everything you need to start building on Solana.
- Solana Quick Install Guide - One command installs Rust, the Solana CLI, and Anchor on Mac, Linux, or Windows (WSL).
- Solana DevNet Faucet - Fund your DevNet wallet so you’re ready to deploy on day one.
- Solana Developer Templates - Production-ready starters for dApps, DeFi protocols, NFT marketplaces, and more.
- Solana Agent Skills - Pre-built skills that let your AI agents work with Solana programs, tokens, and tooling.
- Solana Courses on Blueshift: Dozens of courses to get comfortable with Solana fast.
- Solana Developer Resource List - Comprehensive list of Solana-related resources to get started with your hack.
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