The Solana-based Layer-2 network Sonic SVM is looking to ignite growth in its ecosystem via an online hackathon that will see it give away $1 million in prizes to the most innovative application builders in a range of key verticals.
It’s launching the Mobius Hackathon today, just ten days before its mainnet goes live, and it will run until March 17, giving teams plenty of time to come up with some ingenious decentralized applications in areas such as DeFi and gaming.
The opportunity is sure to generate some excitement in the developer community, for Sonic SVM is one of the most promising Solana-based projects around. It has developed the infrastructure required to easily spin up what it calls “game-specific rollups”, which are customized and dedicated L2 networks that enable blockchain games to scale with rapid transaction processing and low fees.
The startup raised $12 million in funding last year, and at the time it said that it wants to be seen as the foundation of Solana’s nascent GameFi industry. It originally targeted the blockchain gaming niche because it noticed that Solana has struggled to attract game developers due to the competition it faces from gaming-focused networks like Immutable X and Oasys. With its Sonic Virtual Machine-based L2 infrastructure, it believes it can easily match the performance of those chains.
One of Sonic SVM’s biggest advantages is its horizontal scaling framework HyperGrid, which helps to enhance the performance of SVM chains. Through HyperGrid, developers can customize various aspects of their L2s and support versatile data formats. In addition, HyperGrid supports the use of various popular developer tools, allowing users to create their game universes using their favorite development environments and programming languages.
With the imminent launch of its mainnet on the horizon, Sonic SVM now seems to think the time has come to expand beyond gaming, and is pitching its L2 infrastructure as an ideal platform for various types of dApps. To that end, it’s opening four tracks in the Mobius Hackathon. Developers will be able to compete for prizes in the Attention Capital market, building dApps for user acquisition and tokenization across traditional social media platforms. Alternatively, they can create DeFi applications such as asset launchpads, trading bots, yield farming algorithms, lending protocols and so on, all of which are sorely needed to build out its nascent ecosystem.
It’s also seeking builders of AI applications, with a particular focus on agent aggregators, developer tooling, initial agent offerings and other AI infrastructure projects. Of course, the fourth track sticks firmly to its roots in GameFi, and developers are encouraged to build mini-games, social games, fully on-chain games and others that can generate high average revenue per user.
Sonic SVM didn’t break down how it intends to distribute the $1 million prize fund, but it seems safe to assume there’s $250K up for grabs in each track. Ultimately, it hopes the contest will help to catalyze the development of Sonic-based dApps while highlighting the strengths of its infrastructure.
As well as announcing the contest, Sonic’s team said they’re also inviting applicants who’d like to sit on its panel of judges to help evaluate the hackathon submissions. It’s looking for qualified individuals that can assess each project’s technical depth and practical applications in order to determine their real-world feasibility, it said. Judges will also be expected to provide “constructive feedback” to builders to ensure every participant benefits from the experience, even if they fail to secure a prize.
Sonic SVM didn’t say exactly what’s in it for the judges, but it does expect them to be active on social media, taking a hands-on role in terms of engaging with hackathon entrants and promoting the best projects that emerge. In doing this, Sonic SVM hopes they’ll be able to increase awareness of the kinds of innovative applications being built on its infrastructure.
Once the hackathon concludes on March 17, the judges will spend two weeks assessing each entry before announcing the winners on April 2.
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Source: https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2025/02/sonic-svm-announces-1m-hackathon-to-kick-start-solana-l2-ecosystem-growth