An ideathon on the Web3 database. August 2026 · fully online · free to enter.
Pitch what you'd build on Arkiv — the queryable, tamper-proof Web3 database. Ideas, not prototypes: you design the concept and its Arkiv data model; you don't have to deploy anything. If you can describe the entities you'd write, the queries you'd run, and why the idea genuinely needs Arkiv — you can enter.
Three back-to-back challenges run across August — AI & DevTools, then Marketplaces, then DeFi — each accepting submissions only during its own window, alongside an open Other lane that runs all month. Every submission goes through the same form and is scored on the same rubric.
Submissions closed on 31 August 2026. Every entry was scored against the published rubric by its track host.
Host: Santiago · window 3–11 Aug 2026 · 80 canonical submissions judged
| Idea | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Tried That | A shared, self-expiring registry of what does NOT work, so coding agents stop burning tokens rediscovering the same dead ends — confidence is simply how many reports are still alive. |
| 2nd | Capability Canary | An agent capability index where every claim dies unless an independent prober re-proves it, so the product's answer is an absence nobody can suppress. |
| 3rd | MCP Attest | A neutral, expiring evidence layer where independent scanners, publishers and monitors attest to an exact MCP release and tool-schema hash before an agent connects. |
Host: Santiago · open all month, closed 31 Aug 2026 · 89 canonical submissions judged
| Idea | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Tideland | A shared game world with no server and no studio, where every building is an Arkiv entity you pay rent on — pine lasts a week, stone a season, a monument five years — and whatever the players stop caring about literally sinks off the map, because the decay is not game code someone can patch, it is the database. |
| 2nd | Layak | Indonesian statutory crane and forklift fitness certificates written as Arkiv entities whose lifetime IS the certificate's legal validity, so the gate check at a site entrance is one existence query with no date comparison in it to get wrong. |
| 3rd | GelGit | Data that lives on the publisher's own machine and surfaces on Arkiv only during the window it is actually needed, with the timetable itself published on-chain so anyone can query when it comes back. |
Host: Shantelle Awomoyi · window 12–20 Aug 2026
| Idea | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Still Yours | A listing that stays alive only while the seller keeps proving they still have the item — an unrenewed claim simply disappears, so a sold ticket cannot stay listed on four other venues. |
| 2nd | Shared Compute Lease Board | A signed lease ledger for ephemeral agent sandboxes where the lease and the reservation are the same object, so orphaned compute dies on schedule instead of leaking budget and two agents cannot silently hold the same box. |
| 3rd | Strikethrough | Every price a listing has been offered at is written as an append-only, self-expiring entity signed by the seller, so the struck-through was-price becomes a fact anyone can verify in one query instead of a claim the seller makes about its own past. |
Host: Marcos Miranda · window 21–31 Aug 2026
| Idea | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Chorus | A witness log, not an oracle — solvers and keepers publish signed, short-lived observations of DeFi state too small or fast-moving to justify oracle-grade economic security, and their standing is only as good as their last corroborated report. |
| 2nd | PARALLAX | PARALLAX lets a DeFi risk analyst see the blast radius of a protocol failure before it cascades, not after. |
| 3rd | Wallet Guardian | Turn your wallet's invisible token approvals into shared security intelligence, see what each permission can do, how much is at risk, and which real exploit it resembles, powered by an exploit-and-reputation graph that lives on Arkiv so any wallet or dApp can read it. |
Podium-grade ideas that carry no prize — two because their authors had already won in another track (the rules award one prize per person across every entry), one because of a host tie-break that is written down in the winners sheet rather than applied silently.
| Idea | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| No prize | On the Clock | A 90-day vulnerability disclosure embargo as a transferable Arkiv entity whose lifetime IS the deadline, so the notification date, the party responsible right now, and every request for more time become facts instead of claims. |
| No prize | Half-Life | An accessibility map where every fact rots on purpose, so a step-free route shows green only while somebody has confirmed it in the last six hours, and the operator cannot delete the reports that say otherwise. |
| No prize | Warranti | A public warranty registry where the entity's lifetime IS the coverage period, so a second-hand buyer verifies a phone with one query and no wallet, and the shop that owes the repair no longer holds the record that decides whether it owes it. |
Prizes are $500 / $300 / $200 per track, as published. The DeFi placings are Marcos Miranda's.
SHOWCASE.md lists 232 ideas — name and one-line pitch for each. AI & DevTools (78) and the open Other lane (87) are ordered by the judging panel's score; Marketplaces (67) is alphabetical, because that track's scorecards belong to its host. Placeholder entries are excluded. DeFi is not listed: its window closed after the snapshot this is built from, so the data would be partial.
The strongest 50, plus a 20-idea sample from Marketplaces, laid out and filterable: ideathon.arkiv.network.
Idea names and pitches are published under the showcase licence in RULES §11 and the submission form's own showcase consent. No participant names, contacts or wallets appear anywhere in this repo.
| Challenge | Submission window | Host | What belongs here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · AI & DevTools | Aug 3 – 11 | Santiago Zuluaga | Tools where your agent needs queryable, time-scoped, tamper-proof coordination state across runs, commits, tasks or repos |
| 2 · Marketplaces | Aug 12 – 20 | Shantelle Awomoyi | Listings, quotes, bookings, bounties — anything with a lifecycle that should filter cleanly and expire itself |
| 3 · DeFi | Aug 21 – 31 | Marcos Miranda | Queryable, time-scoped, tamper-proof market evidence and coordination state — kept off the execution hot path |
| Other | All month | Santiago Zuluaga (open lane) | Anything else that genuinely needs Arkiv's model: registries, provenance, governance, social graphs, game state |
Each numbered challenge is hosted and accepts its submissions during the same window: its host runs sessions and highlights while it is open, and entries to that challenge close when its window does. The open Other lane is the exception — it runs all month and closes with the event on Aug 31, 23:59 UTC. Full briefs with idea seeds per challenge: Ideation Guide.
Your form answers are the submission — no repo, no deploy, no separate write-up. The form asks for:
- The idea: name, one-line pitch, the problem and who it's for, the first slice you'd build
- The data model — where we score hardest: the Arkiv entities and typed attributes you'd write, the queries you'd rely on, how expiry / extension / verifiable ownership become product features, why Arkiv beats a plain database, and what deliberately stays off Arkiv
- Optional supporting material: a mock, diagram, pseudocode or short video — they can clarify, but polish doesn't earn points
About 10 minutes if you've thought the idea through. Submit here →
- $1,000 USDC per track — every challenge and the open lane has its own pool: $500 for 1st place, $300 for 2nd, $200 for 3rd ($4,000 USDC across the four)
- The best ideas get showcased as reference concepts for builders working on Arkiv
- Feedback and support from the Arkiv team throughout the month — join the Arkiv Discord
- No code required, no testnet required, no stack to fight — just the thinking
- Developers, designers, founders, researchers — if you can reason about data and queries, you can enter
- Solo or team (max 5); one prize per winning team
- Fully online, worldwide, 18+
- Using AI assistants to sharpen your idea is allowed and encouraged — arm your agent with Arkiv context first: Agent Guide
| Date | What |
|---|---|
| Aug 3 | Submissions open — Challenge 1 and the open Other lane |
| Aug 3 – 11 | Challenge 1 · AI & DevTools — closes Aug 11, 23:59 UTC |
| Aug 12 – 20 | Challenge 2 · Marketplaces — closes Aug 20, 23:59 UTC |
| Aug 21 – 31 | Challenge 3 · DeFi — closes Aug 31, 23:59 UTC |
| All month | Open Other lane — closes Aug 31, 23:59 UTC |
| Week of Sept 1 | Judging, highlights & winners roll out (recap + winner announcements) |
The Organizer reserves the right to adjust these dates. Changes will be communicated via Discord and official channels. Full terms: RULES.md.
Each of the four tracks has its own $1,000 USDC prize pool — $500 for 1st place, $300 for 2nd, $200 for 3rd ($4,000 USDC in total), decided by the judging team (the track host + guests) against the published scoring rubric. If a track does not receive three ideas that meet the judging criteria, the remaining prize money from that track may be redistributed to other tracks.
Strong ideas can also earn non-monetary support: mainnet credits / early access as Arkiv approaches mainnet, follow-on build incentives, and marketing amplification for the strongest ideas.
- Prizes are paid in USDC on Ethereum mainnet to the wallet address confirmed during KYC.
- Prize winners complete KYC before payout — every member of a winning team, individually. Details: RULES Section 7.
- One prize per individual or team, regardless of how many entries they submit.
The judging team is led by the track hosts — Santiago Zuluaga (AI & DevTools + Other), Shantelle Awomoyi (Marketplaces) and Marcos Miranda (DeFi) — who may bring in guest judges. Every submission is scored against the published scoring rubric: 20 points for track alignment + 80 general points across Arkiv fit, data & query design, impact & usefulness, clarity & feasibility, and uniqueness.
![What can YOU [ ARKIV ] ? — Ideathon, in partnership with Web3Bridge](/Arkiv-Network/arkiv-ideathon/blob/main/assets/ideathon-web3bridge.png)
Web3Bridge — Africa's access to the new web — is running this ideathon with us. They train blockchain developers across Africa and lower the barrier into Web3. If you are coming through their community: everything in this repo applies to you unchanged — the same rubric, the same per-track pools, the same windows. Bring the idea.
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Ideation Guide | docs/ideation-guide.md — the 60-second Arkiv mental model, challenge briefs, idea seeds, what makes a strong pitch |
| Official Rules | RULES.md — terms, eligibility, prizes, KYC |
| Scoring Rubric | docs/scoring-rubric.md — how we score, what we look for |
| FAQ | FAQ.md — common questions answered |
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Agent Guide | docs/agent-guide.md — the Arkiv MCP + build-recipe skills, so your assistant designs with real Arkiv knowledge instead of guessing |
| Arkiv Docs | docs.arkiv.network |
| TypeScript SDK | github.com/Arkiv-Network/arkiv-sdk-js — optional, if you want to sketch your entity model in code |
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Submit your idea | tally.so/r/OD9eeY |
| Arkiv Discord | discord.gg/arkiv |
| Event site | ideathon.arkiv.network |