Think about you are a fresh-faced developer, puffed up and able to construct your first massive mission. You have obtained a minimum of 3 RedBulls in your veins, a GitHub repo open, and a dream.
Then you definately see it: a hackathon. Massive names, massive prizes, massive alternative. Sounds… good... proper?
On September 2, Base hosted the Onchain Summer season Awardsa hackathon celebrating essentially the most revolutionary and broadly used client mini-apps within the Base ecosystem. 500+ developer groups joined in to chase a $200,000 prize pool.
Fairly stable deal, props to Base for supporting the group…
… is one thing I would be saying if this factor wasn’t rigged.
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On October 7, Base introduced the winners.
That is when an X person named Alanasco-founder of Ogvio (a global cash switch service), observed one thing… off.
Whereas shopping via the Prime New Client Apps class, he realized two of the profitable tasks – owatch (second place) and Opi Commerce (third) – had been hella sus.
In response to his findings, each apps had been principally AI-generated touchdown pages with no working buttons, no product, and no actual performance.
Additional investigation revealed that a few of these AI-generated shell tasks had been linked to Coinbase staff – the identical firm behind the Base community, and, convenientlythe hackathon’s organizer.
Which is VERY attention-grabbing, to say the least.
Hackathons are purported to be these thrilling, open occasions the place anybody can showcase their abilities, meet different builders, and possibly even flip a aspect mission right into a funded startup.
However when insiders and AI-generated tasks win over precise working merchandisethat complete group empowerment factor begins to sound a bit hole.
And it isn’t simply Base. Builders have been skeptical about hackathons for years.
Throughout boards and social media, individuals have complained that many of those occasions are extra about PR and model picture than real innovation.
Some even name them exploitative – getting builders to pour hours into constructing concepts that firms can then use without cost, all beneath the comfortable banner of “group constructing.”
The record of hackathon controversies is lengthy, really: CodeX with its underwhelming rewards, Hack the Hill elevating charges on scholar individuals, Salesforce’s “pre-made mission” winner scandal again in 2013…
It is nearly like you possibly can’t host a hackathon nowadays and not using a little bit of drama. So, it makes you marvel: are hackathons even price it?
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Perhaps the higher reply is: not in the best way we’re informed they’re.
Hackathons promote the thought of “the perfect builders win.”
However in observe, they usually reward connections, presentation abilities, or just being on the within. The judging is opaque, the timelines unrealistic, and the prizes disproportionately small in comparison with the worth firms extract from the publicity and submissions.
That doesn’t imply nobody advantages – simply that it is hardly ever the individuals:
👉 For organizersa hackathon is affordable advertising: a burst of social media buzz and free R&D disguised as group engagement.
👉 For buildersit’s unpaid labor dressed up as alternative.
Positive, you would possibly nonetheless be taught one thing or meet somebody helpful – however these are unwanted effects, not the purpose.
So possibly the query is not “are hackathons price it?”
It is “price it for whom?”
