FEB 2024
The Crucible.
4-day sprints and solo marathons.
The arc reached its peak during the four-day Stellar Build Better hackathon. Entering as a newcomer, I took the high-risk path and solo-coded the infrastructure. The first twelve hours went into the core protocol docs rather than the editor, mapping a multi-hop path payment that converted assets mid-flow. It placed first, and the lesson that stuck was about the twelve hours, not the placement.
Systems that clear.
“Winning is a byproduct of planning. From solo marathons on Stellar to hybrid EVM / Wasm logic on Polkadot, the goal was never just to 'finish', it was to build systems that clear under pressure.”
The momentum shifted to Polkadot, where I built Kredio. New to Substrate, I implemented cross-chain credit scoring over XCM and it earned an Honorary Award. Then the Mantle Global Hackathon, where my team and I architected OpenAssets. What I took from both was narrower than a trophy: how a score computed from public history gets farmed, and why compliance has to live inside the transfer rather than in a document beside it.
The tally, for anyone counting: first at Stellar Build Better, a win at VietBuidl U2U, a win at the Mantle Global Hackathon, third at Pharos Builder Camp, and an honorary award from Polkadot for arriving at Substrate as a newcomer. Five placements across five different ecosystems, which is less a record than a description of how I learn a stack: build the hardest thing it allows, under a deadline, in front of people who know it better than I do.