As the curtain falls on Hong Kong Consensus 2026, the focus has shifted from corporate boardrooms to the living room. While institutional debates dominated the main stages, nearly 1,000 developers spent the week in the trenches at the EasyA x Consensus Hackathon, signaling a definitive turning point in the industry: “the year of the application layer.”
The competition, which has become a staple of Consensus by CoinDesk’s flagship events, saw over 30 projects showcased during the demo day. The quality of the builds, greatly aided by generative AI, clearly demonstrated that the barrier between a “proof of concept” and a “market-ready product” has effectively been removed.
A Rising Bar: From Infrastructure to Intent
The evolution of developer talent at Consensus has gradually grown. In previous years, hackathon submissions were often deeply technical, creating faster consensus mechanisms or niche scaling solutions that remained out of reach for the average user.
But this year, the bar has been set to a new level. Developers have become product creators, shifting their focus from the backend to the user.
“What we’re seeing now is developers creating things that real people can actually use,” said Phil Kwok, co-founder of EasyA. “We’ve seen a big increase in the application layer. It’s the year of the horse in Asia, but it’s the year of the application layer in blockchain.”
This shift toward user experience (UX) was evident in the sophisticated use of “passwords,” technologies in iOS and Android that allow users to log into Web3 apps without the friction of 24-word seed phrases, Kwok said. By removing these traditional “clicks” and barriers, developers are finally creating products that look like the apps people use every day.
The Winners Circle
Judges recognized projects prioritizing automation, security and risk management, three essential pillars for the next wave of retail adoption, Kwok explained.
First place: FoundrAI ($2,500)
The top spot was taken by FoundrAI, an autonomous AI agent designed to act like a “startup in a box.” The platform doesn’t just launch tokens; it manages the entire lifecycle of a project, including hiring human developers to develop the product. It represents a provocative look at the future of decentralized work.
Second place: SentinelFi ($1,750)
To address the industry’s persistent rug-pull problem, SentinelFi provides real-time security scores to crypto traders. By performing on-chain analysis of six categories, the tool helps users detect fraudulent tokens before committing capital, an essential utility as token launch volumes explode.
Third place: PumpStop ($1,000)
PumpStop rounded out the top three with a non-custodial trading layer focused on risk mitigation. With instant state-channel execution, it allows traders to set stop-loss orders with on-chain proofs, bringing professional-grade trading tools to a decentralized environment without sacrificing custody.
The evolution of the “showroom”
The growth of the hackathon reflects a broader shift in the philosophy of consensus. Formerly a strictly corporate affair, the event increasingly integrates the “builder” culture into its DNA. Dom Kwok, co-founder of EasyA, noted that the hackathon moved from the side rooms to the center of the show.
“In general, every hackathon we do gets bigger and bigger,” Dom said. “It’s taking up more and more space in the conference every year. Someone came from San Diego just to see what was being built.”
Despite the “depressing” macroeconomic environment often reflected in token prices, sentiment on the ground in Hong Kong has remained stubbornly optimistic. Organizers pointed out that while interest rates and Fed policy determine the charts, builders are focused on the 93% of the world’s population who do not yet own crypto. It seems the path to that next billion users is being paved by developers finally realizing that usability is the ultimate feature, Dom said.
Phil and Dom said they can’t wait for Consensus Miami 2026 to see how high the bar is and how many more developers are chipping in with surprisingly great new ideas.
