Many participants in industry hackathons are simply looking to win a quick price and to go to the next competition – Dominic Kwok calls them “bounty hunters”.
But Easya, the start -up for the developers he and his brother Phil started four years ago, is looking for a different type of competitor – those who seek to create companies that can have a significant impact on web3. It is an approach that has proven to be fruitful, companies leaving the Easya applications community and monthly hackathons in person having collected funds for a collective assessment of more than $ 3 billion with large VC companies such as A16z Crypto and CMT Digital. And the Easya mobile application, which helps developers start creating their own web3 projects, has more than a million users worldwide.
During the first Easya consensus hackathon in Austin last May, more than 700 participants launched 100 different crypto projects, and the Kwoks are waiting for similar figures for upcoming events at Hong Kong and Consensus Toronto (if you want to apply for the Hackathon Easya at the Hong Kong 2025 consensus, please go here).
Here, they discuss the reason why their unique approach to hackathons, how they expect a Hong Kong consensus differ from hackathons in other parts of the world and the way in which the election of Donald Trump could affect the types of projects that crypto developers are concentrated.
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This interview was condensed and slightly modified for more clarity.
How did Easya started?
Dominic: So we originally launched Easya about four years ago like Go to Place so that anyone discovering the best blockchains in the world. Anyone can use the Easya application on iOS and Android to find out more about those of the upper layer, such as Solana, Polkadot, Stellar and Ripple’s XRP Ledger. And people can learn to develop not only, but also to launch their own projects. We also host many big hackathons in person around the world, in which hundreds of people come in person and launch projects on our blockchain partners. And the objective is to obtain these people not only the launch, but also the foundation and the construction of startups which continue to be funded by the ecosystem and the VCs.
How do you approach hackathons differently from other companies that manage them?
Dominic: Two things. The first is that Easya is very focused on the founders who want to start their own businesses, against Hackathon “Bounty Hunters”. We really want to make sure that our participants really stay and build their projects because this is where we see the future of web3 really built. And the second thing is that most of our hackathons are a unique chain, so participants focus on a single technology and they actually launch on it, instead of focusing on 50 different channels. We want to put people in front of the best ecosystems that have the most support for developers.
How do you think that the consensual hackathon in Hong Kong will be different from those you will hold in other parts of the world?
Dominic: The scale will be super large. We have already had a record number of people postulated for seats in the arena. We will obviously have people from Hong Kong, but also other Asian countries such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and China. And we also see a large number of people in the West want to come. For many of these people, it will be the first time they really have been going to Asia.
Do you expect there to be differences in the types of projects that Asian developers are pursuing, as opposed to those of other parts of the world?
Phil: There is a geographical element and then there are also some. A huge theme that we have seen in the past two weeks is AI X Web3, and many developers are delighted with this intersection. We have also seen protocols like virtuals start and become a great success, so I think we will see a lot. Geographically, in Asia, there are obviously so many different currencies, and we see that the developers really understand these cases of cross -border use much better. If you are a developer based in the United States, you do not necessarily see these points of friction one ton. So I think we will see many more cross -border payment solutions start to deteriorate.
How do you think that the presidency of Donald Trump will affect the types of projects you see during your hackathons?
Phil: Obviously, Defi has always been one of the largest areas in the crypto product market – undoubtedly one of the few who really has the adjustment. But so far because of, frankly, the fear of many developers in the United States, many people do not build or launch in the United States and therefore you often go to a decentralized application and that will say “oh , you are in the United States, you cannot use this. ” It is therefore a very visible area where we will start to see changes. Another area where you cannot participate if you are from the United States is Airdrops. So, if you are an end user, you cannot really access a lot of crypto. And if you wanted to target this demography, which is of course the richest in the world, you could not. So I think that Defi will really explode, especially in the United States.
You are also speakers of the Hong Kong consensus. What are you going to talk about?
Dominic: Our principal will explain why it is so difficult at the moment for web ecosystems to attract developers now. And we will give some of our advice on how they can attract developers more easily and on a larger scale. Currently, web 3 companies are competing on the same developers, and the growth of web developers has almost stagnated. And obviously at Easya, our whole mission is in fact to bring in many developers into space. It starts by facilitating it. But we also perform several major technological upgrades that will allow developers to build much more easily on the chain. And we will reveal them on stage.
