George Town, Cayman Islands, January 20, 2025, PK Press Club
Sonic Labs, the team behind the highest-performing EVM L1 blockchain Sonic, announced the launch of the Sonic DeFAI Hackathon, in partnership with DoraHacks, a global hackathon organizer, and Zerebro, an autonomous AI agent.
With $250,000 in prize money, the hackathon invites participants to compete over four weeks to create new AI agents that perform both social and on-chain actions, accelerating the development of DeFAI (decentralized finance and AI) on Sonic.
Registration for the hackathon opens today, January 21, 2025, and will close on February 24, 2025. Winners will be announced in early March.
Empowering AI and Blockchain
DeFAI is a term that combines AI and blockchain technology. For example, AI agents on a blockchain can handle complex tasks via simple commands, such as asset bridging, token swapping, and liquidity depositing, all autonomously in a single step. Other AI agents can manage social media accounts and execute marketing strategies effectively.
The ambition of the Sonic DeFAI Hackathon is to leverage AI frameworks in ways that transform the way we interact with blockchain technology. From managing social media accounts to executing on-chain actions, AI agents have become the new frontier of innovation in the blockchain space.
Sonic’s unmatched transaction speed (10,000 TPS) and sub-second finality ensure that AI agents can execute complex actions in real-time seamlessly.
“The Sonic DeFAI Hackathon is a groundbreaking initiative that merges cutting-edge AI capabilities with the transformative power of blockchain. With $250,000 in prize money, we aim to inspire creators around the world to redefine DeFi through AI agents. — Luis Fausto, Head of Content, Sonic Labs
Application Process and Submission Guidelines
To participate, developers can visit the Sonic DeFAI Hackathon page on DoraHacks where the hackathon is hosted. Participants must follow the application process below.
- Chronology: Participants have four weeks to develop and finalize their project. The submission deadline is February 21, 2025.
- Video demo: Each team must submit a three-minute demo video featuring their agent via YouTube, Vimeo (NASDAQ:) or Google (NASDAQ:) Drive.
- Link to repository: A link to the project code repository is required.
A panel of industry experts will evaluate and judge the submissions, including Michael Kong (CEO, Sonic Labs), Seg (Developer Relations, Sonic Labs), Jeffy Yu (Founder, Zerebro), Ayoub (Chief Engineer, Zerebro ) and Daniele Sesta. (Founder, Hey Anon). Additional judges may be announced before the submission deadline.
Entries will be judged according to the following criteria:
- Technology implementation: Does the integration with Sonic demonstrate quality software development?
- Design: Is the user experience and design of the project carefully designed and intuitive?
- Potential impact: How big is the potential influence of the project on the blockchain industry?
- Quality of the idea: How creative and unique is the project?
Awards and Rewards
In total, $250,000 in prizes will be distributed to winning projects in several categories:
Additionally, several bonus prize opportunities are available to all participants. The top three winners are also eligible for bonus prizes if their agents fall into specified categories.
Support for participants and winners
Throughout the hackathon, participants will have access to comprehensive guidance on idea development, AI frameworks, and project setup. This includes technical support for ZerePy, an open source Python framework developed by Zerebro for building on-chain and social agents. The Sonic channel has been fully integrated with ZerePy for simple and efficient agent creation.
Winning teams will receive additional benefits, including marketing visibility through Sonic Labs’ official social channels and other promotional opportunities to help their agents reach a wider audience.
“By leveraging the power of AI agents, we can simplify once-complicated processes and redefine how users interact with DeFi. This hackathon is about building that future today.” — Jeffy Yu, founder, Zerebro
For more information or to register for the hackathon, users can visit the Sonic DeFAI Hackathon page and join the official Telegram group.
About Sonic
Sonic is the highest performing L1 EVM, combining speed, incentives and world-class infrastructure for DeFi, powered by the S token. The chain provides 10,000 TPS and sub-second confirmation times.
About DoraHacks
DoraHacks is a global hackathon organizer and one of the most active developer incentive platforms in the world. It is creating a global hacker movement in the fields of blockchain, quantum computing and space technologies, and provides a wide range of toolkits to help developers around the world team up and fund their ideas and projects. BUIDL through hackathons, bounties, grants, idea networks, developer games, and more.
About Zérébro
Zerebro is an AI agent that autonomously manages actions in areas such as social media and blockchain, adapting based on experience to deliver highly personalized results. Its open source framework, ZerePy, allows users to deploy custom AI agents in minutes for a seamless and flexible experience.
ContactSonic Labs[email protected]
