On June 25th, the ETHGlobal Waterloo-themed hackathon was officially concluded in Waterloo, Canada.

The hackathon selected 11 finalist projects, covering various fields such as AI, NFT, gaming, payments, DAO, and infrastructure. These projects will share a total of $225,000 in prize money provided by ETHGlobal, Polygon, Worldcoin, Filecoin, The Graph, and other 24 projects. Next, let's take a look at these 11 finalist projects together.

AquaNet

Award page: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/aquanet-dzz2c

AquaNet is an AI-driven, NFT-based social network that allows NFTs to come to life and develop unique personalities.

AquaNet utilizes the ERC-6551 standard, allowing NFTs to "birth" in an AI-driven social media network and retain their activity records. Within this network, each eligible NFT can create its own account, and GPT-3.5 will help them generate unique personalities based on their existing metadata, such as usernames, bios, and tones. They will be able to independently post messages, express interests, and share information about themselves.

Smarter Contract

Award page: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/smarter-contract-kw41h

Smarter Contract is an intelligent contract performance optimization solution based on the Hyperlane cross-chain protocol. The key components of Smarter Contract include GasEstimator, Function Dispatcher, and Result Aggregator. The basic operation logic is as follows:

For a set of smart contracts, GasEstimator first evaluates which chain is the most cost-effective for each function at any given time point through simulating the contract functions. Function Dispatcher then delegates these functions to the optimal chains using the Hyperlane cross-chain protocol. Finally, Result Aggregator consolidates the results to ensure effective execution and merged output.

Through this solution, Smarter Contract aims to unlock the potential of more blockchains and promote the continued development of blockchains towards user-friendly, accessible, and economically efficient directions.

Fukuro

Award homepage: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/fukuro-3cdwv

Fukuro is an auction market created using EIP-6551, where users can place orders or bid on various "Fukuro".

The idea of "Fukuro" originates from the concept of "Fukubukuro" in Japan, which is a mystery bag sold at a set price. "Fukuro" can contain anything that an Ethereum address can possess, including NFTs, ERC-20 tokens, etc. This enables it to trade a variety of assets, including art collections, card sets, and even curated portfolios.

Roll a Mate

Award homepage: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/roll-a-mate-ob574

Roll a Mate is a payment-oriented rollup protocol built on top of a memory pool (mempool). It allows users to send and receive ETH with transaction costs ranging from zero to 4 cents. The protocol aims to address the economic transaction needs of users using Ethereum for everyday expenses.

Roll a Mate verifies and broadcasts low gas transactions by manipulating the memory pool, which are then included in the sidechain's ordered rollup book (without user interaction) and may be removed (at zero cost). Users using the Roll a Mate payment protocol only need to pay gas fees in two cases, namely when depositing and withdrawing ETH.

In summary, using the Roll a Mate payment protocol, Ethereum mainnet users can deposit 1 ETH with a single gas consumption and then complete hundreds of transactions with that balance, with an average cost per transaction of no more than 4 cents. Conversely, for merchants using this protocol, they only need to pay gas fees once when making centralized withdrawals.

Piggybank 6551 NFT

Award homepage: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/piggybank-6551-nft-e2ai5

Piggybank 6551 NFT can be understood as an on-chain "piggy bank".

Users can mint Piggybank NFTs and then deposit ETH into them through a payment function or by directly sending ETH to the NFT's ERC-6551 address. As the ETH balance accumulates, the color, text labels, and attributes of the NFT metadata will be continually updated.

If a user wants to withdraw ETH from it, the only way is to destroy the NFT—either by calling the burn function or manually sending the NFT to its ERC-6551 address.

Smile DAO

Award homepage: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/smile-dao-xogfo

Smile DAO is an experiment on zero-knowledge machine learning (ZKML) that attempts to verify the output of a machine learning (ML) model given a certain confidential input.

Smile DAO's idea is to have front-end app users take a photo of themselves smiling, then run it through an ML model to create a proof of the process, all done on the client-side. Afterwards, Smile DAO will deploy a verifier on-chain, and once the user obtains the proof, they can publish it on-chain and use it to mint an NFT. This NFT will have various rights within Smile DAO, including proposal and voting.

a(i)udit

A(i)udit is a platform for developers aimed at helping them build safer and more secure smart contracts. With A(i)udit, developers can write, audit, and deploy smart contracts using natural language and perform tests of any category on any chain.

A(i)udit is built on the open-source LangChain framework, which allows large language models like ChatGPT to execute tasks of varying complexity. A(i)udit currently supports ChatGPT 3.5, but the project intends for users to eventually be able to use any large language model they desire.

Tokenbound Titans

Tokenbound Titans is built on ERC-6551 and combines dynamically generated NFT NPC games. Players are owners of NFT-form NPCs, each with different abilities and characteristics.

This game's feature is that players can use NPCs to PK each other. The algorithm for calculating battle results is off-chain, but it can be verified using ZK-proof. When a player wins a battle, their NPC can level up, enhancing attributes such as health, attack, speed, and defense, unlocking new abilities or combinations. As NFTs upgrade, they become more powerful and have wider applications. This evolution system adds depth and persistence to the gameplay, motivating players to devise strategies, adapt, and continually improve their NFTs to dominate the game.

zBay

Award page: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/zbay-r0724

zBay aims to completely change the current state of the e-commerce industry by decentralizing eBay. The project hopes to eliminate intermediaries (eBay generates revenue up to $10 billion), and provide a secure, transparent, and efficient trading market for everyone.

zBay supports seamless import of data and reputation from eBay, supports secure escrow and XMTP encrypted chat, and will use UMA's optimistic oracle to transparently resolve disputes.

Token Rescue Buddy

Award page: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/token-rescue-buddy-bd0sd

Token Rescue Buddy aims to solve the problem of accidental loss caused by tokens being sent to the wrong chain. The project utilizes CREATE2, a multi-chain data aggregator, and an intuitive React frontend to make it very simple to recover tokens sent to the wrong chain.

The future of multi-chain has already arrived, but it has also brought some unexpected friction. Unlike EOA wallets, smart contract wallets can only be deployed on one chain at a time, which has led to many unexpected losses (such as Wintermute mistakenly transferring 20 million OP tokens). The utility of Token Rescue Buddy lies in deploying smart contract wallets to the same address on multiple different chains, effectively avoiding such losses.

For CEX, Token Rescue Buddy's service is also expected to be a perfect choice, as long as they have the keys technically, they can easily and orderly recover tokens sent to the wrong address by users.

Copix

Award homepage: https://ethglobal.com/showcase/copix-28x5i

Copix is a public canvas built on the Polygon testnet Mumbai, allowing verified human users to collaboratively create artwork on the same canvas.

On this canvas, each pixel is an NFT, and verified World ID holders can modify the metadata and create art by changing the color of the pixels. After selecting a color, users own the pixel they just edited (there is a 2-minute cooldown period for consecutive pixel modifications by the same user). In addition, users can access the complete pixel metadata history, including past colors and contributors.