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All Hayden Joshua Donnelly wanted to do was have a bit of fun, and also kick off an idea he had in mind. Now, he’s flying to Toronto to present his project—Polyglot—for the ultimate judging at the CoinGeek Toronto scaling conference on May 30.
The New Zealand-based developer, who goes by the user name “AustEcon,” is among the over 200 developers from 19 countries that joined Bitcoin Association’s first ever Bitcoin SV (BSV) Hackathon, a virtual hackathon on BSV. The quality of entries was so high that the judges named 14, rather than the originally expected 10, semi-finalists, and from there, the entries were narrowed to the top 3: TonicPow, UptimeSV, and Polyglot.
Polyglot is designed to be Bitcoin SV’s most intuitive way to interact with a myriad of Metanet protocols through Python, smoothing the entry path for new developers to BSV. Donnelly tells CoinGeek:
“Polyglot takes all of the awesome and synergistic protocols on top of the Bitcoin platform and makes it as easy as possible to interface with them. My hope is to attract new developers but also everyday people into this space by giving them the tools to harness the full power of the Metanet for their own creations and everyday life.”
Donnelly first learned of Bitcoin in 2012, rediscovered it “for what it really is” after he immersed himself in the Austrian economics, and has been hooked since then. He also started dabbling in Python programming in 2014 as a creative outlet, contributing to an open source project called bitcash before taking up the reins with the BitSV project, which is a simple library for python “that does all of the ‘bread and butter’ Bitcoin transaction stuff.” For the BSV Hackathon, which was held on May 4-5, AustEcon entered as an individual “for a bit of fun and to kick off an idea I had in mind.” The rest, as they say, is history—in the making.
Polyglot, along with the two other finalists, will have the opportunity to present at the CoinGeek Toronto conference. They will be judged by four expert judges, plus a vote by the entire conference audience.
Donnelly said, “It took me about two days to calm down after hearing that I’d be flying to Toronto (from New Zealand) to be in the presence of so many of my personal heroes and inspirational figures as well as meeting all the amazing people I’ve connected with online over the past few years. It’s a dream come true and I can’t wait to meet all of you.”
Of the other projects, Donnelly said he is interested in peer-to-peer advertising platform TonicPow, which he thinks he can use in the future for a non-Bitcoin related project he had in mind. According to the developer, TonicPow has “a crisp, clean design and an easy way to monetize a webpage.”
The winner of the BSV Hackathon will be announced at the conference’s end, with first place winning 250 BSV, second place 100 BSV, and third place 50 BSV. The finalists will also have the chance to be considered for investment by technology entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Media.
If he wins, Donnelly said he plans on giving a token of appreciation several groups—and maybe take a tour around Toronto.
“If I win, I would like to give a token of my appreciation to some of the contributors to the bitsv library. I really appreciate those guys as a sounding board and to fill gaps in my knowledge. We’ve had some great discussion lately about getting bitsv to a production version release,” the developer said. “I’d also like to take a bit of a tour around Toronto and shout my colleagues in New Zealand something nice for covering me at such short notice to get here to Toronto.”
The virtual hackathon is a lead-up to popular Bitcoin event, the CoinGeek Conference, taking place in Toronto for a two-day happening at The Carlu on May 29-30. Get your tickets today by registering online. Aside from the hackathon, there will be many exciting developments on the BSV ecosystem that you won’t want to miss.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
