The #bitcoin Writing Contest by Rootstock and HackerNoon: Final Round Results🎉

Seasons greetings, Hackers!

Welcome to the third and final winners announcement, for the #bitcoin Writing Contest, presented by Rootstock and HackerNoon.

What a ride it’s been! Since launching in May, the contest has seen developers, writers, Bitcoin maximalists, blockchain enthusiasts, and everyone in between tackle a range of creative and technical challenges centered around the leading cryptocurrency–bitcoin–in a year where it cracked a historic $100k milestone.

In the process, we’ve published over 200 #bitcoin stories, racking up more than 400,000 pageviews and well over 300 hours of reading time.

Round 1 wrapped up on July 31st, rewarding 5 talented HackerNoon authors for their standout contributions. The winner was @nikku876, who took home $2,000 for his entry, How to Build DApp on Rootstock with Next.js, Typescript, and Solidity. Read the Results announcement for Round 1 here.

The second round closed on September 30th, seeing 5 additional winners take home cash prizes. @tomaszs won the top prize of $2,000 for his entry, RootStock - First Impression Through The Eyes Of A Front-end Developer And A Web 3 Layman. came in a close second, winning $1,500 for How to Build a Telegram Bot That Queries Rootstock Data Using Rootstock RPC API. Read the results announcement for Round 2 here.

For the just-concluded round, we had the difficult job of combing through 40 entries to select 25 finalists for the final voting round. Only entries submitted between Oct 1 & Nov 30 were eligible.

Let’s meet our finalists.

The #bitcoin Writing Contest: Round 3 Finalists

Near-Zero: Using Rootstock To Build The Stablecoin Satoshi Wanted by @walo

Understanding Runes: A Breakthrough for Fungible Tokens on Bitcoin by @miprox

Building Hybrid Smart Contracts: Integrating Rootstock and Chainlink with Hardhat by @edwinliavaa

$42 Billion and a Trustless Donation Platform by @ibukun8717

How to Build an On-Chain Pay-Per-View Protocol on Rootstock by @nescampos

Can Bitcoin Hold Politicians to Their Promises? by @javiermateos

Deploying Hybrid Smart Contracts on Rootstock by @edwinliavaa

Donald Trump, $80k Bitcoin and the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by @thavash

How To Build And Deploy Real World Assets (RWA) Tokenized Real Estate DApp On Rootstock by @diamondolmd

Nature + Biomimicry + Bitcoin: Mutually Beneficial Partnership by @alexbiojs

Launch a Token on Rootstock: Leverage Bitcoin's Security with Smart Contracts by @ibukun8717

Bitcoin Has A Purpose by @correspondentone

How to Bridge a Rootstock Token to BNB Smart Chain Using Hyperlane Warp Routes by @induction

God, Bitcoin, and Proof-of-Work: How Ancient Wisdom Powers the Blockchain by @edwinliavaa

How to Deploy Smart Contracts on Rootstock in 5 Minutes with Thirdweb by @ileolami

The Bitcoin Blockchain in Five Hundred Years is Reputation DNA by @maken8

Build a Receipt Generator with Just the Rootstock API and RPC Method by @ileolami

Can Bitcoin Put an End to Forever War? by @nebojsaneshatodorovic

How to Contribute to Rootstock Code by @legosi

Is the Nonce in Bitcoin Really Random? Analyzing Over 860,000 Blocks by @javiermateos

How to Set Up a Trustless Escrow Smart Contract on Rootstock for Secure Transactions by @braham

Stop Thinking You’ll Get Rich With Bitcoin by @markhelfman

Donald Trump Returns to the White House — Here's What It Means for Bitcoin by @ssaurel

A Brief History of Money: From the Economy of Favors to Bitcoin by @thebojda

The Toxicity of Bitcoin Maximalist Thinking by @maken8

Whether you're exploring practical applications like tokenizing real estate or pondering Bitcoin's role in shaping the future, these contributors have something for everyone. Don’t miss out—check them out and follow their work on HackerNoon!

The Winners Are…

3rd Place 🏆

https://hackernoon.com/is-the-nonce-in-bitcoin-really-random-analyzing-over-860000-blocks?embedable=true

Is the nonce in Bitcoin truly random? This analysis of over 860,000 blocks uncovers patterns, potential biases, and their implications for decentralization.

2nd Place 🏆🏆

https://hackernoon.com/launch-a-token-on-rootstock-leverage-bitcoins-security-with-smart-contracts?embedable=true

This guide explains how to create and deploy a Bitcoin-based token on the Rootstock (RSK) network. We'll write a simple ERC-20 contract in Solidity that adheres to the standard of fungible tokens on Ethereum-like networks. The smart contract can be interacted with via a decentralized application (DApp)

1st Place 🏆🏆🏆

https://hackernoon.com/near-zero-using-rootstock-to-build-the-stablecoin-satoshi-wanted?embedable=true

Implications of a stable, decentralized, non-fiat-pegged cryptocurrency on global trade and local governments. While Sat never sat to discuss stablecoins explicitly, what does building one on the BTC blockchain through Rootstock mean for web3?

Let’s give it up for our winners!

Now for the Bonus Prizes

https://hackernoon.com/stop-thinking-youll-get-rich-with-bitcoin?embedable=true

One Bitcoin is worth more than the average US worker’s annual salary. Most people can’t afford to buy enough Bitcoin to get rich. Some tell you “banana zone will send prices to the moon’ and “S2F” predicts a $500,000 bitcoin in 2025.

https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-blockchain-in-five-hundred-years-is-reputation-dna?embedable=true

Reputation networks on Blockchain will evolve into Reputation DNA. Because blockchain is a self-correcting system running on a fail-quick-learn-quick model, eventually, only the best and most trustworthy records will shine through. And our children and grandchildren will be the better for it.

Congratulations once again to all our winners. Thank you for your hard work!

How to Claim Your HackerNoon Writing Contest Prize

• Contact yes-reply@hackernoon.com and sidra@hackernoon.com from the email address linked to your winning HackerNoon account.
• We will validate your claim and share a form requesting your details for reward distribution.
• You’ll receive your winnings in 2-4 weeks after completing the form.

Ready to be a winner?