Gone in 60ms: Fiber Network Infrastructure Hackathon announcement!

English News and Announcements
, ,
1

image
image1920Ă—1080 831 KB

Gone in 60ms: Fiber Network Infrastructure Hackathon

Powering the next stage of Fiber payment infrastructure

Registrations are now open for Gone in 60ms: Fiber Network Infrastructure Hackathon, a two-week builder sprint focused on strengthening the infrastructure around Fiber Network. For the very best projects, we have a prize pool of $20,000 to be shared amongst the winners!

Important note: This hackathon is for Fiber Network related infrastructure only, not products built on top. Another hackathon will be organised afterwards to focus on this.

Key details

Pre-registration opens: Required. Register now!
To use CKBoost, you need CKB testnet tokens, claim them from Nervos Pudge Faucet.

Pre-hackathon preparation support: 25 June - 1 July

Hackathon duration: 1 July - 15 July

Length: 2 weeks

Platform: CKBoost

Prize pool: $20,000

Prize structure: Category-based, with equal allocation across categories

AI tooling: Successful submissions may claim up to $20 reimbursement as an AI tooling allowance.

Organised by: Nervos Community Catalyst

Supported by: CKBA, Fiber team and Devrel

Rules: Check the campaign page for the full list of rules

Introduction

CKB is a security-first Layer 1 proof-of-work blockchain built for flexibility, decentralisation, and long-term extensibility. Its RISC-V virtual machine gives developers maximum flexibility to choose their cryptography and protocols. This makes CKB the most forward-thinking, interoperable and adaptable blockchain in the industry. Furthermore, its Cell model extends UTXO programmability to support smart contracts, custom assets, ownership and verification logic. With RGB++, CKB extends these properties to Bitcoin assets, unlocking new possibilities for Bitcoin applications and users without any changes to Bitcoin’s security model.

Fiber Network is a payment-channel network for fast, low-cost, off-chain payments on CKB. It is also designed to enhance the functionality, programmability, and connectivity of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. It also supports multiple assets types, including RGB++ assets and stablecoins, making it relevant for wallets, merchants, micropayments, liquidity services, and cross-chain payment infrastructure. For developers, Fiber opens up a design space for building interoperable payment tools that connect Bitcoin, Lightning-style payments, and CKB-based assets. For quick onboarding, check the resources provided below

As Fiber matures, the next priority is to make it easier for external developers and businesses to build on it. This hackathon focuses on expanding the surrounding infrastructure: integration tooling, wallet and channel flows, routing diagnostics, merchant payment primitives, liquidity services, and reusable developer components.

This event is Part 1 of a broader Fiber builder initiative. The first phase focuses on infrastructure. A later hackathon will focus more directly on applications and consumer products.

Mission brief

“Build reusable infrastructure that makes Fiber easier to use, integrate, operate, or productise.”

A detailed list of types of infrastructure is provided below, but may be summarised as:

  • Wallet and Payment UX Infrastructure
  • Node, Routing, Cross-chain, and Diagnostics Infrastructure
  • Merchant, Liquidity, LSP, and Multi-Asset Infrastructure

The key question is:

Does this help future developers, wallets, merchants, services, or users interact with Fiber more easily?

Who should participate?

This hackathon is open to all community developers, especially:

  • Existing and new community CKB developers
  • Lightning or payment-channel developers
  • Teams building payments-related infrastructure and tooling
  • Teams interested in liquidity infrastructure and stablecoins

You can participate as an individual or as a team.

Why participate?

  • Help build the infrastructure around Fiber Network on its path to supporting business and consumer solutions
  • Create tools that other CKB and Fiber developers can reuse
  • Work directly on cutting-edge payment-channel problems that matter for real world financial use cases.
  • Explore Fiber, Lightning-style architecture, CCH, liquidity tooling, merchant payments, and multi-asset flows.
  • Compete for a $20,000 prize pool.

Getting started

Use these resources to familiarise yourself with CKB and Fiber Network, as well as existing community-contributed tools:

Submission categories

There are three main submission categories. Participants will be asked to select one category to submit their project for.

Each category is broad enough to allow creativity, but focused enough to encourage specific directions rather than everyone building the same thing. You can refer to this reference document for a more detailed list of potential ideas. You can also refer to Lightning Builders’ Guide for additional inspiration for payment-channel infrastructure.

1. Wallet and Payment UX Infrastructure

Tools that make Fiber easier to use inside wallets, payment flows, and channel-management interfaces. The focus is on creating Fiber-friendly wallet infrastructure and abstracting channel complexity so users and apps do not need to manually reason about capacity, routing, liquidity direction, fees, or failure states.

Example directions:

  • Fiber-friendly wallet prototypes or wallet modules that support core payment-channel flows.
  • Channel setup and lifecycle flows, including opening, using, monitoring, and closing channels.
  • Wallet components for showing channel state, usable capacity, payment readiness, and transaction status.
  • Fiber payment request, invoice, QR, or payment intent formats for apps and wallets.
  • Payment confidence tools, such as “Can I pay?” checks before a transaction is attempted.
  • Payment failure diagnostics and recovery flows covering routing, liquidity, connectivity, asset mismatch, or fee issues.
  • Simple/advanced wallet modes that hide complexity for normal users while preserving detail for technical users.
  • Drop-in wallet or app integration SDKs, modals, and UI components for Fiber payments.

2. Node, Routing, Cross-Chain, and Diagnostics Infrastructure

Tools that help developers and operators monitor, debug, test, and improve Fiber payment reliability, including experiments around Fiber’s Cross-Chain Hub (CCH) feature and Bitcoin Lightning connectivity.

Example directions:

  • Fiber node dashboards showing health, peers, channels, connectivity, and operational status.
  • Payment failure diagnostics, structured error reporting, and tools for translating low-level failures into actionable messages.
  • Route confidence, routing analytics, retry logic, fallback flows, and payment simulation tools.
  • Local testing environments, developer CLIs, and test suites for common Fiber payment and routing scenarios.
  • Alerting systems for unhealthy nodes, weak routes, peer issues, or channel problems.
  • Fiber network explorer prototypes or monitoring tools for node and channel visibility.
  • CCH proof-of-concepts, Fiber-to-Lightning experiments, cross-chain payment routing prototypes, or tools comparing Fiber and Lightning route behaviour.

3. Merchant, Liquidity, LSP, and Multi-Asset Infrastructure

Infrastructure for practical payment use cases, especially merchant payments, stable-value flows, liquidity visibility, LSP-style (liquidity service provider) services, liquidity marketplaces, and asset-specific payment support.

On/off-ramping is not the main focus because it depends heavily on external service providers, licensing, and commercial partnerships. However, infrastructure that prepares Fiber for merchant, liquidity, stablecoin, and multi-asset use cases is strongly encouraged.

Example directions:

  • Merchant checkout SDKs, payment processor prototypes, hosted payment pages, or payment status webhooks.
  • Stablecoin-denominated invoice flows and multi-asset payment request formats.
  • Merchant tools for receipts, refunds, reconciliation, settlement records, and accounting exports.
  • Liquidity dashboards showing inbound/outbound capacity, asset-specific capacity, and payment readiness.
  • LSP service tooling, liquidity quote tools, marketplace primitives, and liquidity provider discovery.
  • Service-metering infrastructure for pay-as-you-go products, subscriptions, API access, or micropayments.
  • Demo merchant flows showing Fiber payment acceptance, settlement tracking, and operational reporting.

Deliverables

Each submission should include:

  • project summary;
  • selected category;
  • team members;
  • repository link with fully open-sourced code;
  • demo link or runnable demo instructions, plus a hosted demo;
  • video demonstration;
  • technical breakdown;
  • explanation of the Fiber infrastructure gap addressed;
  • future roadmap;
  • AI allowance claim, if applicable.

Note: Missing deliverables will result in points reduction. Please ensure your submissions are as complete as possible.

Submissions should be clear about what is fully working, what is mocked or simulated, and what would be needed for production use.

AI usage

You may use AI to research, develop, and document your project. Successful submissions may claim a $20 rebate for AI usage following the conclusion of the hackathon. You should use AI as an aide and maintain a strong human-driven feedback loop and testing regime over development to ensure it is functionally viable and meets the judging criteria. Purely AI generated projects are likely to score poorly.

Judging criteria

Projects will be assessed based on:

  • functional completeness;
  • user flow and experience
  • relevance to Fiber infrastructure;
  • usefulness to other developers, wallets, merchants, services, or node operators;
  • technical soundness;
  • reusability;
  • integration potential;
  • documentation quality;
  • maintainability;
  • practical value;
  • fit within the selected category;
  • potential for continued development.

The strongest submissions will be those that can realistically become part of the wider Fiber Network stack.

Hackathon preparation checklist

  1. Spend some time before the hackathon to decide your project idea and which submission category you wish to target. Work by yourself or as a team with friends. You may change your selected category before or during the hackathon.
  2. Read the hackathon rules on the campaign page.
  3. Register in good time so that you have an opportunity to familiarise yourself with CKB and Fiber Network. Registering early will allow you to join our support channels and ask questions in advance.
  4. Make sure your diary for 1st - 15th July is sufficiently planned to allow you time for hackathon activities. Leaving too much work until the end may result in a lower quality submission.

Support

Upon registering, you will be contacted directly with signposts to the main support channels during the hackathon. All communications will be shared in the Build on CKB channel as well as by email. The Fiber Devrel team will be available to assist with technical queries.

Prizes and deadline

The prizes for this hackathon are sponsored by the CKB Association. A prize pool of $20,000 is available to be distributed to winners across the submission categories.

The deadline for submission of entries is 15th July 23:59 UTC. The winners will be announced in the subsequent weeks, with a soft target of the end of July. Delays may be possible depending on the number of submissions.

After the hackathon

The hackathon is intended to identify infrastructure that can continue beyond the event.

Strong submissions may be encouraged to pursue follow-on work with a Community Fund DAO grant, including further development, maintenance, integration, or documentation work.

I’m excited to see what the community produces. Good luck to everyone!

28 Likes