First post on xLog, let's start by briefly discussing the IG article here. For the 2023 ETHTaipei Hackathon this time, our team chose the themes of Autopass and PSE to brainstorm ideas, and in the end, we won the Silver Award from Autopass.
Team Composition#
In the past, participating in Taiwan's Hackathons always felt like a presentation. This time, we challenged ourselves with the Web3 field, which we had never tried before, and since it had been eight years since we last participated in a hackathon, we invited friends who had previously worked with us in the telecommunications industry to handle the frontend, while I myself took care of the backend and smart contract development. I thought that I might not be able to handle the final presentation in the 40-hour challenge, so I found two friends who were skilled in presentation creation and business logic to take charge of the final presentation.
Sponsor / Topic Selection#
Hackathons nowadays mainly depend on the challenges and prize money provided by sponsors for selection. Since our team had no experience in Web3 development, we chose Autopass, a Web2 to Web3 conversion, which offered three challenges:
- How to provide a more secure, reliable, and efficient payment method through blockchain features.
- Use blockchain technology to establish a car owner's driving trajectory, hide and protect privacy and sensitive data, and provide a way to verify the data so that the driving trajectory can create value again, such as providing it to insurance companies as underwriting data.
- How to reduce transaction fees through cryptocurrency transactions.
Originally, we wanted to come up with a wallet transaction service that was very intuitive. However, we realized that about 80-90% of the teams participating in Autopass were already working on wallet transactions, so we shifted our focus to the second point. Since I had previously applied for Gogoro, Irent, Zip Car, and other car rental services, I was annoyed by the need to repeatedly upload dual identification documents each time. Moreover, Irent had been hacked before, resulting in data leakage. Using this as inspiration, we came up with the ZeroPass service, which eliminates the need for dual identification verification for each service, reducing the associated risks.
My Preparation#
My role was backend and smart contract development, as well as organizing. Besides my full-time job, I also take on freelance projects, so I invested in many development tools:
- JetBrains suite
- Vultr server
- Domain
- ChatGTP plus
- Github Copilot
These tools allow me to quickly produce and deploy to an online environment for frontend integration and testing.
During the Competition#
During the competition, we encountered many talented developers, including developers from Japan and other countries, as well as students from the blockchain course at National Chiao Tung University. We exchanged ideas and learned a lot from each other during our free time. Although we initially did not choose the PSE project, after hearing their explanation on-site, we realized that we could use the Semaphore protocol to achieve the authentication part we wanted to do. After discussing with PSE's mentor and confirming its feasibility, we started studying the usage of Semaphore, as well as building a Web2 demo flow system with the frontend. We also had discussions with Autopass's mentor and confirmed that our ideas addressed their pain points.
End of the Competition#
The 40-hour challenge came to an end, and our ZeroPass service did not turn out as complete as we had imagined. However, since the topic was interesting, we decided to continue improving it. A few days after the competition, the CEO of a Web3 company from Vietnam contacted me on LinkedIn to discuss our service. This gave me the motivation to continue developing this project. After winning the award, I chatted with the people from Autopass, and they also believed that we could continue building this service. I watched workshop videos afterwards and discovered the UniRep protocol, which can achieve what we want to do - monetizing our data in the service.
Continuing to Participate in Hackathons#
After participating in the Web3 hackathon, I regained my passion for development. Compared to Web2, there are still too few applications for Web3, and there are many service aspects that can be explored and built. We plan to participate in online hackathons, which usually last for more than a week, giving us more time to build products (although we can only work on them on weekday evenings and weekends).
Hackathons we plan to participate in:
Autonomous Worlds
HackFS 2023
ETHOnline 2023
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