Layer Up: A Hackathon to Drive Blockchain Adoption

A full 134 developers working across 92 teams came together for Layer UP, the second-ever edition of the Cardano Summit’s hackathon. The competition ran for an entire week before culminating at the Summit’s Day Zero, with many meeting in Berlin for the final sprint while others submitted their projects from multiple locations across the world.

Four major projects came together to mentor both new and community participants building on Cardano. The engineering teams from Bloxbean, Masumi, Mesh, and the Cardano Foundation itself provided constant online support, plus hands-on learning sessions to help everyone bring their bold ideas to Cardano.

Winners will share a combined prize pool worth US$30,000. And because we wanted to create a hackathon that prompts adoption and longer-term consequences, a follow-up mini program comprising technical, business, and growth assistance will further guarantee projects have all the necessary resources to take their projects to the next level.

Two tracks, double the innovation

Every aspect of the Layer Up hackathon was designed not only to appeal to core Cardano developers, but also to invite newcomers and interoperability with other ecosystems.

Two very different tracks encouraged creativity while prompting participants to explore fresh ideas that advance blockchain adoption through cutting-edge solutions built on Cardano:

• the Cardano Foundation devised a free track, meant to accommodate any type of blockchain solution or innovation participants could imagine;
• Masumi offered an AI-focused track in which participants would integrate AI with decentralized on-chain logic to design the next wave of agentic infrastructure.

“Think loose, and build whatever comes to your mind.”

The range of final submissions showed just how many industry applications blockchain can have. From uses in credentials and education to healthcare, finance, or governance, we saw many strong concepts and inspired projects.

It was exhilarating witnessing how the mentors’ discussions, as well as the in-person experience at the w3.hub in Berlin sparked new ideas. The conversations even led to some requests for last-minute participation.

In the end, three winners for each track took the prizes.

Cardano Foundation track

First place – BioFlow: A platform for health data featuring a proprietary data marketplace and offering blood testing on a subscription basis.
Second place – GovtWool: An already functioning governance tool that makes governance simple and provides strong UI and UX.
Third place – Jaimo Solutions: A service leveraging Merkle Tree root nodes for verification and authentication of archived social media posts.

Masumi track

First place – KarbonSense: AI-driven environmental intelligence platform using Cardano to verify and record air quality data.
Second place – DocuLensAI: Agentic document analysis to deliver linguistic, structural, and risk insights.
Third place – CaPRA: AI-powered scoring of Cardano Catalyst proposals that takes into consideration reliability, financial, contextual, and impact factors.

Hearty congratulations to all winners and participants!

The Summit hackathon tours the world

We loved seeing such a diverse group of projects come to life. In fact, we can’t wait for what will come out of the regional Cardano Summit hackathons.

In Buenos Aires, the Cardano Tech Summit, organized by the ADA Solar team, included an intensive, two-day hackathon under a Japanese theme that alluded to Cardano’s origins.

Hosted by EMURGO, the Cardano Hackathon Asia has already started online. It will have its grand finale in Bangalore at the very end of November, right before the India Blockchain Week kicks off. After the final sprint on 29 November, day two will give way to project presentations and see the winners announced.

Already culminating in February 2026, the Africa edition of the Cardano Summit involves a range of hackathons open to participants across the continent. Hosted by WADA, Catalyst Africa Town Hall, Lido Nation, and RemoStart, the pre-summit hackathons will take place in Monrovia, Abidjan, Lagos, and Nairobi to cultivate use-case-driven development.

Hackathons make for a great opportunity to think fast and get the next big idea rolling. The Cardano Foundation encourages all developers, both already on Cardano and outside the ecosystem, either senior or junior, to challenge themselves and join future hackathons.