From May 25 to June 1, 2025, something electric stirred in the Ergo community. Developers, dreamers, and builders gathered once again for ErgoHack X, the 10th edition of our community-led hackathon series. But this wasn’t just another competition—it marked ten years of ErgoHack history, driven by a shared vision of decentralization, experimentation, and pushing boundaries.
With $9,000 in ERG prizes and the theme "AI on the Ergo Blockchain," teams set out to imagine what happens when artificial intelligence meets the architecture of Ergo. Over a week, ideas turned into prototypes, and prototypes into bold statements about the future of Web3.
Let’s revisit the highlights—and meet the winners who stood out among a field of truly visionary projects.
First Place: Game of Prompts
In a world of on-chain games, Game of Prompts dared to ask: what if the game itself was a logic puzzle where AI meets player-created bots? Built by Josemi, this project brought a rich layer of interaction between logic, AI, and game theory. Players design “game services,” while others deploy bots to try and beat them, all with on-chain transparency and trustless execution.
Judges were quick to praise its smart contract depth, real-time challenge mechanism, and innovative Celaut integration. They also applauded the comprehensive white paper, especially its elegant solution to trust issues when a game is run on user hardware.
Second Place: CodeUTXO
Mark the Shark ( Sigmanauts mining pool dev) had a vision—what if you could just talk to the blockchain? No complicated queries or dev tools, just questions in plain language. CodeUTXO delivers that experience, offering a natural-language chatbot that interfaces with the Ergo blockchain to return real-time insights about contracts, tokens, transactions, and more.
The judges appreciated the thoughtful architecture, which is fully open-source, multi-component, and user-focused. It stood out for its utility, technical strength, and alignment with the hackathon’s theme.
However, some questioned whether the tool’s level of detail was better suited for devs or average users, and they noted that the video’s audio quality held it back slightly. Still, CodeUTXO offered a promising step toward making blockchain data conversational.
Third Place: Cortex
Cortex set its sights on mining—more specifically, how to make it smarter. Built as an advanced, fully open-source GPU miner for the Ergo blockchain, Cortex draws on established foundations like the Ergo Reference Miner, community CUDA/OpenCL miners, and Stratum pool servers. But what sets it apart is its plan to weave AI throughout every layer of development.
From design and code auditing to optimization and even marketing materials, Cortex uses artificial intelligence to boost efficiency, performance, and accessibility. It’s not just about mining harder—it’s about mining smarter.
Judges appreciated its technical depth, particularly the potential of AI-based tuning for better GPU performance. The modular architecture showed promise, though some reviewers wanted more insight into how the optimization works and what real-world gains it produces.
What the Community Loved
ErgoHack X wasn’t just judged behind closed doors. We opened the floor to the community with polls on Telegram and Discord, giving everyone a chance to highlight what resonated most.
Telegram Results:
- Pattern – 31%
- Pulse – 21%
- CodeUTXO – 14%
Discord Results:
- RustChain – 25%
- Pulse – 21%
- Pattern – 15%
- CodeUTXO – 13%
When we averaged the votes, Pulse, Pattern, and CodeUTXO emerged as clear favorites. Pulse, in particular, stood out with consistent second-place finishes, showing the community’s appreciation for real-time, decentralized communication tools.
These votes didn’t influence the final rankings, but they offered valuable insight into what inspired and excited the broader Ergo ecosystem.
A Decade Down, So Much Ahead
ErgoHack X reminded us why we build. It celebrated a community of makers and tinkerers, and it spotlighted how far we’ve come—and where we’re headed next.
From logic-based AI games to chatbots and agent frameworks, this round of ErgoHack showed that the intersection of blockchain and AI is a fertile ground for innovation.
To the winners: congratulations! To all the participants: thank you! And to the Ergo community—your support powers it all!
We’ll see you at the next ErgoHack.
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