QRL Winter Hackathon 2021

Table of Contents

The Quantum Resistant Ledger is currently an open-source enterprise-grade store-of-value and platform for communications, application development, and finance - all decentralized and secure from even the most potent adversaries, including quantum computers.

This is thanks to the QRL contributors, who are comprised of quantum-optimistic, forwarding-thinking professionals and amateurs of various backgrounds from around the world. As of this blog, there’s been 12,060 total contributions from 57 contributors over 73 repositories. With a developer expansion underway, smart-contracts, and proof-of-stake are the horizon, which brings QRL into its next era allowing for a no-compromises experience in developing with the peace-of-mind that the team behind it has security at the forefront.

But it’s not all about the code. The unsung hero’s are the QRL contributors making graphics, from memes to mascots, to producing advocacy and educational material and getting the word of QRL out there. They are vital to our success of this project.

Every contributor and community member is vital to this project, and so with that spirit in mind, the QRL Winter Hackathon is open for everyone: Professionals, amateurs, people with tech backgrounds, without tech backgrounds - everyone is welcome!

QRL Winter Hackathon 2021

In keeping it simple, there are two main parts that you can participate in as your time commitments allow.

1. Community lead projects: If you have more time during the holidays, you can start or participate in developing a project for QRL.
2. Daily hackathon reacty rewards: The winter break is a great time to sit back with some hot cocoa, eggnog, or a drink of your choice and work on anything QRL related. Share it in the community, and daily rewards will be distributed based on how many thumbs up reactions you get!

These things will take place starting on Friday, December 10th and end on Midnight (UTC), December 31st.

Community lead projects

The first week of the hackathon (from Friday, December 10th to December 17th) will have a focus on community members either establishing a project or joining a project.

Establishing a project

To establish a project, you’ll need an idea that you can be passionate about enough to articulate and lead to fruition before the end of the month. If you’re passionate and have time, you’ll want to look at #hackathon-ideas.

With the idea in hand, the project will need to fit a few key requirements:

1. Relevant to QRL: Goes without saying, this is a QRL winter hackathon.
2. Open source: It’s common to think of code being open source, but graphics can be too.

Other considerations would be to ensure that your project is:

1. Attainable: It’s easy to dream big, but it’s also easy to be busier than you think.
2. Inviting: There’s no requirement for this to be a group project, however, many hands can make fun and light work.
3. Easy to participate in: Small ready-to-go tasks for community members of a variety of skill levels can help keep your project moving.

With these requirements and considerations in mind, you’ll then need to:

1. Outline your project with the template below
2. Put it in #hackathon-projects.

Project Template

Overview & Vision

In a few sentences, write what the project is about. If it’s solving a problem, define the problem and outline how the project solves that problem. What does the end result look like, what is your vision?

Support Requirements

Are you able to do this project on your own or is support needed? What skills do you bring to the table and are required to complete your vision?

Scope/What needs to be done

Outline the scope and different components of the project. Think about it from the perspective of someone wanting to get involved.

General compensation plan for project members

If you’re awarded a prize, what will the compensation look like. For example, maybe you distribute evenly, if there’s 5 people, and the reward is 1000 QRL, then that’s 200 QRL each.

Joining a project

Projects can be found in #hackathon-projects.

If you find a project you’d like to contribute to and see a way to contribute, contact the project stakeholder to get in touch.

Be sure you have enough time to commit to the project you’re joining before joining.

Daily hackathon reacty rewards

Anything, so long as it’s QRL related, is acceptable here. Of course, the more it contributes to the project, the more likely it is to get a reaction and reward you some QRL!

It can be hard to think of what to do sometimes, so here’s some ideas:

1. Learn something new over the break and see how you can apply it to QRL. For 3d design, you can try creating a QRL logo in Blender. Finger-painting with the family? Fingerpaint the QRL logo and some blocks. Want to learn ruby? Try pulling from the API and sharing a code snippet :)
2. Get active on social media and educate others about QRL, what it can do, and the quantum-threat.
3. Look on GitHub, maybe there’s an easy issue that can be fixed. Is something not quite clear with a readme? Suggest a fix!
4. Have an idea for a project? share it in #hackathon-ideas

Whenever you’re ready to share a tidbit of something you’ve done (and this applies to community lead projects), share it anywhere in Discord, but #hackathon-daily. Qrlbutler will then track how many thumbs up a person has gotten on their comment. At the end of each day, QRL will be distributed in proportion to the number of thumbs up the person got.

Reward distribution

For daily hackathon reacty rewards, 100 QRL will be distributed daily.

For community lead projects, up to a total of 9000 QRL will be distributed. Further distribution within the projects contributions will be determined by the project stakeholder.

Combined, up to a total of 10,000 QRL will be awarded throughout the community over the holidays.

Want to learn more?

Give our website theqrl.org a browse or join us for a chat in one of our many communities on Telegram, Discord, Reddit, Facebook, or KakaoTalk.

Want to stay up to date? Follow us on Youtube, Twitter or our Telegram news channel.

Want to dig into our audited, MIT open-source, enterprise-grade codebase? Check out our github at: https://github.com/theQRL/QRL/