Hedera Drops $15K in Bounty Prizes for ETHOnline 2026 Hackathon
Hedera has announced that it will fund $15,000 in bounty prizes at ETHOnline 2026. This comes as part of a larger hackathon event with a total prize pool above $100,000. The bounties are split across four tracks: two AI and agentic payments tracks worth $6,000 each, an open-source contributions track for the Hedera Harness worth $2,000, and a continuity prize for existing projects worth $1,000.
The largest-tier bounty centers on x402, an open payment standard built on the HTTP 402 status code. Teams must host a live x402-gated service on Hedera testnet or mainnet through the Blocky402 facilitator and build the platform or agent that consumes it. Bonus credit goes to pay-per-call metering, multi-agent settlement, and audit trails.
The second $6,000 track asks for an enterprise finance application using the Asset Tokenization Studio, which handles configuration, issuance, and lifecycle management for tokenized securities and equities. Teams can use the SDK as it stands or adapt the contracts to meet their needs.
Hedera's sponsorship of ETHOnline 2026 is part of a larger effort to engage with Ethereum developers through its EVM-compatible smart contract layer. The network reports over 71 billion lifetime transactions and roughly 2.9 seconds to consensus finality, making it an attractive option for builders looking to deploy on a scalable platform.