BTC Challenge hackathon winner Hominids showcases NFT trading with native BTC

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TL;DR ZetaChain enables Bitcoin owners to seamlessly buy/sell NFTs and digital assets without ever leaving their Bitcoin wallet. Hominids featured this use case in practice and took first place in our most recent Bitcoin hackathon!

Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency, yet Bitcoin holders have the fewest options when it comes to putting their assets to work. We launched a Bitcoin hackathon last month to show how easy it is for developers to involve Bitcoin liquidity and users in the broader DeFi ecosystem.

Out of 16 project submissions, Hominids, a France-based project developing an NFT platform with seamless Bitcoin network support, took first place.

Using Native Bitcoin for NFT Trading

Omnichain Smart Contracts on ZetaChain can access and manage assets and data on any chain. Moreover, these contracts can be called from external chains so users never have to leave their preferred network or wallet to use omnichain apps. This even holds true for non-smart chains such as the Bitcoin network!

The Hominids implementation demonstrates Bitcoin interoperability for NFT trading. Users call an omnichain smart contract on ZetaChain from their Bitcoin wallet to purchase or sell digital NFT assets in BTC. Simply, the user’s Bitcoin address provides payment, and it’s associated with an EVM address that holds the NFT. Note, no bridging, swapping, wrapping/locking tokens in a vault, or other slow, risky solutions are required. The ZetaChain protocol, a full L1 blockchain, by nature supports chain-agnostic interoperability.

Words from a Zeta App Developer

Hominids CEO Raphaël Loutalakio explains further:

“This hackathon provided us with a unique opportunity to delve into the innovative realm of integrating Bitcoin functionalities using ZRC-20 representations on ZetaChain. The seamless interoperability between Bitcoin and ZetaChain’s ecosystem showcases the immense potential of DeFi applications. We were particularly fascinated by the capability to trigger Omnichain contracts through Bitcoin transactions, enabling a diverse range of actions, from minting tokens to executing intricate logic.”

The current app is based on Polygon but, thanks to ZetaChain, Hominids enables holders of any digital assets, including eventually other non-smart contract chains like Doge, to buy NFTs and digital assets from the Bitcoin network.

You can learn more about Hominids here and watch the demo video below:

An honorable mention: CoinLend

We also shout out CoinLend, a project that uses ZetaChain to enable Bitcoin lending and borrowing without the complexity of cross-chain transactions.

You can read more about CoinLend here.

Build on ZetaChain

Thank you to our partner, Buidlbox, for managing the competition. And, of course, thanks to the 400-plus developers who registered and took part, showing us the potential of ZetaChain platform and its special built-in cross-chain connectivity.

Beyond the hackathon, we have an active grants program for any developers keen to build omnichain dApps on the Bitcoin blockchain, ZetaChain itself, or any other networks using ZetaChain. You can find full details on the program here.

About ZetaChain

ZetaChain is the world’s first and only decentralized EVM-compatible L1 blockchain with built-in cross-chain interoperability, connecting all blockchains, even non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin and Dogecoin. With ZetaChain’s complete Omnichain toolkit, developers can build true omnichain dApps from a single point of logic, and users can access all of their assets, data, and liquidity in a single place, securely.

Follow ZetaChain on Twitter @zetablockchain and join the conversation on Discord and Telegram. Reach out to partnerships@zetachain.com if you’re building on top of ZetaChain.

Any projects mentioned are 3rd party, not ZetaChain.