Envision a bright-eyed coder, buzzing with excitement to tackle their first major project. Fuelled by energy drinks, a fresh code repository awaits, and a vision takes shape.
Then, the opportunity appears: a coding competition. Prominent sponsors, enticing rewards, vast potential. Sounds… ideal… doesn’t it?
On September 2nd, Base presented the Onchain Summer Awards, a developer contest highlighting the most cutting-edge and widely adopted user-focused mini-applications within the Base network. Over 500 teams of programmers participated, competing for a $200,000 prize fund.
A substantial offering, kudos to Base for community support…
… or so one might think, if the event wasn’t, allegedly, unfair.
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On October 7th, Base revealed the winners of the challenge.
That’s when an individual on X, known as Alanas, the co-founder of Ogvio (an international money transfer company), identified some irregularities.
While examining the Top New Consumer Apps category, Alanas noticed two of the winning applications – owatch (second place) and Opi Trade (third) – appeared questionable.
Reportedly, both of these apps were essentially AI-generated landing pages, featuring non-functional buttons, lacking a genuine product, and exhibiting no actual functionality.
Further examination suggested that some of these placeholder projects created using AI were linked to employees working at Coinbase – the same entity responsible for the Base network and, coincidentally, the hackathon’s principal organizer.
This situation presents an interesting conflict of interest, at the very least.
Programming competitions are envisioned as lively, inclusive events where developers display their abilities, connect with fellow innovators, and potentially transform passion projects into well-funded startups.
However, when insiders and artificially generated projects prevail over legitimate, functioning applications, the notion of community empowerment begins to ring somewhat false.
And Base isn’t alone. Developers have expressed doubts about the value of coding competitions for several years.
Across online discussions and social media channels, concerns have arisen that many such events focus more on public relations and brand building than on fostering true innovation.
Some even label these events as exploitative – encouraging developers to invest significant time in creating concepts that corporations can subsequently leverage without compensation, all under the appealing premise of “community growth.”
The roster of coding competition controversies is extensive, including: CodeX and its underwhelming rewards, Hack the Hill which increased fees for student participants, Salesforce’s “pre-made project” winning project scandal back in 2013.
Evidently, it’s difficult to host a coding competition without some level of controversy. This begs the question: are these hackathons truly worthwhile?
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Perhaps a more accurate answer is: not in the context as they’re traditionally presented.
Hackathons promote the notion that “the most skilled developers are rewarded.”
However, they often favor connections, communication skills, or simply having privileged access. The judging process frequently lacks transparency, the deadlines prove unrealistic, and the rewards are disproportionately minimal when considering the value that organizers extract through exposure and the submitted ideas.
This doesn’t suggest that no one gains advantage—rather that these benefits rarely accrue to the participants:
👉 For those hosting the event, a competition offers cost-effective marketing, generating significant social media attention and providing free research and development, all masked as contributions to the community.
👉 For developers involved, it represents unpaid work disguised as a potential chance for advancement.
It’s possible that you might still acquire new knowledge or establish valuable contacts, however, these outcomes are secondary, not the principal goal.
Thus, the core question might not be “are hackathons advantageous?”
But instead: “advantageous for whom?”