Stellar Hacks: Real-World ZK
Stellar Development Foundation
📌About the Event
Stellar Hacks: Real-World ZK is a global online hackathon inviting developers to build practical zero-knowledge applications on the Stellar blockchain. Participants can develop solutions such as private payments, confidential tokens, privacy pools, identity proofs and verifiable computation. The competition follows an open-innovation format, allowing builders to select any real-world problem as long as zero-knowledge cryptography performs an essential function in the project.
ℹ️ Event Details
- Mode of conduct: Online/virtual hackathon
- Theme: Real-world applications of zero-knowledge cryptography on Stellar
- Format: Open innovation challenge with no fixed use case or compulsory project category
- Participants can build:
- Private payment applications
- Privacy pools
- Confidential tokens
- Zero-knowledge identity and eligibility proofs
- Private payroll or treasury solutions
- Verifiable computation applications
- Privacy-focused solutions for stablecoins, settlements and tokenized assets
- Projects may generate proofs off-chain using technologies such as Noir, Circom or RISC Zero and verify them through Stellar smart contracts.
- Stellar’s ZK infrastructure includes cryptographic primitives such as BN254 elliptic-curve operations and Poseidon/Poseidon2 hashing.
- Technical support is available through the Stellar Developer Discord and the event’s community support channels.
📅 Important Dates
- Submission opening date: June 15, 2026
- Submission deadline: June 29, 2026 at 12:00
🎯 Eligibility & Rules
- Eligibility
- The hackathon is aimed at blockchain developers, Web3 builders, cryptography enthusiasts, students, researchers and startup teams.
- The published event information does not mention any nationality-specific restriction.
- Indian students and developers can participate in the virtual event, subject to the DoraHacks platform terms and local regulations.
- Participants may submit individually or collaborate as a team through the DoraHacks platform.
- Both experienced ZK developers and builders exploring zero-knowledge technology can participate.
- Participants must be capable of publishing their project code in a public repository.
- Rules and Submission Requirements
- The project must use zero-knowledge cryptography meaningfully rather than merely mentioning ZK in the documentation.
- The solution must interact with the Stellar ecosystem, such as by verifying a proof through a Stellar or Soroban smart contract.
- Participants must provide an open-source repository hosted on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket.
- The repository must contain:
- Complete project source code
- A clear README file
- Setup and installation instructions
- An explanation of the project’s ZK implementation
- Participants must submit a two-to-three-minute demonstration video.
- The video should:
- Demonstrate the working project
- Explain the real-world problem being addressed
- Show how zero-knowledge technology is used
- Explain the project’s connection with Stellar
- Submissions should be functional enough for judges to understand and evaluate the main use case.
- Projects must be submitted through the official DoraHacks event page before the deadline.
🏆 Benefits for the Participants
- Total prize pool: USD 10,000, distributed in XLM
- First prize: USD 5,000
- Second prize: USD 2,000
- Third prize: USD 1,250
- Fourth prize: USD 1,000
- Fifth prize: USD 750
- Winners can gain visibility within the Stellar developer ecosystem.
- Participants also receive an opportunity to:
- Demonstrate their blockchain and cryptography skills
- Build an open-source ZK project
- Connect with Stellar developers and ecosystem contributors
- Create a portfolio-ready Web3 application
- Explore privacy-focused financial and identity solutions