In an attempt to get some utility into the Chia blockchain, Chia Network has partnered with Sirius Labs to do a hackathon with $500 000 in prizes starting on July 17th. You can check out the details here.
But who is “Sirius Labs”? I don’t know. I cant find any information about them. The contest itself is legitimate, and they are indeed partnered with Chia Network to accomplish these goals, but it is not clear yet who they are. They describe themselves as such:
Sirius Labs is committed to building a thriving community of Blockchain developers worldwide and focuses on connecting great teams with investment institutions. We appreciate every original idea and help bring it to a highly developed state before introduction to the whole world. Sirius Labs team comes from the United States, Norway, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore and other regions, and is supported by top institutions.
However this hackathon appears to be their first project, they have a github only associated with this project and seem like a Venture Capital firm thrown together in order to do this project. My guess is they are owned by another VC firm or set of VC firms, but either way we will be keeping on eye on this and especially the product of their contest.
If you would like to apply, applications are open on their site so you should read up on the details but maybe consider waiting on the application until they are using HTTPS for their website. Right now it is only accessible through unencrypted means so you should hesitate to put your personal information in until they fix that.
Not using HTTPS from the start is truly bizarre. Would be awkward for any site in the current year, but for a site about cryptocurrency it beggars belief.
I hope it’s real though. Lisp is great and I look forward to seeing what can be done with it in Chia.