Consensus 2025: Inside the Aptos x EasyA Hackathon

2025-05-22

Consensus 2025—held in Toronto—brought together builders, thinkers, and doers from across the Web3 space and this year, Aptos builders showed up in full force to demonstrate why it’s the only chain suited for real-world use cases at scale.

As part of the official Consensus Hackathon, the Aptos Foundation partnered with EasyA to host a 36-hour sprint where developers experienced firsthand why Aptos delivers the most efficient dollar on‑chain.

Dozens of teams took on the Aptos challenge, building everything from intelligent payments infrastructure to multiplayer game engines – all validating the core thesis that whether it's for payments or consumer applications, Money Moves Better on Aptos.

500 builders
36 total submissions on Aptos
A full week of mentorship, workshops, and late-night problem solving

Here’s what went down, who won big, and what comes next.

Aptos Builder House: A Home Base for Innovation

Alongside the hackathon Aptos Foundation and Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF) hosted the Aptos Builder House—a co-living and co-building space for 14 student builders and rising founders from across Canada.

What started as a place to crash quickly became an after-hours innovation hub. From late-night coding and peer reviews to spontaneous pitch practice, the house helped builders stay in flow long after the event doors closed.

The week wrapped with a community dinner and Aptos Pitch Lab, where residents shared early demos and got real-time feedback from peers and mentors. One of those ideas? It evolved into a winning hackathon project.

“This was the most unbelievably awesome experience of my life. Thank you BAF, Aptos team, and all the amazing hackers I met!!!”
— William, Builder House resident

The Challenge: Reimagining How Money Moves

The Aptos “Money Unchained” track asked builders to think big: “Reimagine how money and value move.”

Today’s financial systems are fragmented and outdated. We challenged builders to take a new approach, powered by Aptos’ high-throughput architecture, gasless transactions, and seamless onboarding experiences.

Hackers explored:

Payments & Financial Access
Merchant & Developer Infrastructure
AI x Finance
DeFi Building Blocks

Some teams created full products, while others contributed protocol modules or key infrastructure. All were pushing toward a more efficient and inclusive financial future, but only 3 reigned victorious.

Presenting the Aptos x EasyA Hackathon Winners

1st Place ($15,000): ApTap

Team Members: Nico Cary (@nicocary) | Tom Rowbotham (@0xRowbo)

ApTap turns your Apple or Google Wallet into a gateway to Web3— no extensions, no seed phrases. Powered by Keyless, it offers a seamless tap-to-wallet experience.

"We make getting onchain as easy as adding a boarding pass.” - ApTap Team

2nd Place ($10,000): AptosAI Guard

Team Members: Nolan Druid (@budwindruid) | Jessica Lee (@JexxicaL) | Shyamal Bhatt (@shyamal_bhatt) | Felipe Garcia López (@FelipeGarcaLpez)

🔗 Demo

An AI-powered safety layer for Aptos users. AptosAI Guard helps identify risky transactions in real time using machine learning models trained on wallet behavior, transaction history, and token flows.

“Aptos keyless sign-in feels like magic!”
— Rodney, hackathon participant

3rd Place ($5,000): MMO

Vincent Palmerio (@vincentpalmerio)

🔗 Demo

A proof-of-concept for truly massive multiplayer Web3 games, MMO connects Aptos to SpacetimeDB to support thousands of concurrent players—giving them ownership of in-game assets via Aptos-native NFTs.

Honorable Mentions

Icebreaker: Bringing gamified networking to real-world events, Icebreaker offers PvP challenges, on-chain rewards, and a social leaderboard to bring fun to conference networking.
Gene Ledger: With a decentralized approach to genealogy, Gene Ledger uses homomorphic encryption to ensure privacy-first ancestry that never exposes your DNA.

Consensus Takeaways

The Aptos x EasyA Hackathon at Consensus 2025 was about more than prizes—it was about showing what’s possible when builders are equipped with the right tools and empowered to bring their vision into the real world. TLDR:

Seamless onboarding (like ApTap + Keyless accounts) is no longer a “nice to have,” it’s table stakes.
Builders are ready to ship AI-powered and real-world-integrated use cases on‑chain.
Community spaces like the Builder House can dramatically elevate focus, collaboration, and builder morale and we look forward to doing many more!

Builders, stay locked in with the Aptos Foundation on Twitter and LinkedIn, and bookmark the Aptos Developer Portal.

We’re just getting started!

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