I'm calling NEAR out

[0xf]

You build a blockchain that uses technology to promote transparency but you run a hackathon that is the complete opposite of that.

I do not want an apology or any compensation. I am writing this for the record so others can reference in the future.

The way you ran this hackathon is nothing short of a scam. You promote a campaign to get developers to build things for prizes and when they do, nothing.

Let me mention all the red flags I’ve seen:

• Metaverse Challenge - Airtable Metaverse
  • This challenge is impossible, after I spoke to gumdropsteve, the sponsor, we together saw that this was not possible to do.
    
    
    
    NEAR doesn’t even check the viability of any of the hacks. This allows their hackathon marketing campaign to look strong when the reality half if not all are just for display.
• Chainvote challenge Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • Another challenge, where the sponsor is nowhere to be contacted. There seem to be different ways to contact each sponsor of the challenges! Eventually I found an email of their website https://www.chainvote.co/, sent a message and no response.
    
    
    
    After more research I found out that the sponsor of this challenge is a single guy from India. https://www.linkedin.com/company/chainvote1/people/
    
    
• Galatic Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • Another sponsor that does not respond to email
    
    
    
    I think a pattern is emerging here. A hyped up hackathon and non existent sponsors.
• Payment Gateway Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • This sponsor straightup doesn’t have any way to contact them. Their website http://www.openguitar.org/ makes no sense and you can download the sponsor’s resume. Are you starting to feel many of these challenges are bogus? Wait there’s more!
• Metamask challenge Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • I contacted the sponsor of this challenge Hack challenge questions · Issue #2 · ilblackdragon/near-eth-gateway · GitHub and didn’t hear anything till 2 weeks later. By the time they contacted me, there was no time left to even start this.
• Marmaj challenge Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • I did this challenge but before I could submit, I found out someone else submitted. There is only 1 way to complete this challenge so I asked the sponsor about this.
    
    
    
    They said the most efficient solution wins. Every tech person knows that answers like these are not valid and don’t make sense. Also this sponsor posted online the solution of a participant while the hackathon was ongoing [Open Challenge Payout] Marma J Foundation - MetaBUDL. How is that normal? I now feared other sponsors would do the same. You can see how disorganised this hackathon is so far.
• Hype DAO Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • I complete one of the tasks separately but still part of the hackathon. I contacted the sponsor to discuss other tasks more in depth. No response
    
    
    
    This is first when I realised this is not a organised hackathon.
• Ref Finance Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • I spoke to Marco (Sponsor) and Didier (Product Manager) about this challenge.
    
    
    
    I was already wary about submitting since I saw another participant’s solution - GitHub - Lev-Stambler/lets-swap-_- but they encouraged me and said they’ll update me along the process. I submitted, did I hear anything from them, no!
• Swagger Shopify Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • I spoke to FRDRK (Sponsor) on Telegram. Initially what they wanted wasn’t possible because it depended on some of their in-house solutions that weren’t ready. Why NEAR allows sponsors to host impossible challenges? Good question. I explained what I could do and he gave the green light.
    
    
    
    I submitted and did I hear anything back, no! I think these sponsors that personally encourage you to submit solutions to their problems but don’t have decency to get back to you is just reflection of the kind of people in this ecosystem. Would you not feel this is just 1 big scam?
• Facebook Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • You see the name facebook and you’d think big partnership here. No don’t think that. There is no official way to contact Facebook regarding this so it is another empty bogus challenge. Accurately speaking this has nothing to do with Facebook but Diem but you wouldn’t know that. I reached out to Diem [Bug] Adapter Explanation · Issue #9095 · diem/diem · GitHub and they redirected me somewhere else. I’ve spent enough time in NEAR rabbit holes, don’t have time for Diem’s.
• MutiDao Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl
  • This is the only sponsor that got back to me and the most complex challenge I did. I submitted this with a working video demonstration. The sponsor told me that NEAR judges couldn’t get my solution working and they don’t know what happens next. They also said that they would be happy to award me the prize but actually that decision is made by NEAR - information not made available in the beginning.
    
    

How would you feel?

I have just listed more than 10 of the challenges I’ve tried to participate all with questionable concerns. I spent a lot of time going through an undefined process of contacting each sponsor to learn more about their challenges. In the end I only submitted 3 challenges in spite of the many problems I faced.

I joined blockchain industry 1st August and this is the worst experience. Initially, I became interested in the hackathon because of the monetary compensation. Over time as wild wild west patterns emerged, I saw what I hoped to get out this was not even possible.

There will be no global adoption of blockchain driven by 3rd world experience, only for communities where that is normal. The many people outside blockchain that subscribe to me would not want to be part of such choreography.

The technology might be great but why would I adopt a technology made by people that like to run a bogus hackathon exploting developer time when in reality majority should not participate because they’ll get absolutely nothing leaving demoralised and spent.

If you have something to say that will prove me wrong about how this hackathon was ran, I’d be happy to be corrected because everything I’ve said is more or less accurate.

Update
I just saw on the metabuidl website that winners of the challenges I did will be announced 29th September. Information that was not said in the beginning.

Nobody knows what’s going to happen next, there isn’t a process anybody is aware yet there has been a lot of hype and already false expectations - sounds like a scam.

For people wanting to use a blockchain, usually they look at youtube videos, articles and technical papers when considering. The best determining factor is personal experience as I’m documenting.

I am completely frustrated to be part of a confusing process for a company building technology to promote the opposite. I continue to build on NEAR due to work but personally I wouldn’t use NEAR for my own app neither recommend.

[chloe]

Sorry that you had such a difficult time with the hackathon, I’ll respond to your concerns about the marmaj challenge specifically because we had a chat about it.

@0xf

There is only 1 way to complete this challenge so I asked the sponsor about this.

This is not correct. There are definitely multiple solutions to the problem and imo it was very clear that the most efficient solution would win the prize while every working submission would be rewarded.

The multicall contract works, but it doesn’t account for slippage, frontrunning, automated transactions. It also doesn’t have a UI to use, doesn’t account for extra gas left over from a call, and I’m sure I can think of many more inefficiencies…

@0xf

Also this sponsor posted online the solution of a participant while the hackathon was ongoing

You said you are new to the blockchain space, so maybe that’s why you seem to be confused about processes within open source development in general. The code is and was all open source. Posting it “publicly” has nothing to do with me, it was already posted publicly on GitHub .

The purpose of posting one of the solutions being worked on was to support other hackers to attempt to get a working solution in as well. As I already stated, every “unique” working solution would be rewarded, so if a hacker didn’t know how to get started, this OS code might have helped them progress.

You did state though that you were drawn in by the money:

@0xf

I became interested in the hackathon because of the monetary compensation.

While I understand that financial gain can be a wonderful motivator, I’m glad that you decided to stay away from our challenge specifically. The Marma J Foundation doesn’t really have time to focus on submissions from individuals that are purely focused on financial gain and chooses instead to focus on community collaboration. We’d rather see multiple working submissions that support the wider community, than people hiding their code to try and win a prize.

While many of your concerns are valid, many of the partner challenges were impossible to complete, many of the challenges you note actually did receive working submissions.

For example:

@0xf

Hype DAO Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl

And also the ref finance one as you noted.

It seems as though you are confused about the way open source development works. There’s no need to be hiding solutions to problems here, we are all were to support eachother, at least that’s why I am here.

@0xf

I continue to build on NEAR due to work but personally I wouldn’t use NEAR for my own app neither recommend.

I would also suggest that you do not build your own app on the blockchain in general if you’re purpose is to keep your system closed. You might as well build on a web2 system . One of the main draws to web3 development is the open source nature of it and the ability for a community to rally around a project because if it.

[IgbozeIsrael]

Great submission.
What we do should be for the development of the community even though money should motivate us in some way.
Seeing everything wrong with a standing and open system as this is something to wonder how think how you came up with it though.

[David_NEAR]

Hey @0xf ,

Appreicate you raising your thoughts and concerns in regards to the hackathon.

Was it ran flawlessly? Probably not. There’s definitely tonnes that can be improved on for the next Hackathon.

@0xf

The technology might be great but why would I adopt a technology made by people that like to run a bogus hackathon exploting developer time when in reality majority should not participate because they’ll get absolutely nothing leaving demoralised and spent.

However, I don’t think this is appropriate or fair. Did you raise any of these issues with the team during the Hackathon? There was a tonne of awesome submissions, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes awarded so far.

@0xf

Facebook Airtable - Live Challenges for near.org/metabuidl

• You see the name facebook and you’d think big partnership here. No don’t think that. There is no official way to contact Facebook regarding this so it is another empty bogus challenge. Accurately speaking this has nothing to do with Facebook but Diem but you wouldn’t know that. I reached out to Diem [Bug] Adapter Explanation · Issue #9095 · diem/diem · GitHub and they redirected me somewhere else. I’ve spent enough time in NEAR rabbit holes, don’t have time for Diem’s.

This challenge was hosted by the Move team inside FaceBook. They were awesome, super friendly, and definitely accessible on the Discord

Ideally you’d have raised these concerns with us before it got to this point. The team have always been open and accessible both here on the forum and over on our Discord/Telegram.

There’s plenty to learn from this Hackathon, and we always say we’re not afraid to fail along the journey, but to imply that any of this was ‘bogus’ or a ‘scam’ is simply false.