Bengaluru: The Arbitrum Foundation has officially announced the winners of the Arbitrum Open House India IRL Hacker House, a four-day intensive build sprint held in Bengaluru.
The event connected India’s developer community with Arbitrum’s production-ready technology stack, producing innovative solutions across DeFi, privacy, onchain insurance, and developer tools.
The top three winning projects at Arbitrum Open House India IRL hacker house shared a prize pool of $70,000 and secured a spot to present at the upcoming Demo Day.
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Top Winners of Arbitrum Open House India IRL Hacker House
- First Place ($40,000): Orbital AMM Protocol – An advanced automated market maker (AMM) capable of supporting thousands of stablecoins in a single pool by extending concentrated liquidity into higher dimensions.
- Second Place ($20,000): Shinobi.Cash – A cross-chain privacy protocol enabling deposits on any EVM chain with private withdrawals on another, all powered by a single Arbitrum deployment.
- Third Place ($10,000): GuardChain.ai – A blockchain-native, community-owned insurance platform designed for gig workers and self-help groups, combining AI-assisted claims processing with transparent onchain governance.
Ben Greenberg, Developer Relations Lead at the Arbitrum Foundation and one of the judges, highlighted the significance of the top winner: “Some projects make great hackathon demos, some become useful open-source tools, and a few show the shape of a meaningful new product for the ecosystem. Orbital is in that last group.”
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Program Structure of Arbitrum Open House India IRL Hacker House
The Arbitrum Open House India IRL Hacker House followed a structured three-stage journey:
- Learn: Practical workshops and Q&A sessions introduced the Arbitrum stack and reduced time-to-first-commit for both new and experienced teams.
- Build: A three-week online buildathon where teams developed working prototypes with feedback from mentors and pitch sessions.
- Hack: The culminating Bengaluru in-person hacker house with application-based entry, deep technical reviews, tight checkpoints, and mentorship from Arbitrum engineers and ecosystem partners.
Over four days, participants collaborated with mentors from organizations including the Ethereum Foundation: Founder Success, OpenZeppelin, Couchbase, and Appwrite.
Builders leveraged Arbitrum’s technology stack by deploying smart contracts in Rust, C, C++, or Solidity, with options to launch on Arbitrum One or scope custom Orbit chains.
Aditi Chopra, Regional Growth Lead for India at the Arbitrum Foundation, praised the quality of work delivered: “India’s builders move quickly, solve real problems, and set a high bar for product quality. Across the board, we saw clear user value, credible adoption paths, and strong technical judgment.”
Lorenzo Sicilia, Head of Technology at the Arbitrum Foundation and a judge, emphasized how the program enabled developers to build and deploy real-world solutions: “Arbitrum One’s battle-tested infrastructure gave builders a reliable environment with access to billions in liquidity, while Orbit made it simple to spin up customizable chains.”
Road Ahead for Winning Teams
The winning projects from the Arbitrum Open House India IRL Hacker House will be showcased at Demo Day on October 6 to ecosystem leaders and strategic partners.
Select teams may also qualify for an accelerator track focused on go-to-market execution, fundraising readiness, and deeper integration within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
