If you've never been to Austin, Texas, let me tell you: it's not just a city. It's a mood.

Between the smoky drift of mesquite BBQ, the ever-present pulse of street music, and the curious mix of hipster minimalism and Southern grit

If you’ve never been to Austin, Texas, let me tell you: it’s not just a city. It’s a mood.

Between the smoky drift of mesquite BBQ, the ever-present pulse of street music, and the curious mix of hipster minimalism and Southern grit, Austin has long been a city for builders. So it was only fitting that a swarm of BSV developers, entrepreneurs, and blockchain fanatics descended on the city last weekend for the latest BSV Hackathon—a test of code, caffeine, and conviction.

We're halfway through Day 1 of the Texas BSV Hackathon! Builders are deep in the zone and real progress is being made. Here's a quick update from @kurtwuckertjr! pic.twitter.com/ymanzuBKAE— BSV Hub (@btcHub) July 14, 2024

I arrived Friday with my brother Karl and headed straight to GorillaPool Mobile HQ, where Luke Rohenaz and David Case were already elbows-deep in code as we awaited a visit from “Root,” our co-founder and SysAdmin of the GorillaPool server infrastructure.

We linked up with a ragtag crew of familiar faces: Freddy from Elas, Colin the fresh-faced dev, Brett Banfe, Amy Voluntary, and Rafael LaVerde, among others. After settling in, we made our pilgrimage to Terry Black’s BBQ—a cathedral of meat where the brisket is biblical and the sides could feed a battalion. From there, we caught a beach volleyball game, soaked up the Austin ambiance, and watched the GorillaPool team begin building something genuinely special: a fully decentralized paymail system using the 1Sat Ordinals protocol—an on-chain DNS where domains are mined and mapped directly to user identity.

The apes are plowing toward victory at the BSV Hackathon in Austin. pic.twitter.com/LhGdSiYATV— BSV Hub (@btcHub) July 15, 2024

Saturday morning cracked open at Texas Sake Co., tucked into an up-and-coming industrial neighborhood littered with coffee dens, taco trucks, dive bars, and enough tattooed freelancers to staff a Vice documentary. I was expecting a small, scrappy gathering—maybe a few code junkies hacking from laptops on folding chairs. What I got instead was a full house: 13 teams, dozens of devs, and a palpable buzz of real momentum.

I worked the event as CoinGeek’s roving media host while running logistics support for the GorillaPool team—translation: food, caffeine, and moral support while Luke and David typed their creation into the void. Ty Everett, the unofficial wizard-in-residence, commanded the room with a gleam in his eye and a quiet demand that every competitor dig into the Babbage Stack, his custom suite of Bitcoin development tools. The devs answered the call.

Awesome seeing all the presentations for cool business ideas at the BSV Hackathon. So refreshing to be reminded that people are working on cool business ideas that can only work on the real bitcoin. Great turnout too! pic.twitter.com/4XHZ6GbxTb— Brant Miller (@brant_miller) July 15, 2024

One quiet surprise was the universal praise for MNEE, a stablecoin designed for real-world use that just works. About half the projects deployed it in their demos, and the MNEE team even sent a rep with T-shirts and live tech support to the venue—a solid hustle for a protocol still under most people’s radar.

As day turned to night, some of us managed to sleep (beauty rest, anyone?), while others pushed through—writing code by the glow of laptop screens and the buzz of a neighborhood that doesn’t believe in bedtime.

By Sunday morning, the air was tight with urgency. 11 AM was the hard cutoff. Teams scrambled to polish demos, squash bugs, and tighten pitch decks. Then it was showtime.

Live from Austin - @kurtwuckertjr checking in at the Texas BSV Hackathon!The final push is on. Hard stop at 11AM sharp, and teams are racing to the finish.Stay tuned for presentations and the winner reveal later today! #LiveFromAustin #BSVHackathon #CoinGeek #BSV...https://t.co/bE4c7O793H

As one team put it, they spent 36 hours straight coding, fueled by coffee and ramen. It was an image of pure, unadulterated hustle—the kind of raw determination that built America and the spirit of the Texas Hackathon.

One by one, projects demoed everything from games to identity systems to decentralized services. There was laughter, applause, a couple of live code meltdowns, and more than a few “aha” moments.

The top prize—$30,000—went