Germany side track: Advance the Machine Economy with peaq

Side track dedicated to German builders

About peaq

Somewhere on robotic.sh right now, a robot is renting GPU time it doesn't own. Another is buying a centimeter-accurate position fix. A vertical farm in Hong Kong that was tokenized on Dualmint is paying revenue from salad sales to the people who co-own it. No purchase order, no invoice, no human in the loop. That is the Machine Economy, and it is already running. DePINs all over the world are aggregating training data, providing compute and storage for machines, and building an entire infrastructure layer for robots and machines to run on.

peaq is the omnichain economic system enabling robots and machines to do business on every chain. Machines earn, transact, build a credit rating, access capital, and become investable assets — economic participants, not endpoints owned by somebody else. We've got over 6M robots, machines, and humans onboarded, with 60+ apps across 22 industries, and 48M+ transactions settled by machines. We're excited to see what you build for the Machine Economy at the Crypto World's Fair!

Mission

Build something that advances the Machine Economy. We're looking for innovative solutions that empower physical hardware or offer services like credit, coordination, ownership, or income generation for machines.

Hackathon Track Scope

We're looking for projects that push the boundaries of the Machine Economy. Your project could fall into one of these areas, or something entirely new:

• Robotics: Give robots an onchain identity, a wallet, and the ability to earn and pay for themselves.

• Machine-to-machine commerce: Enable machines to pay each other for data, energy, compute, or work without human intervention.

• Physical AI: Develop agents that can operate, coordinate, or transact on behalf of real hardware.

• DeFi for Machines: Explore tokenization, fractional ownership, revenue sharing, lending, credit, or insurance specifically for machines.

• DePINs: Focus on energy, mobility, compute, connectivity, or sensing applications within decentralized physical infrastructure networks.

You don't necessarily need physical hardware for your submission. A simulated machine that activates a real machine ID and reports real revenue or activity events is a valid submission.

Here are some starter ideas, but feel free to think outside the box:

• Credit in motion: Activate a machine, stream its revenue events, and build a dashboard that shows its Machine Credit Rating increasing in real-time. This proves end-to-end activation and qualification.

• New robotic.sh adapter: Create something valuable that machines would pay for, something not already among the existing 20 adapters. Ship the adapter and demonstrate one machine calling it to prove the service layer is open.

• Two machines, one deal: Show a drone paying a charging pad, or a car paying a parking sensor, with the transaction settled onchain without human approval. This proves M2M settlement.

• Parametric insurance: Write a downtime policy where the machine's own signed telemetry acts as the trigger. If heartbeats stop, escrow pays out without a claims adjuster. Price the premium based on its credit rating. This demonstrates how verifiable telemetry makes a machine insurable.

• Secondary market for machines: Build a listing and settlement mechanism for a Machine NFT (the tradeable kind, not the soulbound Identity NFT). Render the listing like a bond, showing live ratings, trailing revenue, and implied yield. This proves machines can trade based on cashflow.

We welcome early-stage and unfinished-but-promising work. We're more interested in a strong idea with a clear direction than a finished product without a compelling vision.

What won't score well:

• An excellent app with peaq tacked on as an afterthought.

• Another generic fleet dashboard that lacks an underlying economic mechanism.

• A pitch deck and roadmap instead of a working demo.

• A README that assumes we already understand your project.

• Five partially built features instead of one fully functional one.

Submission Requirements

• Your submission should be a working demo or a compelling prototype.

• Clearly articulate how your project contributes to the Machine Economy.

• Provide a clear explanation of your project's functionality and purpose.

• Submissions must be in English.

Judging Criteria

Submissions will be judged on:

• Innovation and Creativity: How novel and imaginative is your solution for advancing the Machine Economy?

• Technical Implementation: The quality of your code, the feasibility of your solution, and how well it integrates with peaq's principles (even if simulated).

• Impact and Potential: How significantly could your project move the Machine Economy forward, and what is its potential for real-world application?

• Clarity and Presentation: How well you explain your idea, its functionality, and its value.

• Adherence to the Machine Economy Focus: Projects that genuinely address the challenges and opportunities within the Machine Economy, rather than simply incorporating peaq without clear economic mechanisms.

Reward Structure

• 1st Place: 1000 USDT + 1 Microducks + an introduction to the peaq ecosystem and BD team, and a participation in peaq’s and codec’s Foundry Program

• 2nd Place: 700 USDT + 1 Microduck (worth 399USD)*

• 3rd Place: 300 USDT + 1 Microduck (worth 399USD)*

• 4th Place: 1 Microduck (worth 399USD)* - This is not a cash price

• 5th Place: 1 Microduck (worth 399USD)* - This is not a cash price
  *Please note: due to high demand, there may be delays in Microduck delivery. This is outside of peaq's control and we appreciate your patience.