Telegram today announced a $400,000 developer fund, to be awarded as part of an upcoming blockchain development contest. The company launched the largest ICO ever a couple years ago, raising literally billions of dollars to build an Ethereum competitor atop its massive social network.
Developers will challenge themselves to develop decentralized applications – which amount to a series of interactive smart contracts – on the Telegram Open Network, in hopes of earning funding for further development.
Contestants must use some of Telegram’s provided toolkit, and have five different areas to choose from.
Apparently, the contest will include three rounds, each of which can earn the winner $200,000.
Another $200,000 can potentially – though not likely – be earned by finding and exploiting a financially devastating bug in the TON architecture. Called a “bug bounty,” the practice of putting a price on the security of the product is very common in computer programming.
However, as a matter of comparison, Monero recently awarded a security researcher far, far less than this, and companies like Coinbase do as well, through a platform called Hacker.one.
Bug Bounty Bonus
Those unfamiliar with computer security may not understand that hackers actually do their victims a service. Once a thing is hacked, it can be repaired, and it’s unlikely the same problem will arise again. Thus, in their own way, hackers do their part to advance technology.
Hacker One and privately-operated bug bounties (like the TON one) are merely an amnesty program for people who could otherwise viciously attack products. Doing so at their own risk, of course, computer hacking being a felonious act in most parts of the globe.
Blockchains are eons ahead of traditional banks in terms of security. By nature, the decentralized storage of funds is superior to keeping them all in one or a limited number of places, and that’s only a top-level security difference.
Blockchains also require cryptographic proof of ownership for funds to move, while banks routinely assist fraudsters in making unauthorized transfers.
The Telegram Open Network development contents ends on October 15th and 11PM Central European Time, and BSN will report back on the winning products shortly thereafter.
