There's been a trend that has been quite popular in the tech community for a while now. Everywhere you turn, on the internet, almost every tweet on Twitter contains the term "web3".

Now, you might have asked (or you're currently asking) yourself What exactly is "web3".

If we look at it from the perspective of the ethereum blockchain. Web3 is the representation of decentralized applications that run on the web. Since these types of applications (DApps) are decentralized there's no need to worry about your personal data being monetized.

In general terms, web3 is a "verifiable" and "permissionless" internet.

The applications on web3 are deployed on decentralized blockchains, instead of using the traditional method that requires developers to deploy their apps onto a particular server.

Well, that's a little bit of an intro about web3, let's get to the reason why you're here. If you want to learn more about web3, you can check out this ethereum doc and this article on freecodecamp.

What is the PlatON Network

The PlatON Network is an AI privacy-preserving network that allows you to perform "verifiable computations, zero-knowledge proof, homomorphic encryption, secure multi-party computations and other cryptographic algorithms on the blockchain".

The paragraph above basically refers to the Network (PlatON) as an internet (web3) protocol that has its foundations rooted in the properties of a typical blockchain system.

On the Network, LAT is a token that is used as a means of exchange (payments) for services rendered. Still on this network, the demography of people can be further categorized into:

• Users: this category of people are basically you and I. They manage their assets (the tokens) most of the times for exchanges, and sometimes for the use of DApps (Decentralized Applications)

• Validators: these categories of people usually stake their tokens so that they can become validators of the Network. Sometimes they participate in the governance of the network and receive rewards for doing so.

• Volunteers: these categories mostly include developers who contribute to the network by ensuring that it thrives.

The LAT token is a cryptocurrency, and yes. You may have been wondering how to get a monetary value for this token.

Fortunately, there's quite a small number of exchange platforms that have the LAT token listed on their platform. One of them is the Huobi platform. You can create an account with them and trade the LAT token with some popular cryptocurrency tokens.

Introducing the PlatON Hackathon Plus

The PlatON Network previously organized a hackathon that was funded with about $150,000 for people to build cool products on the network.

The previous hackathon had a lot of developers participating from Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa.

The top three positions were tied by some of the participating teams (more like a draw, between all of them). You can take a look at the top projects that were built during the hackathon below.

Itheum: A privacy-preserving data trade platform

ShowMe: A Web3.0 NFT social subscription platform

Dante: A privacy-preserving storage platform

Privacy RecSys: A Study of Recommender System Based on Privacy-preserving Computation

PlatON Studio Integrated Development Environment

S-world Metaverse Game: A Web3.0 simulation & growth game platform

Pumo Finance: A synthetic asset issuance protocol and trading platform based on the Alaya blockchain

LionSwap: A liquidity verification platform onAlaya

You can take a look at the details of all the participating teams here.

As a result of the positive feedback gotten from the previous hackathon, the PlatON Network is organizing another hackathon.

But, this time around, the incentives for the hackathon is up to $1,000,000 (million dollars) for the first batch of 31 teams that'll submit their project idea.

The Network is inviting developers from all over the world to come and participate in this event. If you are enthusiastic about this new ecosystem of the internet and you'd love to get your hands dirty, you should check out this hackathon.

To learn more about the hackathon and submit a project title, you can click here

You'll notice that, while you're about filling your project information, you're requested to put in your LAT token wallet address, to obtain that, you'll need to download the ATON wallet either on the Google play store (if you're on android) or the app store (if you make use of an iPhone).

Here are some other resources that you can dig deeper into if you want to participate effectively in this hackathon.

• Official docs of the PlatON Network
• Buildspace, a community on discord where you get to learn by building products around web3
• Connect Users to MetaMask (or any wallet) From Your Frontend