Welcome to Meet the Contest Winner—a HackerNoon interview series celebrating the writers behind our most memorable contest entries.
Let’s get started! Tell us who you are, which contest you won, and why you decided to participate in the first place.
I’m Glaze. I work with IOSG Ventures, one of the earliest and largest crypto VCs in Asia, investing in cutting-edge crypto products. My focus is crypto infrastructure and AI x crypto. I’ve been writing about crypto innovation for five years, breaking down new ideas and emerging paradigms.
I won second place prize in the #decentralize-ai Writing Contest hosted by ICP and HackerNoon.
AI x crypto is widely discussed, but many people struggle with product design and PMF. That gap motivated me to write this research. I’ve been publishing on HackerNoon for a long time, and when I released this piece, I realized the contest closely aligned with my work, which is why I decided to participate.
Give us the story behind your winning entry. What inspired it, and how did it evolve as you wrote?
The winning story, The Crowded AI Spaces Still Have Room for One More Genius, is grounded in my own user experience with a wide range of AI and crypto apps, as well as conversations with many founders. Some of the apps I used directly inspired the ideas in this article, and you may find them interesting as well. I also spend a lot of time talking with users and studying AI products in Web2. Through this process, I noticed a clear gap between Web2 AI and Web3 AI, particularly in what teams and users choose to focus on.
What was the most challenging part of drafting or revising this entry, and how was that challenge ultimately solved?
The hardest part is filtering out the noise. The space is crowded with moving pieces and countless projects. The key is to distinguish between teams that are genuinely solving real problems and those that are mostly driven by narrative. n
Doing this well depends on a deep understanding of users. What are they actually looking for? The only way to answer that is by using products yourself, spending time with them, and identifying experiences that are truly valuable and worth users investing more time in.
Was there a pivotal change from first draft to final submission that made the work “click,” and what triggered it?
The key change I made was rethinking how much space to allocate to each section and how deep to go on individual projects. After finishing the draft, I shared it with many friends in the space to understand which parts they found most compelling. Based on that feedback, I realized the high level insights mattered more to readers, so I expanded that section and gave it greater emphasis.
Did specific research or lived experience shape any key points or insights in the article, and how did you work those into the final piece?
At that time, I believed people were looking for Web3 native AI infrastructure to experiment with. This meant taking many proven Web2 AI pipelines and infrastructure patterns, bringing them into Web3, and decentralizing them to offer a private, end to end, censorship resistant experience.
What does this recognition change for current projects or near‑term publishing plans?
I plan to continue unpacking more complex areas in the Web3 space and to draw on my experience to surface unique insights and opportunities. I’m currently working on a piece on AI and trading, and I expect to follow up with several deep dives into decentralized finance.
What advice would you give anyone looking to participate in a HackerNoon Writing Contest?
Try to go deep into each topic and present original insights and opinions that others wouldn’t naturally arrive at.
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Want to be our next featured contest winner?
Enter the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon for a shot at $150K+ in cash prizes and software credits.
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