Hey Hackers!
Welcome to the winners’ announcement for the final round of the Opt Out Writing Contest! 🎊🎊
The Opt Out Writing contest first launched way back in January, offering a platform for true champions of decentralization to rage against persistent centralized structures threatening the promise of freedom within the Web3 ecosystem. Sponsored by Aut Labz, the contest’s opening theme, “OptOut of a system that doesn’t represent you”, saw Web3 hacktivists revisit the founding ideals of decentralized technologies through the lens of #autonomy, #identity, and #self-sovereignity.
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After a brief hiatus, the contest returned for its final round on July 1, 2024, with two concurrent themes, Create Your Own Standard
and Break Ties with the Status Quo. Once again, participants were called upon to challenge siloed control and break free from both real and metaphorical shackles—like an elephant realizing there’s no rope around its neck, finally free to forge its own path. Each theme for the final round was accompanied by three subtopics, as follows:
- Theme 2: Create Your Own Standard
- Theme 3: Break Ties with the Status Quo
The responses came in droves, touching on themes like decentralized trust, governance, and system design. They explored how collaboration could be reimagined, how reputation could be measured in fairer ways, what trust looks like in a tech-driven era, the delicate balance between human effort and technology in building better systems, and much more. All entries are publicly available here.
The final round saw over 50 #optout stories published, bringing the contest’s total to 87 stories that generated hours of insightful reading and over 100,000 pageviews.
At the end of the first round, we announced 20 finalists and 6 winners (see results announcement for round 1). This time around, it’s raining rewards. With 2 themes running concurrently, we’re announcing 30 finalists and up to 12 winners.
Note: Only entries submitted between July 1 and October 9, 2024, that accurately aligned with the contest’s themes were eligible for the final voting round.
Enough talk, let’s meet our finalists!
The Opt Writing Contest: Final Round Candidates 🎉
From Forums to Feeds: How Social Media Algorithms Shape Digital Interaction by @minad21.
Should Interactions Be Decentralized? by @cryptocatt.
Information Society: Idea – A, Realization – F, Total – D by @cryptobro.
How Decentralized Interaction Protocols Work: Analyzing VC, ZKP, and Āut’s Interaction Tree by @ileolami.
To Interact Better, Interact More for Fun by @maken8.
Web3: A Decentralized Social Fabric? by @denystsvaig.
Metaverse 0, 2.0, 3.0: How Do I See Our Future of Interaction? by @jjjjjjj.
Reputation and Trust – Rely on Others by @mcsee.
20 Crazy Stories On Cyber Reputation by @oliveremeka.
The Tangible Reputation: Engineering Trust in a Decentralized World by @newcommer.
The Reputation Nightmare: A World Built on Scores by @abduhallalala.
Reputation: The Shadow We Cast in a Networked World by @dogieee.
What Do Privacy and Feudalism Have in Common? by @defititan.
How a Decentralized Trust System Could Help People Vote for the President of the Galaxy by @defititan.
Trust in the Digital Age: The Shiny Armor and the Scarlet Stain by @cryptowizard.
To Live In The Decentralized Internet Is Inevitable – Can You Trust The Void? by @sipping.
Centralization as a Factor Constraining the Development of Secure Communications by @cryptocatt.
Opt Out: Is Society So Rotten? by @nftbro.
What Is Your Perspective? by @yumnas.
Solving the Paradox of Decentralized Coordination by @oliveremeka.
Honest Online Voting: Myth or Reality? by @web3judge.
The King of DAOs – A Bitcoin Justice Department by @maken8.
On-Chain Governance: A Paradox of Decentralization and Human Nature by @web3judge.
Decentralized Governance: The Death of Hierarchy Through Reputation-Based Governance by @induction.
Governance in Decentralized Systems by @etimfon.
OptOut: Imperceptible Revolution by @nftbro.
ZkDemocracy: the Easiest Solution for Zero-knowledge Proof-based Anonymous Voting by @thebojda.
Breaking The UStatus Quo: Between Elon Musk’s Terminus and Lex Fridman’s Empire Romanus by @nebojsaneshatodorovic.
The Dark Systems Manual by @walo.
Systemization of Human Capital: A Path Between Dystopia and Bucolic Revival by @cryptocatt.
From bold ideas to practical solutions, these stories offer fresh perspectives on how decentralization reshapes our social, political, and technological systems.
Be sure to check them out and follow these amazing writers on HackerNoon!
After reviewing all submissions, HackerNoon and Āut Labs have selected 12 winners for the final round.
Two winners were chosen for each of the following categories: #interaction, #reputation, #trust, #coordination, #governance, and #systems.
And the Winners Are…
Theme 2: Create Your Own Standard
#interaction
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: VC, ZKP, and Āut’s interaction tree represent fundamentally different approaches to tracking and verifying interactions in a decentralized web.
Congratulations @ileolami. you’ve won $750.
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: In traditional web paradigms, interactions are regulated or controlled with the help of central intermediaries such as social media platforms or other kinds of centralized servers. Web3 tries to strip away these central intermediary and replace them with protocols where the rules are hard-coded, immutable, and enforced together by means of the collective.
#reputation
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: Reputation, in its most traditional definition, is a fragile tapestry of interaction amongst humans: an elaborate interplay between social proof and intuition.
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: Reputation is among humankind’s oldest currencies, yet in the digital age, its contours have shifted, expanded, and blurred in fascinating ways.
Congratulations @dogieee, you’ve won $250.
#trust
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: Data privacy today is like digital feudalism—companies control your info. Web3 changes this, giving users true ownership over their data, like owning land.
Congratulations @defititan, you’ve won $750.
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: Consider the delicate balance between risk and reward, vulnerability and strength. In this, I find the imperfections and possibilities of trust as a guiding force. One that even now shapes our actions in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
Theme 3: Break Ties with the Status Quo
#coordination
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: The idea of conducting online voting is not new. Nevertheless, remote solutions are emerging and claiming their place in the sun. The vast majority of online voting services are centralized solutions managed by a specific operator company. These systems are built not on “technical impossibility”, but on the “economic unfeasibility” of interfering in the business processes of clients. But what if you need more?
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: Like time travel, decentralized coordination is haunted philosophically by a demonic paradox that guards the gate. However, from a technical standpoint, things are looking promising as technology system have been developed which gradually wear away at the impossibility of these concepts. For example, rocket companies have proven that incredibly fast shuttles shot into space make astronauts age slower than their biological twins on earth, effectively proving time travel. Also, auth labs a web 3 company has developed several practical web 3 protocols e.g., DAOs which enable technical decentralized coordination.
#governance
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: Decentralized governance offers an innovative transition from traditional hierarchical structures, but please note that it’s not without its own set of challenges. Reputation-based governance (as introduced by Āut Labs) can bring a promising feature of meritocracy. It can make it sure that influence is tied to contributions rather than wealth.
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: Smart contracts on the blockchain upend the current legal system by allowing individuals to make contracts with code and not papers. When smart contracts allow a group of more than two individuals to effectively manage their blockchain financial affairs, they form an autonomous system for managing them. What is called a Decentralized Autonomous Organisation (DAO)
Congratulations @maken8, you’ve won $250
#systems
1ST PLACE 🏆
TLDR: This article examines the interplay between human irrationality and systems design, focusing on how user input validates systems. It highlights the role of pain in guiding decision-making and the psychological factors influencing our acceptance of certain systems over others. Ultimately, it encourages designers to understand these dynamics to create effective, user-friendly systems.
Congratulations @walo, you’ve won $750
2ND PLACE 🎉
TLDR: Web3 technology is revolutionizing digital identity management by promoting decentralization, enhancing user privacy and security, and providing individuals with greater ownership of their online identities, shaping a new digital landscape.
Congratulations @etimfon, you’ve won $250.
Congratulations once again to all our winners. Thank you for your hard work!
How to Claim Your HackerNoon Writing Contest Prize
- Contact [email protected] and [email protected] and share the email ID/and or wallet address attached to the winning hackernoon account.
- We will validate your claim and share a form requesting your details for reward distribution.
- You will receive your winnings in 2-4 weeks after completing the form.
Please note that you must contact us within 60 days after the winners’ announcement date.
Ready to be a winner?
Discover active writing contests on HackerNoon and learn how you can earn a spot on our next winners’ list at:
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