Africa has staged what organisers are calling the largest Web3 hackathon ever held globally, with more than 13,000 developers competing across 20 African hubs for a prize pool of $1 million built around solving real infrastructure problems across the continent.
The Hashgraph Association (THA), a Swiss-based non-profit, and Exponential Science (ES), a global technology accelerator, announced the results of the 2025 Hedera Africa Hackathon on April 29, 2026. The event drew over 1,300 project submissions and enrolled more than 45,000 participants into its education and certification programme, according to the organisers.
Nigeria’s GreenAfrica claimed the overall first prize of $100,000 for an environmental verification platform designed to provide transparent tracking of sustainability initiatives on the Hedera distributed ledger technology (DLT) network. Egypt’s Carboni Renewable Energy Certificate Platform took second place and $70,000 for building infrastructure to prove and trade verified renewable energy credentials, with the team saying they were “honored that the judges endorsed our vision for rebuilding renewable energy reporting and financing.”
Third place and $60,000 went to Effisend X Africa, a team based in Mexico that built an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered payment routing layer designed to sit above incompatible African payment networks and connect them. Silsilat Finance from Malaysia finished fourth with $40,000 for cross-border settlement infrastructure, while Nigeria’s Beyond Service game, which featured persistent digital identity and asset ownership for players, took fifth and $30,000.
The hackathon ran across four thematic tracks covering on-chain finance, DLT operations, immersive experiences, and AI and decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). It was co-funded by THA and ES, partnered with Orange Digital Center, and operated by Dar Blockchain. Partners included Sygnum Bank, Orange Digital Centers, and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
“The Hedera Africa Hackathon reached historic heights, scaling the depths of talent and ambition across the continent and beyond,” said Kamal Youssefi, President of THA.
Beyond the prize distribution, THA announced the formation of a new Investment Committee that will direct multi-million-dollar funding into top-performing projects, providing capital, mentorship, and enterprise pathways beyond the hackathon itself. A 2026 edition of the event has been confirmed, with location and partner details to follow.
The winning project list cuts across fintech, cleantech, and healthtech, the same sectors attracting the most venture capital interest across Africa, with entries from Nigeria, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, South Africa, Morocco, and Ivory Coast among the national teams represented in the broader track results.
