A decentralized application (dApp) “XCM DOT Autostake” developed by a team called Entity 54 won the grand prize at Polkadot’s North American hackathon, Polkadot announced on Sunday.

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Fast facts

• Polkadot is a protocol for linking multiple, incompatible blockchains (“parachains”) and allowing them to send value and data to each other. DOT is the token of the Polkadot network.

• The cross-chain DOT staking dApp aims to simplify the DOT staking process, by guiding users through a compacted interface to stake DOT from parachains to Polkadot’s decentralized finance (DeFi) hub Acala, according to its project introduction.

• Staking is a mechanism by which investors lock up crypto assets for a period of time to help support the operation of the blockchain and receive bounties from it.

• Entity 54 says its project solves the problem of users having to manually manage their DOT assets across multiple parachains when staking.

• Polkadot also announced 18 other winners among 1,137 contestants in the hackathon.

• Polkadot is holding hackathons in multiple regions to attract more developers globally. In 2021, Polkadot had the second largest community of developers after Ethereum.

See related article: Polkadot to hold first hackathon centered in Latin America