ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026

Lisbon is on this calendar for one reason and it is not the prize pool: it is where ETHGlobal changed the oldest rule in hackathons. A rule change at one hackathon is read by everyone who runs one, Solana's among them.

The rule that changed

Until Lisbon, the terms were: empty repository only, existing code not allowed. In July they became “any repo you bring”, with existing code welcomed. Team size stayed 1–5 and sponsor SDKs stayed capped at three — ETHGlobal's own summary is “two items, the rest unchanged”, which undersells it.

The three ways to enter

From Scratch — show up, type git init, ship by Sunday, the hackathon everyone already knew. Extend Open Source — bring a repository you already maintain and ship the feature you have been putting off all year. Ship a Feature — build one new feature on top of something existing and release it as open source.

The weekend by the numbers

24–26 July 2026, Lisbon. 800+ attendees, 10+ protocols, 29+ workshops. $100,000 in prizes, the largest pots being The Graph, World, Hedera and 0G at $15,000 each, then Uniswap Foundation at $10,000, 1inch at $7,000, Sui at $6,000 and ENS at $5,000.

Themes

Zero-knowledge proofs, AI × crypto, DeFi, consumer crypto, layer 2s, interoperability, public goods, privacy, security, TEEs, data availability, identity and dev tools.

It started two weeks early

The schedule opened on 8 July with virtual team-formation and brainstorming sessions, a beginners' workshop on 15 July on what to expect, and more sessions on the 17th and 22nd. The application deadline was 17 July — a week before the doors.