Arena account, then Register
Create your Colosseum Arena account, then hit Register on the Crypto World’s Fair page. The account on its own doesn’t enter you — that one catches people every single year.
The biggest online hackathon on earth just opened its gates to every chain. Four weeks, one build, a real shot at $250,000 in pre‑seed — and the whole Superteam Australia crew in your corner.
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Registration open · 14 Sep – 12 Oct
Get your ticket.
Two minutes at the gate and you’re in. Three stamps — and the third one is how we find you.
01 02 Home: Australia
Set Australia as your team’s base. It’s how the local prize pool, the local listing and the local support know you exist.
03 Join the support program
Tell us you’re in. Sixty seconds on a form puts you on the list for kickoff, office hours and idea validation.
Read the fine print.
Colosseum calls it a hackathon. It runs like a seed round with a deadline. This is the bit under the poster.
0+Products submittedAcross Colosseum’s runs in two and a half years.
$0MFund IColosseum’s own fund, backing the teams that win.
0Portfolio startupsFunded straight out of the arena.
0%Of VC-backed Solana startupsStarted here. Their number, not ours.
It’s an investor funnel with a leaderboard
Winners don’t just get a prize; they get looked at. The $250,000 is a pre‑seed cheque from Colosseum’s accelerator, and judges read your entry the way a partner reads a deck: founder–market fit, insight, execution, market size, communication, business model, traction. Clean code is assumed, not marked.
Every chain’s welcome. The cheque is Solana.
The first Colosseum run open to builders on any ecosystem — a track per chain, plus a general pool across all of them. Colosseum was upfront that the accelerator and the fund still back Solana founders. Build on Solana and you’re in for all three. Build elsewhere and it’s the first two.
The bar went up, on purpose
Opening the gates was the point: competition compounds. You’re not up against the other Aussie teams — you’re up against the best founders in crypto, online, all at once. Plan for that bar and the local prizes take care of themselves.
Announced 14 September
Judges, prize tracks and the official dev resources land the day the gates open. All Colosseum has said so far is “hundreds of thousands” in prizes. The real numbers go up here the moment they’re public.
Four weeks, one build.
That’s enough time for exactly one strong idea done properly. The rhythm keeps you honest; the full route says what each week has to land.
The weekly rhythm.
Melbourne time. Every session is on Luma with its date — subscribe once and the lot lands in your calendar.
- Mondays · 6 pmWeekly briefingKickoff, builder reset, sprint briefing. Where the week gets set.On Luma
- Wednesdays · 6:30 pmPitch practiceYour pitch in front of the room, every week until it lands.On Luma
- Thursdays · 6 pmClinic nightIdea fit, security, DeFi and design, then the final submission review.On Luma
- Saturdays · 10 amBuilder office hoursHeads-down support before the week closes out.On Luma
- 5 – 12 OctoberPens-down weekFinal pitch polish, submission review, last office hours, deadline-day check-in.On Luma
- From 19 OctoberWhat’s nextLife after Colosseum, then Demo Day on 24 October.On Luma
Pens down, in your time zone.
Colosseum runs on California’s clock: 11:59 pm Monday 12 October, Pacific. Over here that’s Tuesday arvo, and every year someone finds out the hard way. Live time in each zone below, and the moment pens go down where you are.
Pens down in––d ––h ––m ––s
- ––:––:––Sydney · Melbourne · Canberra · HobartPens down5:59 pmTue 13 Oct · AEDT
- ––:––:––Brisbane · Gold Coast · CairnsPens down4:59 pmTue 13 Oct · AEST
- ––:––:––AdelaidePens down5:29 pmTue 13 Oct · ACDT
- ––:––:––DarwinPens down4:29 pmTue 13 Oct · ACST
- ––:––:––PerthPens down2:59 pmTue 13 Oct · AWST
Tuesday 13 October. Upload two days early anyway. Arena crawls on the last night, every single time.
Score yourself before the judges do.
Seven things Colosseum judges actually mark. Give yourself an honest number on each — they will — and the card tells you where to spend the week. Saved in this browser.
Your card0 of 7 scored
0 / 35Founder–market fit
A five: You’ve lived the problem, or you’ve spent real time with the people who have.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itUnique insight
A five: You know something about this market that the obvious competitor doesn’t.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itExecution quality
A five: A public URL, a real transaction, and it didn’t fall over when a stranger used it.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itMarket size
A five: You can say who pays, how many of them there are, and why now.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itCommunication
A five: A stranger gets it from your one-liner, and the pitch hooks in ten seconds.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itBusiness model
A five: How this makes money, in three sentences, without “tokenomics” doing all the work.
Not yetGetting thereNailed itTraction
A five: Real users you can quote, and two numbers you’d defend to an investor.
Not yetGetting thereNailed it
Four ways to get disqualified
None of these have anything to do with how good the product is.
- 01Private repo, no judge accessPublish it, or grant the judges access. The most common own goal, every run.
- 02Team members missing from the entryEveryone on the team registered on Arena and attached to the project. Quietly fatal.
- 03Midnight, wrong time zonePens down is Pacific time. Tuesday arvo here, not Tuesday night.
- 04Skipped the Australia listingSame project, second listing. It’s how the local prizes reach you. The link goes in the founders’ group.
Homework, in the order it’s due.
Six reads. Do them in this order and you skip the mistakes we’ve watched other teams make.
- 01What judges actually markThe seven criteria and the tactics that move them, from the judges’ side of the table.Colosseum
- 02Gap-check before you buildRun your idea against 5,400+ past hackathon projects before you write a line. An hour that saves three weeks.Colosseum Copilot
- 03Building AI‑native on SolanaWhich chain to build on now that every ecosystem qualifies, and how to get to a working product on infrastructure that already exists.solana.new
- 04Build in public, on purposeUsed well, X measurably improves your odds. How to run it as a feedback loop rather than a megaphone.ANSEL — Colosseum accelerator
- 05The submission itselfWhat to upload, in what format, and the four mistakes that sink otherwise good projects.Colosseum
- 06After pens downGrants, accelerators and Eternal — the funding ladder for teams that shipped something real, placed or not.Colosseum Eternal
Who’s in your corner.
Boxing’s a team sport, whatever it looks like from the ring. Here’s what we bring, and what we expect back.
- 01
The weekly sessions
Kickoff, pitch practice, clinic nights, Saturday office hours and the final review. Subscribe once and the lot lands in your calendar.
- 02
Pitch and product review
Product, technical and pitch questions, one on one. We read the deck and watch the videos before the judges do.
- 03
Amplification
Shipped milestones, in front of the Solana ecosystem through our channels. Results only — we don’t amplify announcements.
- 04
Membership, grants and perks
Membership’s earned, not handed out. Ship something real these four weeks and you’ve got the strongest application we accept.
In return: turn up, ship weekly, post your progress, and tell us when something breaks. That’s the deal.
The founders’ group
A private Telegram group for founders competing from Australia — mentors, session links and every other Aussie team, in one place. Ask there first; most answers help more than one team.
Straight answers.
Getting in
No. Winning teams pair technical and business people. Founders, designers, product people and domain experts are all needed — but a team with nobody who can ship code will struggle in four weeks.
Nothing. Registration is free, the competition is free, and everything Superteam Australia runs around it — sessions, office hours, pitch reviews — is free. The only thing it costs is four weeks.
No. Every session runs online first; the in-person nights are extras, not the main event, and there are Brisbane and Perth builder sessions on the calendar too. The one thing to watch from anywhere is the deadline in your own time zone — it’s Tuesday afternoon here, not Tuesday night.
No, and this catches people every year. Create the account, then separately hit Register on the hackathon page. Both steps are required.
Start with the Superteam Idea Bank, then gap-check against past projects before you commit to anything. Cofounder matching on Arena is where you find people to build it with — and Colosseum publishes the ecosystem tracks on 14 September, which is the sharpest prompt list you’ll get.
Two to five people with complementary skills. Solo is allowed and judges have funded solo founders, but you’re competing against teams.
During the season
No Rust. Most winning products are applications, not protocols, and modern Solana work is largely TypeScript against hosted infrastructure. If you can ship a web product you can ship here; the chain-specific part is a wallet connection and a transaction. Start with the AI‑native stack read in the homework.
No. Crypto World’s Fair is the first Colosseum run open to builders across blockchain ecosystems, with a track per ecosystem and a general pool across all of them. One thing didn’t change: Colosseum’s accelerator and fund still invest in Solana founders. Solana teams compete for their track, the cross-chain pool and the $250,000 accelerator place; teams on other chains compete for the first two. Build where the product genuinely belongs — and know what you’re trading if that isn’t Solana.
Yes. You don’t have to start from a blank repo, and plenty of strong entries continue existing work. What you do have to show is proof of work inside the competition window — commits, shipped features, users acquired, all dated. Judges are reading a company’s trajectory, so a running start is an advantage; turning up with something finished months ago and nothing added since is what loses.
A second submission of the same project to our local listing, which is how the Australian prizes get judged. It costs nothing extra, takes a few minutes, and the link goes in the founders’ group when it opens.
Money, and after
Colosseum calls it a hackathon and runs it as a startup competition. Five of the seven judging criteria are business criteria, the prize money is smaller than the accelerator cheque behind it, and winners are interviewed as founders rather than graded as entrants. Build accordingly: a working product with real users beats a technically impressive weekend project every time.
The same thing that happens if you do: keep shipping. Grants, accelerators and Colosseum Eternal all take applications from teams that built something real during the window, placed or not — and a Superteam Australia membership application with four weeks of shipped work behind it is the strongest one we see.