I’ve been reflecting on the evolution of our developer ecosystem here on TRON. We’ve moved from the high-energy, rapid-innovation cycles of the HackaTRON seasons to the more structured, long-term incubation model of the TRON Builder League (TBL).
Both programs serve critical roles, but I’ve been thinking about whether there’s a way to get the best of both worlds.
Why I’m bringing this up:
The Funnel Problem: HackaTRON was excellent at finding new talent and bringing experimental ideas to the surface. TBL is fantastic at scaling those ideas. I’m concerned that without a high-frequency event like HackaTRON, we might be missing out on a steady influx of new developers who prefer a shorter, more sprint-focused entry point.
Community Vibe: Many of us really miss the competitive, interactive spirit of the HackaTRON season—it created a sense of urgency and excitement that kept the forum active.
The Hybrid Potential: Could we run a lean, recurring hackathon alongside TBL? Perhaps these could focus specifically on technical infrastructure (like Rwa, privacy tools, AI integration, etc.) and act as an “on-ramp” for teams to eventually graduate into TBL incubation?
I think we are going on the same direction, Hackathon should be for fresh projects while TBL should be for OG projects, as simple as that I think should be better
There are projects that are still delivering based off of the premise that TBL is still ongoing, the TBL is a genius idea just that imo the direction isn’t visible atm. Scrapping TBL entirely wouldn’t be worse off, restoring hackatron for builders would enable a surge of fresh projects particularly rn that AI is so much of a big deal, just my 2 cents.
I agree with you that hackaTRON deadlines created a urgency and excitement which kept this forum active. In my opinion the only issue with hackaTRON was the build and dump attitude of some builders. They just build projects for hackaTRON prize money then stopped. With TBL long term serious projects are appreciated more. But now the issue I think with TBL is the lack of updates from TRON DAO Team. I do not think any projects has received any funding yet. A few months ago I heard some projects got the funding but I have not seen any project come forward and share that they got it. Neither TRON DAO Team has made any announcements for any projects that got funded with TBL. So I do not know where we are going with TBL anymore. And if we are to bring hackaTRON judges points should be publicly given on why a project has won. Cause we all know many projects have won in the past with no promise of future. Now hardly 5 community projects are consistently building on TRON which I know of. There is always some room for improvement. I hope TRON DAO Team comes up with some solutions to improve TBL or bring back hackaTRON with better structure.