Everyone did a great job building for about a month, and I genuinely appreciate the effort that went into the projects. But I think one important question was missing: Are we building something that will actually be beneficial to NiMiQ? Some of these projects might be great products for another chain or as standalone mini apps, but I’m not sure they necessarily solve a problem for NiMiQ or bring value to the ecosystem. I believe this is one of the reasons the games stood out and ultimately won. Even if another product had been selected, I believe we would still be having this conversation. You can build the perfect product, but you have to ask yourself: - Will it bring users to NiMiQ? - How often will people actually use it? - Will users be willing to pay for it? - How does it create value for NiMiQ beyond the initial launch? - How will we market it outside the existing NiMiQ community? For the games that were selected, I also think there are areas that need more thought, particularly unit economics. How exactly will these games make money for NiMiQ? Beyond the existing community, how will they attract new users to the mini-apps? And, more importantly, how can these products help attract more builders to build on NiMiQ? I think the bigger goal shouldn’t just be building something good. It should be building something that people will actually use, pay for, and that ultimately strengthens the NiMiQ ecosystem. That’s the kind of thinking I believe we need to take into the next round.

Cycle 1 is officially in the books. 62 Mini Apps submitted, all of them scored by the Nimiq Community Council, and the results are final. 🥁 Drumroll please… 🥇 1st place: Nimiq Space by @Harley NSpace An open multiplayer world where wallet-signed players can see who is online right now, paint a persistent 500x500 collaborative floor, and build rooms that sync live for everyone in them. 🥈 2nd place: NimJump by @Emre Alt An arcade game built around a minimal client-authority architecture, where the server replays every run itself instead of trusting the score the client reports. 🥉 3rd place: NimQuest by @mystiquemide A learn-and-prove Mini App with server-graded quizzes, where a completion only counts once you sign a one-time message in Nimiq Pay. Congratulations to all three. Winners will be contacted directly to arrange payout. To everyone else who submitted, thank you. You shipped something real in four weeks and set the bar high for future cycles. Every app you built is yours under the MIT License, so keep going with it. 🗓️ Cycle 2 opens August 24. Same $17,000 USDT prize pool, four Sip & Ship calls, submissions close September 18 at 23:59 UTC. If your app did not place this time, you can refine it and submit it again. Full breakdown on all three winners: https://www.nimiq.com/blog/mini-apps-competition-cycle-1-winner-announcement

Have an audience that can do the heavy lifting. Regardless if your app was better to score the entire 105 and more. If you don't have an audience you probably won't get the most of any hackathon. Do you agree?

Hey! 👋 Cycle 2 is starting—what great things are you going to do? Any new ideas? Will you be improving your app from Cycle 1? I want to hear your thoughts! 💪

These past weeks, I realized one way to ensure you can retain users is via trust and reliability in your product. If your product or app can solve a wide range of problems, your product retains users who subconsciously turn marketers who refer friends and family, and you get to understand their wants and shape your app to meet requirements I have been struggling to convince users to trust NimAgent, even when the codes are open source and can hurt my scoring. My question now is, what go-to solutions do you apply to ensure users can trust your product without doubts?