2nd Place in the Lithuanian Central Bank Hackathon

The year of 2018 marked the centenary of the restoration of the Lithuanian statehood, which was celebrated across the country and its institutions. One of the commemorations took a step further: the Lithuanian Central Bank (LB) organized a hackathon to create a digital collector coin to mark the date.

Lithuanian Central Bank Hackathon

The hackathon, however, represented more than the creation of a prototype for a digital collector coin or just a social event; the LB also had as one of its goals the development and expansion of the blockchain technology within the financial sector.

SpectroCoin team saw in the initiative a great opportunity to share its years of experience in the FinTech sector, helping to promote it in the country.

SpectroCoin joined the other participating teams in Vilnius between June 1-2 to develop its project for Lithuania’s commemorative digital collector coin. The jury formed to evaluate each prototype was formed by Remigijus Paulavičius and Ernestas Filatovas, from the Blockchain Group of the Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies of the Vilnius University, numismatist and collector Julius Jankauskas, as well as representatives from the Lithuanian Central Bank, including Marius Jurgilas, member of the board.

SpectroCoin's Digital Collector Coin

In order to join the hackathon, SpectroCoin gathered a team composed of the best of its IT, Design and Legal departments so that not only the project’s requirements would be fulfilled, but an innovative solution could be presented. Teams from Lithuania, Cyprus and Ukraine joined the hackathon, and we are happy to share with you that SpectroCoin obtained the 2nd place.

We would like to congratulate the Ukrainian team for taking the 1st place, and we would also like to invite you to visit SpectroCoin’s Digital Collector Coin website.

We are looking forward to hearing your comments on our digital collector coin prototype via our social media channels!

SpectroCoin blockchain wallet was one of the inspirations for the prototypes. In the same way that it supports Bitcoin, Dash, XEM, and Ether, our team decided to create not one, but different and unique coins to represent Lithuanian cities.

Once a user purchased all coins within an ethnographic region, it would be possible to unlock the coin of the correspondent region - after all regions were obtained, the user could then redeem a physical coin in the shape of Lithuania’s map.

From SpectroCoin’s perspective, the gamification of digital coins can be used as an innovative and effective way of raising awareness about the FinTech field.

Gamification is still playing a huge role as a tool for entertainment with the use of game mechanics such as reward and collectability, and we have already seen some of the possibilities it can offer with CryptoKitties and the way it has gripped the market and helped to popularize crypto-collectibles.

The Wave of Crypto-Collectibles

One thing in common among most crypto-collectibles is the fact they are developed using the Ethereum ERC-721 protocol. This protocol represents non-fungible tokens (NFT), that have interchangeability as their main characteristic: each token is unique and has its own value.

In other words, one specific ERC-721 token is not correspondent or equivalent to another - unlike, for example, bitcoins. If you purchase a bitcoin, its value and rarity is the same as any other bitcoin in the market.

In the case of our Digital Collector Coin, each coin receives a serial number, which would not only identify it, but would also guide the users regarding which coins to acquire in order to complete a certain region and then complete the Lithuanian map.

This means that no two coins are the same: each one has its intangible value, mainly based on its rarity and features, which can consequently affect its market price. Since each coin has its owner, the price and conditions of trading are established by them and the parts interested in buying.

Even though our Digital Collector Coin project was developed within the Lithuanian Central Bank Hackathon, its applicability has potential to go beyond. Talking about cities and countries, there are billions of combinations possible.

Our team has certainly considered other possibilities outside Lithuania and we hope to see the project come to life in the future. We are not discarding this idea - we are actively looking where to make this prototype live.

As a member of the FinTech community, SpectroCoin gains the opportunity to expand its network by establishing new value-adding partnerships or by creating new exciting projects like the Digital Collector Coin. Join SpectroCoin and become the newest addition to our team!