The Hack-Hacker!

My Journey at CORE Hackerhouse India 2025 Hackathon 🚀

Hi guys! 👋 Hope you read my LinkedIn post before this, but if not, no worries! In this blog, I will take you through my exciting and intense journey at the CORE Hackerhouse India 2025 Hackathon, which took place in our hostel. Not just that, but I’ll also give you a glimpse into the cool product we built during the hackathon. So, let's dive in!

The Beginning

On March 17, 2025, I was casually roaming around my hostel floor when I discovered that a hackathon was happening right there in our hostel campus. 😲 Intrigued, I went to check it out and found out that it was a Web3 hackathon. Up until then, my knowledge of Web3 was limited to basic terms like blockchain, Bitcoin, stablecoins, and smart contracts (thanks to my investments in crypto via Coinswitch 💰).

Despite my limited knowledge, I decided to take a chance and participate. I approached the organizers, who were incredibly welcoming, and they allowed me to join. They even assigned a new member to our team, but unfortunately, he was more of a roadblock 🚧 than a help. He spent 3-3.5 days just throwing complex Web3 terminologies at us without explaining anything. Our team couldn’t collaborate with him effectively, so we decided to remove him from the team.

I went back to my hostel and roped in Ankit and Balkrishna, who were excited to participate. We registered under the name "Meraki" (just a random name we picked without knowing its meaning 😂) and started brainstorming ideas for our project.

The Idea 💡

After hours of brainstorming, we came up with an idea to build a Smart Lending Platform for BTC with an AI-powered recommendation system. (Fun fact: the same guy we removed had mentioned terms like smart contracts, fraud detection, and asset reallocation, which actually gave us some direction! 🤦‍♂️)

Task Distribution 📝

🔹 My Tasks: AI chatbot, AI recommendation system, user profile & verification, wallet integration, UI/UX enhancement, product design & development.
🔹 Balkrishna: Writing & integrating smart contracts, ensuring smooth borrowing & selling processes using DEX and contracts.

🔹 Ankit Raj: UI/UX design & integration

Sounds cool, right? But trust me, it was equally hectic and challenging. 🏃‍♂️💻

The TypeScript Dilemma 🤯

I am quite comfortable with React, but TypeScript was new to me. Initially, I insisted on using React, but Ankit convinced me that transitioning to TypeScript was not as hard as people claim. I finally explored TS (thanks to ChatGPT, official docs, and some great YouTube tutorials 📺), and I found that the differences between React and TypeScript were manageable:

✔ Typing Props & State
✔ Interfaces & Types
✔ Generics
✔ Type Inference & Utility Types

Still, whenever I got stuck, I relied on ChatGPT & Claude (Use sab karte hai, batata koi nahi! - Silencer from 3 Idiots 😂).

Building the AI-Powered Recommendation System 🤖

This was a major highlight of my hackathon experience. Initially, I planned to use Langflow & Datastax to train a model using Gemini-Flash, but it was too slow for real-time crypto market predictions. So, I took inspiration from existing platforms like CoinGecko, CoinDCX, and CoinCompare and fed their technical analysis data into my model using a distillation method.

For AI inference, I chose DeepSeek-R1, as it offers both speed & accuracy 🚀 due to its memory compression and load-balancing techniques. I integrated real-time crypto data from CoinGecko, CoinCompare, and CoinDCX APIs, then used this data to predict Buy/Sell/Hold decisions based on predefined scripts and technical indicators.

Revenue Model 💰

We tackled the challenge of offering higher interest rates on lending (locking BTC) by:

✅ Increasing withdrawal fees (charging 3.5% instead of the usual 2%)
✅ Introducing premium AI recommendation services with minimal charges

This allowed us to justify the higher interest rates and add additional revenue streams.

Smart Contracts & Wallet Integration 🔗

We integrated MetaMask, which supports Ethereum-based transactions. Since Bitcoin doesn’t natively support smart contracts like Ethereum, we used Wrapped BTC (WBTC) for transactions.

🔹 Users approve WBTC spending via smart contracts.
🔹 They can then buy/sell WBTC <-> USDC (a stablecoin).
🔹 Borrowing/lending mechanisms rely on multiple smart contracts for collateral management, interest rates, and lending processes.

WBTC sell flow:

WBTC Lending flow:

We had a tough time figuring out how to integrate lending & selling modules with Uniswap & smart contracts. After consulting Frederik Parker, we got some valuable insights, but just when I was about to implement them, my VS Code crashed multiple times—a total nightmare! 😵 Thankfully, I had committed my code, so I didn’t lose much progress.

The Hustle & The Presentation 🎤

For 5 days, my schedule was:
💻 Wake up → Code → Test → Optimize → Ideate → Repeat

By March 20, we had integrated:

✅ AI recommendation system
✅ AI chatbot
✅ Real-time analytics & price-fetching APIs

But wallet integration, smart contracts, lending & selling modules were incomplete. We struggled till 4:45 AM in the cafeteria, trying to debug and finalize the integration.

By morning, I was exhausted and sleep-deprived 🥱, so I told Balkrishna that I wouldn't be able to give the presentation. But when I woke up at 11 AM, I realized the presentation was starting at the same time! 😱 I rushed to prepare slides in 20-25 minutes and we presented our product in front of the panel.

The Experience 🌟

Regardless of the final results of the hackathon, I already felt like a winner 🏆. In just 5 days, I learned more about Web3 than I would have in months. The hackathon pushed my limits and taught me invaluable lessons in effective communication, networking, planning, and designing scalable products.

I also got the opportunity to connect with incredible mentors like Tejas bhaiya, Manav Bhaiya, Fredrik Parker, Maniveer K, Priyanshu Bhaiya, and Priyansh Bhaiya. Plus, I had insightful discussions with Viraj Arya (Founder at Celeriz) about decentralization, regulations in Europe, and more Web3 innovations.

Here we are hackers!

Also try to check & follow Core hacker house X page

What’s Next? 🚀

Although we didn’t finish everything, we will complete our project soon—a fully functional, real-time lending platform for BTC transactions using mainnet tokens.

This hackathon was a game-changer for me. It reinforced a pattern I’ve noticed in myself: I thrive when I hustle to learn new things. The adaptability and learning speed I developed here will stay with me forever. 
I am attaching deployed link & gitrepo link of basic things. ( As I said early, once I satified with AI recommendation system with more accurate results delievery I will merge it in main repo. Till then you can checkout some results & video of it).

Deployed link: BitGuardian
Git repo link: Gitrepo

On to the next adventure! 🚀🔥

- Jivan Jamdar