Rivals is a location-based multiplayer shooter that fuses augmented reality with on-chain economics. Players hunt AI-controlled zombies in the real world; every kill earns RIVAL tokens, while death chips away at that balance. Built with Unity AR Foundation, the game anchors virtual enemies to physical spaces and lets players plant GPS-linked traps for rivals. Flow, Chiliz, and other chains plug into a cross-chain token model, turning AR, geolocation, and crypto incentives into a brand-new mobile experience.

Primer: Crypto Checkout for Amazon

Primer is a Chrome extension that lets shoppers pay on Amazon with crypto. Because Amazon still refuses digital assets, the add-on quietly buys an Amazon gift card in the background and applies it to the order. Users simply click an injected “Crypto Checkout” button, approve USDC (or other stablecoins) from Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, or Phantom, and the rest is invisible. Coinbase CDP API handles the swap, giving crypto holders a friction-free path to everyday e-commerce.

Swap Pay: Multi-Token Checkout in One Click

Swap Pay tackles the “wrong-token” problem in Web3 commerce. Instead of forcing users to pre-swap to a merchant’s preferred coin, the SDK lets wallets offer a shopping-cart-style mix of any tokens they hold. Chainlink streams real-time prices so the buyer can drag sliders until the total matches the price. One EIP-5792 transaction bundles approvals, swaps, and settlement into PYUSD; overpayments are auto-refunded. Scattered balances suddenly become spendable without extra steps.

Pumpkin Spice Latte: No-Loss Savings with Lottery Prizes

Pumpkin Spice Latte spins DeFi yield into a prize-linked savings game. Users park stablecoins in a shared pool; principal is always withdrawable, but every deposit’s yield is pooled for regular raffles. One lucky depositor pockets the excess yield, everyone else keeps their capital. ERC-4626 vaults (Morpho, Kinetic, etc.) source yield, while Flare and Flow VRF guarantee provably fair randomness. Saving becomes fun, and nobody risks their stake.

Hardhat 3-Ledger: Hardware-Wallet-Safe Deployments

Hardhat 3-Ledger drops native Ledger support into the latest Hardhat stack. Developers sign contract deployments directly on a Ledger device—no private keys ever touch disk. The integration uses Ledger’s device-management toolkit, ships with TypeScript bindings, and has been end-to-end tested on the new Ledger Flex. Bonus: the team shipped doc improvements and clearer code samples, raising the bar for secure dev-tooling.

Noah: Automatic Inheritance for Digital Assets

Noah is a dead-man’s-switch estate planner. If a wallet stops signing transactions for a user-defined period, smart contracts automatically transfer all assets to named beneficiaries. Dutch auctions, Uniswap swaps, or Fern off-ramps convert holdings to USDC/PYUSD—or even straight USD—so heirs don’t need to touch crypto. ENS names are inheritable too. Already live on Flow, Chiliz, and Katana, Noah makes “what happens to my keys when I’m gone” a solved problem.

Kyma Pay: Merchant-Friendly Stable-Coin Checkout

Kyma Pay is a GENIUS-compliant payment rail for merchants who want stablecoins but hate volatility and high fees. At 0.15 %—a tenth of Stripe’s cut—it supports PYUSD, USDC, USDT, and USDe. An Orbital-inspired AMM swaps stables instantly behind the scenes, while HTTP 402 responses let Coinbase’s x402 facilitator handle the hand-off. Built-in risk scoring audits reserve quality and audit history, giving merchants the cheapest—and safest—way to accept digital dollars.

TX Delay Insurance: Get Paid When the Network’s Stuck

TX Delay Insurance sells on-chain coverage for late transactions. Users insure any time-sensitive swap or bridge; if the tx lands past the deadline, the policy pays out. A thin RPC proxy timestamps broadcasts and confirmations, providing trustless proof of delay. DeFi farmers and MEV searchers finally have a hedge against clogged blocks.

x402-flash: Instant Micropayments for APIs

x402-flash kills the 200 ms lag in the x402 micro-payment standard. Clients pre-lock funds in an escrow contract; servers answer API calls immediately and settle later, insured against default by the escrow. USDC gas fees are sponsored via Circle Paymaster. The result: sub-100 ms latencies that unlock high-frequency Web3 APIs.

Pika Vault: Cross-Chain Treasury for Institutions

Pika Vault is a cross-chain asset vault that lets users deposit on any supported network while the vault itself rebalances native USDC across chains. No wrapped assets, no synthetic IOUs—just Circle CCTP moving real dollars around. Control and value layers are split: LayerZero orchestrates messages, Chainlink CCIP feeds prices, and whitelisted custodians meet institutional compliance. One interface, many chains, zero bridge risk.

Closing Thoughts

ETHGlobal NYC 2025 wrapped up after a marathon weekend of hacking. Hundreds of builders converged to push Web3 into gaming, payments, DeFi, and dev tooling. The ten winners above showcase the breadth of what’s now possible—and hint at what the next wave of mainstream adoption might look like.

Rivals is a location-based multiplayer shooter that fuses augmented reality with on-chain economics. Players hunt AI-controlled zombies in the real world; every kill earns RIVAL tokens, while death chips away at that balance. Built with Unity AR Foundation, the game anchors virtual enemies to physical spaces and lets players plant GPS-linked traps for rivals. Flow, Chiliz, and other chains plug into a cross-chain token model, turning AR, geolocation, and crypto incentives into a brand-new mobile experience.

Primer: Crypto Checkout for Amazon

Primer is a Chrome extension that lets shoppers pay on Amazon with crypto. Because Amazon still refuses digital assets, the add-on quietly buys an Amazon gift card in the background and applies it to the order. Users simply click an injected “Crypto Checkout” button, approve USDC (or other stablecoins) from Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, or Phantom, and the rest is invisible. Coinbase CDP API handles the swap, giving crypto holders a friction-free path to everyday e-commerce.

Swap Pay: Multi-Token Checkout in One Click

Swap Pay tackles the “wrong-token” problem in Web3 commerce. Instead of forcing users to pre-swap to a merchant’s preferred coin, the SDK lets wallets offer a shopping-cart-style mix of any tokens they hold. Chainlink streams real-time prices so the buyer can drag sliders until the total matches the price. One EIP-5792 transaction bundles approvals, swaps, and settlement into PYUSD; overpayments are auto-refunded. Scattered balances suddenly become spendable without extra steps.

Pumpkin Spice Latte: No-Loss Savings with Lottery Prizes

Pumpkin Spice Latte spins DeFi yield into a prize-linked savings game. Users park stablecoins in a shared pool; principal is always withdrawable, but every deposit’s yield is pooled for regular raffles. One lucky depositor pockets the excess yield, everyone else keeps their capital. ERC-4626 vaults (Morpho, Kinetic, etc.) source yield, while Flare and Flow VRF guarantee provably fair randomness. Saving becomes fun, and nobody risks their stake.

Hardhat 3-Ledger: Hardware-Wallet-Safe Deployments

Hardhat 3-Ledger drops native Ledger support into the latest Hardhat stack. Developers sign contract deployments directly on a Ledger device—no private keys ever touch disk. The integration uses Ledger’s device-management toolkit, ships with TypeScript bindings, and has been end-to-end tested on the new Ledger Flex. Bonus: the team shipped doc improvements and clearer code samples, raising the bar for secure dev-tooling.

Noah: Automatic Inheritance for Digital Assets

Noah is a dead-man’s-switch estate planner. If a wallet stops signing transactions for a user-defined period, smart contracts automatically transfer all assets to named beneficiaries. Dutch auctions, Uniswap swaps, or Fern off-ramps convert holdings to USDC/PYUSD—or even straight USD—so heirs don’t need to touch crypto. ENS names are inheritable too. Already live on Flow, Chiliz, and Katana, Noah makes “what happens to my keys when I’m gone” a solved problem.

Kyma Pay: Merchant-Friendly Stable-Coin Checkout

Kyma Pay is a GENIUS-compliant payment rail for merchants who want stablecoins but hate volatility and high fees. At 0.15 %—a tenth of Stripe’s cut—it supports PYUSD, USDC, USDT, and USDe. An Orbital-inspired AMM swaps stables instantly behind the scenes, while HTTP 402 responses let Coinbase’s x402 facilitator handle the hand-off. Built-in risk scoring audits reserve quality and audit history, giving merchants the cheapest—and safest—way to accept digital dollars.

TX Delay Insurance: Get Paid When the Network’s Stuck

TX Delay Insurance sells on-chain coverage for late transactions. Users insure any time-sensitive swap or bridge; if the tx lands past the deadline, the policy pays out. A thin RPC proxy timestamps broadcasts and confirmations, providing trustless proof of delay. DeFi farmers and MEV searchers finally have a hedge against clogged blocks.

x402-flash: Instant Micropayments for APIs

x402-flash kills the 200 ms lag in the x402 micro-payment standard. Clients pre-lock funds in an escrow contract; servers answer API calls immediately and settle later, insured against default by the escrow. USDC gas fees are sponsored via Circle Paymaster. The result: sub-100 ms latencies that unlock high-frequency Web3 APIs.

Pika Vault: Cross-Chain Treasury for Institutions

Pika Vault is a cross-chain asset vault that lets users deposit on any supported network while the vault itself rebalances native USDC across chains. No wrapped assets, no synthetic IOUs—just Circle CCTP moving real dollars around. Control and value layers are split: LayerZero orchestrates messages, Chainlink CCIP feeds prices, and whitelisted custodians meet institutional compliance. One interface, many chains, zero bridge risk.

Closing Thoughts

ETHGlobal NYC 2025 wrapped up after a marathon weekend of hacking. Hundreds of builders converged to push Web3 into gaming, payments, DeFi, and dev tooling. The ten winners above showcase the breadth of what’s now possible—and hint at what the next wave of mainstream adoption might look like.