The first Open Wallet Standard hackathon is running today. MoonPay opened submissions this morning and builders across New York, San Francisco, Miami, and remote locations have until midnight EST to ship. The prize pool sits at $50,000 in stablecoins, plus $20,000 in bonus credits.

The event follows MoonPay’s March 23 launch of OWS, which the company released under an MIT license as an open infrastructure layer for AI agent payments. That announcement drew in partners including Ripple, PayPal, Solana, Circle, and more than 15 other organizations. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said at the time, in a press release published via PR Newswire:

“The agent economy has payment rails. It didn’t have a wallet standard.”

Ripple Brings XRPL and RLUSD Into the Build Tracks

Ripple’s developer arm moved quickly once the hackathon was confirmed. RippleXDev posted on X the day before the event, pointing builders toward specific XRPL and RLUSD challenge tracks:

“Tomorrow: @MoonPay x Open Wallet Standard hackathon. We’re bringing XRPL + RLUSD challenge tracks focused on AI agents in finance. If you’re building at the intersection of AI agents and on-chain payments, come hack with us. SF / NYC / Miami / remote: hackathon.openwallet.sh” — RippleXDev on X

MoonPay echoed that call directly. In a separate post published minutes before Ripple’s announcement, the company wrote on X:

“MoonPay and @Ripple are looking for builders in the OWS Hackathon! Create new products that use x402, RLUSD, or XRPL: Agentic Payments, Agentic Commerce, Wallets, Identity, and Guardrails, Settlement Infrastructure. Join us on April 3: hackathon.openwallet.sh”

The XRPL and RLUSD focus is not a separate listed track on the main hackathon page. It runs through the broader five-track structure — Agentic Storefronts and Commerce, Spend Governance and Identity, Pay-Per-Call Services, Multi-Agent Systems, and Creative — with Ripple’s challenge criteria embedded across those categories. That distinction matters for builders choosing where to submit.

250+ Applications in Under 48 Hours

MoonPay posted the official hackathon announcement on April 1. The April 1 post on X read:

“The first @OpenWallet Hackathon is here — hack, build, and ship on OWS this Friday, April 3. Win $30,000+ in prizes + MoonClaw Kits. In-person in NYC, MIA, SF + online.”

By early April 3, the number had already moved. MoonPay confirmed on X:

“In under 48 hours, @OpenWallet has received 250+ applications.”

The company thanked partners by name in that post, including Ripple, Solana, Base, Circle, and Sui. First place prize was later confirmed at $10,000 in stablecoins, according to a separate MoonPay post:

“BREAKING: 1st place in the OWS Hackathon is $10,000 in stablecoins.”

In-person hubs are open today at MoonPay HQ in New York, Colosseum in San Francisco, and The LAB in Miami, as MoonPay noted on X.

Builders Already Shipping Across Five Tracks

Submissions have been coming in throughout the day. Several projects are already public on X.

Onoja_Cee posted what may be the most regionally distinct build in the pool — an autonomous utility agent handling smart meter top-ups in Nigeria, submitted via the OWS infrastructure track. That project runs on x402 payment rails and targets a market most hackathon submissions skip entirely.

Other builders went in different directions. MLdupont submitted Shadow Wallet, a privacy plugin built on top of OWS. Ivaavimusic posted Singularity Layer, focused on x402 agent skill monetization. Thoughtproof_ai shared ThoughtProof OWS Interceptor, a multi-model consensus tool. Cloudoshibtc posted Wallet Doorman, a policy enforcement layer. AgentOracle_AI submitted AgentOracle, a pay-per-query research agent running on x402. Bonassr7 posted an AI API Marketplace that combines natural language interfaces with x402 payment routing.

The OWS architecture behind all these builds includes secure key isolation, policy-gated signing, multi-chain support, and SDKs built for agent use cases. MoonPay published a full explainer thread on X on April 1 walking builders through how to get started.

What OWS Is and Why This Hackathon Exists

OWS started as an internal MoonPay project before becoming public. The MoonPay newsroom page traces it back to MoonPay Agents, a product the company launched in February 2026. The open-source release came a month later, alongside the 15-plus partner coalition.

Coverage from The Defiant, Bitcoin.com, and Crypto Briefing in late March all covered OWS as a missing infrastructure piece for autonomous agents running on-chain. The hackathon is the first public stress test of that infrastructure.

MoonPay first teased the event in a March 23 launch post on X, mentioning a hackathon was coming. A follow-up post kept the build pressure going:

“It’s a great day to build the agentic standard for wallets, and the first OWS hackathon is coming soon.”

Winners will not be announced today. Submissions close at midnight EST. Results are expected in the coming days.

Key Takeaways:

  • MoonPay’s first OWS hackathon is live today, April 3, closing at midnight EST with $50K in prizes across five tracks.
  • Ripple joined as a partner bringing dedicated XRPL and RLUSD challenge tracks focused on AI agent payments.
  • Over 250 applications came in within 48 hours of the event announcement going public.