Hack Buenos Aires takes place on August 7–8, 2026 in Palermo, Buenos Aires.
The event is a 48-hour in-person hackathon focused on Midnight, privacy-by-design infrastructure, zero-knowledge proofs, and new forms of onchain applications that can support private or regulated activity. It is designed for LATAM builders working on privacy-preserving infrastructure, financial applications, and real-world asset use cases.
The hackathon takes place at La Maquinita Co Innovation Lab in Palermo Soho, with capacity listed for around 100 hackers. Teams can include one to four participants, and the event is fully in person.
Two tracks with separate prizes
Hack Buenos Aires is structured around two parallel tracks: Open and Beginner.
The Open track is for developers and teams with previous experience building on Midnight. The Beginner track is for teams that have not worked with Midnight before.
The total prize pool is $10,000 USD, split across both tracks. Each track awards $3,500 USD for first place and $1,500 USD for second place.
Schedule and venue
The first day begins with check-in and breakfast from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, followed by an opening keynote, hacking, workshops, lunch, and an extended hacking block through midnight.
The second day includes breakfast, final hacking time, project submission at 1:00 PM, technical review, lunch, private pitches, selected public pitches, and awards at 5:00 PM.
The venue is La Maquinita Co Innovation Lab at Niceto Vega 4866 in Palermo Soho, C.A.B.A.
Mentors and use cases
The listed judges and mentors include Alex Castillo from Midnight Foundation, Alex Pestchanker from 11th.network, Daniel Márquez from Midnight Foundation, Jay Albert from Midnight Foundation, and Tom Humber from Midnight Foundation.
The hackathon highlights use cases where protocol-level privacy can support regulated or sensitive activity. Suggested areas include private trading and liquidity formation, confidential lending and capital markets, institutional execution and prime brokerage, tokenized real-world assets, programmable compliance, and reusable identity.
Applications and participation
Applications close on August 5 at 12:00 PM ART. Admissions are reviewed on a rolling basis, with selected participants notified no later than the end of August 5.
Participation is free and includes venue access, food, coffee, snacks, official merch, and technical materials. The application process is selective.
Remote participation is not available. Builders from other parts of Argentina or LATAM can apply for travel scholarships. Participants can apply solo or as a team, with online and in-person matchmaking available before and during the event.
Projects must be published open-source under an Apache 2.0 license at demo time, while teams retain ownership of the code they build.
