Meet the Arc Track Winners from the HackMoney 2026 Hackathon, and What We Learned

Over the past month, 155 teams built on Arc Testnet during ETHGlobal's HackMoney 2026, competing for $10,000 in USDC prizes across three tracks. 

From chain-abstracted USDC apps to global treasury systems and agentic commerce powered by real-world assets, developers stretched what's possible when building on Arc, which can be used as the liquidity hub for multichain stablecoin flows.

The event generated significant developer engagement. Teams leveraged USDC, Circle Gateway, Circle Wallets, and CCTP. In total, $10,000 USDC has been awarded for best submissions across three categories.

This post highlights the winning projects and reflects on the patterns that emerged as teams built.

Hackathon Overview

The hackathon ran as part of ETHGlobal HackMoney 2026 and was organized around three tracks:

• Best Chain-Abstracted USDC Apps Using Arc as a Liquidity Hub
• Build Global Payouts & Treasury Systems with USDC on Arc
• Best Agentic Commerce App Powered by RWAs on Arc

Teams built applications that deployed on Arc Testnet and integrated Circle's developer platform. Submissions were evaluated on technical execution, product utility, and integration quality.

Track Winners

Best Chain-Abstracted USDC Apps Using Arc as a Liquidity Hub 

arctan(x)

A chain-agnostic, institutional-grade FX DEX enabling unified multichain balances and capital-efficient crosschain margin.

Built with Arc as the liquidity hub, Circle Wallets + Gateway for unified balances, Bridge Kit for collateral mobility, and StableFX for institutional FX conversion. The project demonstrates how Arc can serve as settlement infrastructure for sophisticated trading operations that span multiple blockchains.

Text-to-Chain

An SMS-native DeFi protocol that turns any phone into an onchain wallet, token terminal, and crosschain bridge.

Built with Developer-Controlled Wallets on Arc and CCTP for crosschain USDC cashout. Users interact with blockchain through simple text commands—no app downloads, no technical knowledge required. The project shows how reducing interface complexity can dramatically expand access to programmable money.

Build Global Payouts & Treasury Systems with USDC on Arc

ArcFlow

A self-paying corporate treasury that deploys idle payroll funds into yield before distributing salaries cross-chain. Built with Arc for settlement and distribution, Circle Gateway for crosschain USDC routing, and USDC for automated payroll execution. The system includes multi-signature controls, role-based permissions, and automated yield generation on idle capital. Demonstrates how programmable treasuries can optimize cash flow while maintaining operational simplicity.

Best Agentic Commerce App Powered by RWAs on Arc

Versus

AI agents create content, earn micropayments, and autonomously trade revenue-backed creator tokens.

Built with Circle Wallets for agent treasuries, Arc as the execution layer, and Gateway for crosschain settlement. The project creates an autonomous creator economy where AI agents generate video content, viewers pay per-second, and revenue splits automatically. Creator tokens represent claims on future micropayment streams—the real-world asset component. Agents manage their own finances and execute predefined treasury actions based on developer-set rules.

What We Observed

As teams submitted projects and integrated Circle products, several clear patterns emerged across the 155 submissions. The hackathon showed how developers are using Arc as a liquidity hub to make product decisions that weren't possible before: invisible settlement, crosschain coordination, and autonomous agent commerce. These weren't isolated experiments — they represented consistent choices about how developers are building with stablecoins and blockchain infrastructure. 

AI Agents Operating Autonomously with Money

Ninety-seven percent of submissions incorporated experimental AI agents that make financial decisions and execute transactions independently. Developers are building systems where AI agents are the primary users of financial infrastructure. These agents need wallets, the ability to move value across chains, and reliable settlement — which is where Circle's developer infrastructure fits naturally.

No Native Tokens as Default User Experience

Many teams treated gas fees as something end users should never see or manage. Projects implemented email-based onboarding through Circle Wallets, where new users transact immediately without having to acquire native gas tokens or understand blockchain mechanics. Arc's native USDC gas eliminates a key friction point, but teams went further—building experiences where blockchain transactions happen invisibly in the background.

Crosschain Infrastructure as Baseline Expectation

More than half of submissions (56%) implemented crosschain functionality, but they didn't market it as a feature—they assumed USDC would be available everywhere and work seamlessly. Developers no longer ask "can we bridge USDC?" They leverage Gateway to show balances across all supported chains and CCTP to move value natively. This infrastructure is becoming expected rather than differentiating.

Traditional Finance Workflows on Crypto Rails

Most submissions built familiar workflows that use stablecoins for settlement, not new financial primitives. Teams built construction escrow systems, freelancer payment platforms, and buy-now-pay-later services. These applications solve mainstream business problems: paying employees on time, managing contractor payments across countries, settling invoices instantly.

One team noted during evaluation: "We demoed this to construction companies. They don't care about blockchain. They just want milestone payments without lawyers and wire transfer delays."

That's what Arc enables: invisible settlement while projects solve real problems with better UX and lower costs. These weren't experiments. Teams demoed to real businesses and got real interest.

Projects That Defined the Trends

Beyond the four winners, dozens of teams built innovative solutions demonstrating how AI agents, gas-abstracted UX, crosschain infrastructure, and traditional finance workflows converge in practice. Here are some others we were particularly impressed with!

AI Agents Managing Money Autonomously

Mand(ate) built AI-driven invoice escrow where agents negotiate payment terms, monitor milestones, and release funds automatically—standing out in the Treasury and Agentic Commerce track. ZeroKey-Treasury took agent autonomy further: agents monitor exchange rates, rebalance holdings, and execute payouts across chains without human intervention, qualifying across all three tracks.

RACE demonstrated autonomous agents managing capital in prediction markets — deciding when to enter positions, stake amounts, and exit timing while trading RWA tokens. Clawback showed agents protecting users by monitoring escrows and recovering funds before users notice issues. XMBL Tokenizer built agents that tokenize real-world assets from natural language and manage the full lifecycle autonomously.

Making Blockchain Invisible

SwiftPay created retail point-of-sale systems indistinguishable from card payments — tap, instant settlement, zero visible blockchain interaction. PayLoop brought email-based onboarding to buy-now-pay-later without exposing wallet addresses or transaction hashes. Edge60 eliminated app requirements entirely — employees text commands to request salary advances and receive USDC instantly. Hyde Name Hooks enabled payments to email addresses like "sarah@example.com" with Circle Wallets handling routing invisibly.

Crosschain as Infrastructure

Arcaid built crosschain charitable giving where donors contribute on any chain and recipients withdraw on their preferred network — qualifying for all three tracks by combining chain abstraction, treasury management, and AI operations. NovaVault aggregated yield across chains into one balance. Credex Protocol enabled borrowing on Arbitrum, repaying on Base, and accessing credit on Arc with intelligent routing (Chain Abstraction + Agentic Commerce). NitroBridge Vault and CircEveryBid applied similar philosophies to yield optimization and auctions respectively.

Traditional Finance, Better Execution

SmartRenovate built construction milestone payments with AI-verified escrow—already demoed to actual construction companies interested in reducing the need for lawyers and wire delays. QueryFi replicated corporate finance software (budgets, approvals, reports) with instant USDC settlement. NOMA tackled global payroll with compliance and tax handling built in.

Mandinga brought AI to invoice factoring — advancing funds in minutes instead of weeks. sugarc automated SaaS billing splits to founders, investors, and operational wallets. ACN replaced letters of credit for international trade. StarcPay provided minute-level expense reimbursements. KnurFi optimized DAO treasury yield while maintaining operational liquidity.

Collectively, these submissions reveal how stablecoin infrastructure is evolving: Arc serves as the liquidity hub where multichain USDC flows converge, enabling developers to build crosschain applications without managing the underlying complexity.

What's Next

We'll continue spotlighting these great submissions through livestreams, community sessions, and builder showcases as they continue to develop their projects. The goal is to facilitate more conversations between builders and create space for the entire Arc community to learn from what's being built.

For developers interested in building on Arc and Circle's platform, documentation and developer resources are available at developers.circle.com and docs.arc.network.

Congratulations to all participants who built during ETHGlobal HackMoney 2026. 

The submissions demonstrated creative approaches to real problems using stablecoins and multichain infrastructure.