Cryptocurrency exchange Hodl Hodl has started rolling out the programme for its Bitcoin Hackathon & Conference 2025 (BH2025), confirming a dozen early speakers and three corporate sponsors for the week-long gathering slated for next spring. Newly named presenters span privacy engineer Eric Sirion, STOKR co-founder Arnab Naskarr, Plan B Network adviser Mir and Lightning Ventures managing partner Mike Jarmuz, alongside venture investors, developers and policy advocates focused on expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem. Market-making firm Gravity Team, mining-infrastructure provider Power Mining and security-focused wallet developer Liana were introduced as inaugural sponsors. Hodl Hodl also opened applications for the event’s two-day hackathon, which is being financed by Angor in partnership with Geyser Grants. The coding contest will be judged by privacy specialist Max Hillebrand, Bitcoin Core contributor Adam Gibson, Ben Kaufman and Dr. Anastasiya Ukolova, while five projects have already been submitted. Separately, Ethereum layer-2 network Shape_L2 scheduled its shapecraft² hackathon for 23–24 August, dangling a 1 million SHAPE-token purse plus Apple hardware. The NFT-centric contest is backed by OpenSea, Alchemy, Manifold and other crypto investors, underscoring rising developer interest in combining artificial-intelligence tools with blockchain applications.