A sponsor does not buy a logo on a wall. They buy hundreds of qualified developers installing their SDK, reading their docs, and shipping a working integration in a weekend, plus recruiting, product feedback, and mindshare among the people who decide what gets built next. My job would be to sell that outcome, price it as a season not a one-off, and make sure each sponsor's track actually converts so they re-up in the next city. I won the ENS prize at ETHGlobal, so I have been the developer on the other side of that bounty. Below: what ETHGlobal is, who competes for the same budget, the sponsor demand map, and the moves I would start with.
ETHGlobal owns the premium, neutral, globally branded hackathon. That gives it a 150k+ member builder funnel no single protocol can match by running its own events. Sponsorship is the business, and it is two motions: land new partners (chains, infra, wallets, DeFi, and now AI-agent and payments companies) onto the prize wall, and convert the best of them from per-event slots into year-long, multi-city partnerships. The highest-leverage work is a sponsor success loop: instrument whether each track actually drove SDK adoption, hand the sponsor that report, and fix the docs-and-mentor gaps before the next event, because a track that gets no qualifying submissions is the number-one reason a sponsor churns. I would sell the outcome sponsors actually want, qualified builders shipping on their tech, using the fact that I have been one.
ETHGlobal has run hackathons and summits since 2017, starting with ETHWaterloo (the event where CryptoKitties debuted ERC-721 and 1inch's founders began the run of wins that funded the company). Today it runs a full slate: IRL hackathons (ETHGlobal Cannes, New York, Tokyo, Lisbon, New Delhi, Buenos Aires, roughly 5 to 6 a year, each a ~48-hour build for hundreds to ~1,400 developers), online hackathons (ETHOnline, plus themed events like Agents and Scaling Ethereum), and Pragma, a curated single-track summit co-located with each IRL city. The homepage lists 275+ partners; the money comes from those sponsors funding prize pools and paying for slots.
Note: headline figures (150k+ members, 14,000+ projects, 95+ events, $350M+ raised) are ETHGlobal's own homepage numbers as of mid-2026 and move over time. Team size (~14) is from the job posting. I keep the qualifiers rather than rounding up.
Tracks are non-exclusive: one project can win several sponsors' prizes, so the same builder-weekend is sold many times over. That makes the prize wall a repeatable inventory, not a bespoke deal. The partnerships job is to keep that inventory full (new logos), priced right (per-event vs season), and converting (each track actually drives adoption) so sponsors renew. Renewal, not the first close, is where the revenue is.
A sponsor's developer-marketing budget has options. Each of these competes for the same dollars; the gap column is where ETHGlobal's neutral, curated, multi-city model separates.
| Competitor | What it is | Strength | Gap vs ETHGlobal for a sponsor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devconnect / Devcon EF | Ethereum Foundation's own gatherings | Maximum brand and neutrality; Devconnect Buenos Aires 2025 was EF's largest event ever | Conference and expo, not a bounty-to-builder funnel; less "ship on my SDK this weekend," more thought leadership. Often complementary rather than either-or |
| ETHDenver SporkDAO | The largest and longest-running BUIDLathon | 25,000+ from 125+ countries; up to $1M in bounties; festival energy | Once a year, one city, community-run; harder to guarantee builder quality or a consistent, curated experience across a season |
| Devfolio / ETHIndia | Hackathon platform plus flagship organizer | Powers 100+ hackathons; ETHIndia is India's largest ETH hackathon | Platform-first and India-centric; ETHGlobal owns the premium, globally branded, curated in-person moment the long tail cannot match |
| DoraHacks | Global hackathon and grants marketplace | High volume, multi-chain (Solana, BNB, Cosmos), big in Asia | More online grants marketplace than marquee IRL brand; curation and Ethereum-native prestige are lower |
| Encode Club | Education-first: bootcamps, courses, hackathons | Deep talent-pipeline and curriculum motion | Weaker on the flagship weekend-event mindshare moment; good if a sponsor wants curriculum, not a build splash |
| Chainlink SmartCon / Constellation | A protocol running its own hackathon and conference | Full control of narrative and audience | Single-ecosystem; loses the cross-protocol builder crowd and neutral stage. This is the "build your own hackathon" alternative ETHGlobal sells against |
| Colosseum Solana | Solana's official hackathon, accelerator and fund | Tight funnel from build to funding, Solana-native | Solana-only; the direct L1-tribe competitor pulling builders into its own funnel instead of a neutral ETH event |
| In-house grants and events | Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon run their own | Cheaper per dev in theory; full control | No built-in audience; they must acquire the builders. ETHGlobal's pitch: rent our 150k-member funnel instead of building your own from zero |
A protocol can build its own hackathon, but it has to acquire the builders, and it only reaches its own tribe. ETHGlobal rents out a neutral, curated, cross-protocol builder funnel across many cities a year. That is the whole sales argument.
Who buys, what they actually want, and where the pipeline gaps are. Names are real sponsors from recent ETHGlobal events (Cannes 2025 prize wall and the featured-partners roster).
| Category | Real sponsors | What they want from a track | Pipeline read |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1s & L2s / rollups | Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Mantle, Flow, Celo, Ronin, Zircuit, Katana | Builders deploying on their chain and staying after the weekend; ecosystem mindshare vs rival chains | core, renew anchor sponsors; sell the season and a Pragma keynote |
| Interop & infra / DA | LayerZero, Hyperlane, The Graph, Avail, 0G, Walrus | SDK installs and reference integrations; proof devs can wire it in a weekend | core, renew adoption-metric buyers; the report loop lands here |
| Oracles | Chainlink, Flare | Projects pulling their feeds; case-study integrations | grow strong renewers; upsell to standalone events |
| Wallets, AA & identity | Safe, Privy, Ledger, ENS, World, Self | Devs embedding auth, identity and signing; smoother onboarding stories | grow high-frequency track buyers; bundle with DX mentoring |
| Stablecoins & payments | Circle, plus traditional fintech entrants | Payment rails inside real apps; regulated brands reaching builders | expand the on-ramp lane for non-crypto companies |
| DeFi & app protocols | 1inch, Euler, Aave-adjacent | Composability demos, recruiting, sometimes a whole standalone hackathon | premium 1inch ran a standalone $525K "Unite DeFi" event; a repeatable high-ticket product |
| AI agents | ASI Alliance, agent-track sponsors | Developers building agents on their framework while the category is hot | fill now the fastest-growing theme; under-monetized, land more logos |
| ZK & privacy | Aztec, Oasis, INTMAX | Hard-tech builders shipping proofs; credibility among the sharpest devs | grow smaller pool, high signal; good Pragma content |
Chains and infra are the renew-forever core; the growth is in AI-agent and payments sponsors, where the category is hot and the prize wall is not yet full. The one public price point I found (dYdX paid $225K to lead across four events, 100% upfront, implying roughly $50-60K for a top slot per event) says the ceiling is a multi-event season deal, not a single track. So the demand map and the pricing both point the same way: sell the year, not the weekend.
I won the ENS prize at ETHGlobal (HackMoney 2026) with ENSIO, a project that turns any ENS name into a universal crypto-payment endpoint (any token, any chain, with payment preferences stored in ENS text records; wagmi/viem, LI.FI, Morpho). I picked the ENS sponsor track and shipped on their standard under the hackathon deadline. That means I have sat where the sponsor's real customer sits, which is exactly the read a partnerships hire needs to keep tracks converting and sponsors renewing.
| What decides a team picks your track | Track that converts | Track that churns the sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| Docs and quickstart | Current docs, a copy-paste quickstart, an example repo I can fork at 2am | Outdated docs, no quickstart; teams bounce to an easier sponsor's track |
| Mentor presence | A real engineer at the booth answering in minutes, not a Discord that goes quiet | No one on-site; blockers stall and submissions never finish |
| Track scope | Realistically scoped ("build X with our SDK"), sub-prizes so more teams win something | Too broad ("solve interoperability") or needs mainnet keys the event cannot provision |
| What the sponsor gets | Dozens of qualifying submissions, real installs, a winning project to feature | Near-zero qualifying builds; the sponsor sees no adoption and does not re-up |
Every renewal conversation is really "did our track work last time." Because I have been the developer choosing between tracks, I can coach a sponsor to design one that converts, before the event, then show them the adoption in a post-event report. That is the difference between a sponsor who churns after one city and one who signs a season. It is the same instinct I used running partnership BD at deBridge, target to pitch to integration, and event-side sponsor work at Token2049 while at KIP.
The posting lists what the role does. Each duty, turned into a plan, with where it shows up on this page.
| JD duty | My plan | On this page |
|---|---|---|
| Cultivate new and existing relationships with blockchain, crypto and traditional companies worldwide | Two motions: land new logos into the open prize-wall categories (AI agents, payments), and grow existing anchors (chains, infra) into bigger, longer deals. Bring traditional companies in through a low-risk first sponsorship. | §04, §07 |
| Coordinate across all ETHGlobal team members for world-class sponsor experiences | Own the sponsor from sold to shipped: work with hacker-success and ops so mentors, workshops and booths are staffed and the track is set up to convert, supported well past the invoice. | §02, ★ |
| Create event-by-event partnerships and strong year-long, multi-faceted ones | Move top sponsors from per-city slots to a season package (the dYdX four-event model), plus premium formats: standalone branded hackathons and Pragma keynote bundles. | §07, §06 |
| Bring on partners with great tech and mentors to help developers build | Qualify on track quality as hard as on budget: current docs, an example repo, and a real engineer at the booth. Coach the track design up front so builders can actually ship it. | ★ |
| Represent ETHGlobal with professionalism to the ecosystem and beyond | Show up where builders already are, on the ground at events and in the intents, agents and infra communities, and speak the tech fluently to engineers and the business to executives. | §08 |
| Attention to detail, many moving pieces, learn new tech fast | Run the sponsor pipeline and the per-event checklist as instrumented systems (I build automation and onchain agents), so nothing slips across many concurrent cities. | §07 |
Four sponsor lanes, each with a different wedge, buyer, and close. The point is to make each lane a repeatable motion rather than a bespoke deal re-sold in every city.
Wedge: flagship prize track plus a Pragma keynote. Buyer: ecosystem / DevRel lead. Close: cost per qualified builder deploying, renewed across the season.
Wedge: "get your SDK installed and shipped 200+ times this weekend." Buyer: growth / DevRel. Close: an adoption report showing real installs and integrations.
Wedge: a themed track, or a standalone branded hackathon (the 1inch $525K model). Buyer: BD / marketing. Close: recruiting plus case-study projects.
Wedge: a low-risk first sponsorship, mentor booth plus Pragma slot. Buyer: innovation / brand. Close: brand among the best builders, then grow the account.
Staged as source, qualify (budget and track quality), scope, run, renew. Measured on sponsor revenue, renewal rate, and track conversion (qualifying submissions and SDK adoption per track), not one-off logos.
Each ties to a real ETHGlobal mechanic (prize tracks, mentor booths, Pragma, standalone hackathons, the season model) or a real gap on the prize wall, not generic relationship-building.
Move top sponsors (chains, LayerZero, Circle, Chainlink) from per-city slots to a multi-event annual package, the model dYdX already bought (four events, upfront). Turns a pipeline that is re-sold every city into recurring, forecastable revenue.
Instrument each track: qualifying submissions, SDK installs, projects that shipped, finalists using it. Hand every sponsor that report after the event. It makes renewal a data conversation and catches a failing track (the top churn signal) before the sponsor walks.
The prize wall is not full where demand is growing fastest: AI agents, RWA, and payments. Land more logos in those lanes now while the category is hot, rather than over-indexing on the already-saturated chain slots.
Qualify sponsors on track quality, current docs, an example repo, a real mentor at the booth, a realistically scoped prompt, and fix gaps up front. A track builders can actually ship is what converts a first-time sponsor into a renewer.
Replicate the 1inch "Unite DeFi" $525K event for a chain or protocol that wants its own dedicated hackathon. A higher-ticket product than a track slot, using the same builder funnel and operations muscle.
Bring non-crypto entrants (fintechs, payment companies, banks exploring stablecoins) in as first-time sponsors via a low-risk mentor booth plus a Pragma slot, then grow the account. The JD explicitly wants traditional companies, and this is the lowest-friction door.
Pair a Pragma speaking slot with a hackathon track as the top package: thought leadership for the executive and builder adoption for the DevRel lead, in one weekend, one contract.
Package what sponsors actually value: curated mentor matching, finalist recruiting access, and a "your SDK on the winning project" case-study pipeline. Being an ETHGlobal winner myself, I can speak to exactly what makes that quality real.
Facts are drawn from public sources as of mid-2026 and fact-checked: ETHGlobal's own site (homepage stats, events, Pragma, partner-with-us), the Cannes 2025 prize page for the real sponsor roster and pool size, the dYdX Grants disclosure for the one public sponsorship price point, and reporting on ETHGlobal's history (ETHWaterloo, CryptoKitties, 1inch). Numbers move over time and are quoted as published, with qualifiers where a figure is ETHGlobal's own headline or a single data point. Only CryptoKitties and 1inch are treated as verifiable "born here" stories. This is unsolicited interview homework written from the builder's side, not a client deliverable; happy to walk through any section.
ETHGlobal: ethglobal.com
Events: ethglobal.com/events
Pragma: ethglobal.com/pragma
Cannes 2025 prizes: ethglobal.com/events/cannes/prizes
Sponsorship price point: dYdX Grants, ETHGlobal sponsorship
1inch standalone event: 1inch, Unite DeFi
Independent partnerships homework for the ETHGlobal Partnerships Manager role · 2026 · edwardtay.com