Solana has just kicked off the Graveyard Hackathon, an online global event starting February 12, 2026, with the theme of reviving “dead” or overlooked on-chain categories that the crypto space has largely moved on from.
The core idea is captured in their announcement: “Crypto elites and the trenches left these for dead. But the best time to build is when everyone else has left.” It’s positioned as an opportunity to resurrect sectors like NFTs, on-chain social, gaming, DAOs, digital art, and more—areas that saw massive hype in past cycles but have since cooled off, yet still hold potential for innovation on Solana’s high-performance network.
Hacking period runs from February 12 to February 27, 2026. Submissions Due: February 27. Winners will be announced around March 5, 2026. Total prize pool of $75,000 USD. Overall prizes: $30,000 for top 3 projects ($15K for 1st, $10K for 2nd, $5K for 3rd).
$45,000 distributed across 10 specialized tracks, with sponsors including partners like ExchangeArt (for Art), Drip Haus (NFTs), Tapestry (Onchain Social), MagicBlock (Gaming), Realms (DAOs), and others covering areas like Ticketing, Loyalty, Metaverse, DeSci, and Migrations.
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This is a fully online hackathon, open to builders worldwide, and it’s part of Solana’s ongoing push through platforms like Colosseum to foster new projects and startups. The event coincides with other Solana hackathons like ones focused on mobile or AI agents, making early 2026 a busy season for Solana ecosystem development.
It’s an intriguing contrarian bet—focusing on “graveyard” categories when much of the attention is elsewhere could uncover some real gems. No public recaps, prize distributions, or revived category success stories have emerged because development is actively underway right now.
This hackathon is designed as a contrarian push to breathe new life into “graveyard” on-chain sectors that lost hype after previous bull cycles. By focusing on overlooked areas when mainstream attention has shifted elsewhere like AI agents, mobile, or high-frequency DeFi, it could have several ripple effects on the Solana ecosystem.
Tracks explicitly target NFTs (via DRiP), on-chain social (Tapestry), gaming (MagicBlock), DAOs (Realms), digital art (ExchangeArt), metaverse (Portals), DeSci (BIO), ticketing (KYD Labs), loyalty (Torque), and migrations (Sunrise). If strong prototypes emerge, this could spark renewed developer interest, tooling improvements, and user experimentation in these spaces—potentially leading to composable building blocks that integrate with Solana’s current strengths (speed, low fees).
Solana’s hackathons run via Colosseum or directly consistently drive participation. Past ones like Radar (1,359 projects from 10,000+ participants) or others have surfaced breakout ideas that evolve into funded startups or ecosystem tools. Graveyard could do the same for contrarian verticals, attracting builders who see opportunity in low-competition areas.
With $75K total; $30K overall + $45K across 10 sponsor-backed tracks, it’s a solid incentive for quick prototypes. Sponsor involvement means winning projects often get extra visibility, integrations, or follow-on support—amplifying potential real-world adoption.
Hosting this amid other 2026 Solana events like recent AI agent or mobile hackathons shows the foundation/Colosseum pushing diverse innovation. It counters narratives of Solana being “one-trick” by encouraging bets on resurrection themes.
Right now, activity is likely ramping up on Discord, X, and Colosseum’s arena platform—teams forming, ideas brainstorming, early repos popping up. Early impacts are mostly inspirational/motivational for builders ignoring crowded trends.
Once winners drop on March 5, we’ll see concrete projects and any immediate traction Until then, the biggest “impact” is the bet itself: proving that graveyard categories aren’t truly dead—they’re just waiting for the right cycle and execution on a chain like Solana.