#Decentralized-Internet Writing Competition: April Results Announced!

HackerNoon has always been a thriving example of decentralization. With team members spread across 5 continents and 15 countries, centralization just cannot touch us.

Building upon that is our partnership with Free TON (Now Everscale) - a Blockchain birthed out of Telegram's foray into decentralization.

Under the aegis of this partnership, we're giving away monthly prizes worth $3,500 to the best HackerNoon story submissions on ways and examples furthering the decentralization of the Internet.

The Selection Criteria

For the first round of awards, we picked all the stories tagged with #Decentralized-Internet on HackerNoon that were published since Jan 2021.

This gave us a total of 95 stories.

(Source)

Next, we picked the top 13 stories using a 60:30:10 weightage respectively to:

• Number of hours read
• Number of people reached
• Freshness

Now, it was time to vote on our favorite stories.

But first, let's look at the nominees:

1. The Coronavirus Cover-Up: A Closer Look At Internet Censorship in China by @sh4rmini
   
2. Why Is BTC Over $50k While Other Cryptocurrencies Struggle To Cross $1: A Deep Dive by @nonamec3po
   
3. 5 Polkadot Projects Worth Checking Out [April 2021] by @haroonbaig
   
4. The Splinternet is Coming, and How Decentralization Can Stitch It All Back Together Again by @SavannahLee
   
5. Brave Browser, Brendan Eich, Digital Privacy, Web 3.0 and the Battle Against Surveillance Capitalism by @maddykutechno
   
6. Does Web 3.0 Need Web Servers? by @benjaminbateman
   
7. How To Mint Your First NFT (Non-Fungible Token) For Free by @sergey-baloyan
   
8. More Africans Walk Towards Financial Freedom Due To Cryptocurrencies by @nonamec3po
   
9. Decentralizing The Internet: The Hitchhiker's Guide by Nicholas Resendez
   
10. GitHub is Amazing, but its Terms of Service is Extremely Concerning by @TheLoneroFoundation
    
11. Are NFTs Real Art? Four Artists, One Question by @benjaminbateman
    
12. Can You Earn Crypto by Mining/Staking If You Are Not a Programmer? by @nonamec3po
    
13. 3 Reasons Why Blockchain Won't #ReleaseTheKraken: An Interview with John Sebes of TrustTheVote.org by @benjaminbateman
    
    

The Voting Process

We used Polly (a slack app) to build the voting panel and true to the spirit of decentralization, everybody on our slack channel got to pick their three favorite stories each.

We all had 3 days to pick our favorites.

So, who won?

With over 25% of all votes cast -

More Africans Walk Towards Financial Freedom Due To Cryptocurrencies by No_name_c3po emerged as the clear winner.

No_name_c3po wins 1,500 TON crystals

Arthur, our Software Development Editor sums up why this story made it to the top of almost everybody's list, 

"There is something beautiful about the decentralization movement as a whole where they’re all trying in their own ways to bring banking services to locations where there are no banks for hundreds of kilometers."

With about 19% of all votes cast, Decentralizing The Internet: The Hitchhiker's Guide by Nicholas Resendez emerged as the first runner-up.

Nicholas Resendez wins 1,000 TON crystals

The no-holds-barred look at decentralization as a whole, its challenges, and silver-linings was what resonated with the voters, as per Natasha, our VP Of Editorial.

The second runner-up position was snatched up by How To Mint Your First NFT (Non-Fungible Token) For Free by Sergey Baloyan. It received 14% of the total votes cast.

Sergey Baloyan wins 500 TON crystals.

This was the favorite story of our CEO, David Smooke who, as a fan of trading cards has really taken to NFTs.

Finally, the last winner to be chosen was 3 Reasons Why Blockchain Won't #ReleaseTheKraken: An Interview with John Sebes of TrustTheVote.org by Benjamin Bateman which polled about 11% of the total votes cast.

Benjamin Bateman wins 500 TON crystals.

For this one, Benjamin went deep into the camp of the Blockchain-disbelievers and discussed the possibilities and concerns related to voting on the Blockchain.

Whither Next?

This calls for a celebration and a big round of applause for the victors and the worthy contenders. We'll be continuing to run this contest through the end of 2021, so you can submit your #decentralized-internet stories to HackerNoon today to have a chance at monthly prizes!

For those of you who couldn't win this time OR didn't know how to participate, here are the details for this month's writing competition.

1. Set up an account on HackerNoon
2. Check out the Decentralized Internet Writing Competition’s rules
3. Pen your story and submit it with #Decentralized-Internet as one of the tags

Want to boost your chances of winning? Share your story on your social media channels to reach a wider audience. If your social media copy is 'kewl', we'll share/retweet it to give you a leg up.

With that, we're calling it a wrap until we see you next month.

Note: Free TON has now rebranded as Everscale.