The first Vibeathon drew 52 applications, and ten builds made the final shortlist. Corvo Edge took first place and Onetoken second, and both went on to open raises on Vibestarter. The second edition keeps what worked (an open field, a short build window, a scored rubric) and moves faster: a week to apply, a week to build, a week to judge. It also pays more, and it puts your build in front of more people.

What's new this time

A bigger prize pool. $1,000 in cash, up from $850, paid to the top five instead of the top three. Places six to ten still earn Starter Card points.

A wider audience. Special judges join the panel this time, and every finished entry is listed publicly on the vote page, so your build is seen well beyond the people who already know it. We'll name the judges soon.

Exposure to the $VIBES holders. While the judges score, the holders go through the finished entries and pick the one they would back. Your project is in front of Vibestarter's own community before you ever open a raise.

Night shift

Every edition now gets a theme, and this one's is Night shift: a ten-storey tower at night in the rain, a green >_ lit on its roof, the city asleep around it. It is the hour a lot of vibecoding gets done, when the day's work is over and one screen is still on.

The tower has fifty windows, one for each of this edition's sponsored seats. On the Vibeathon page, a window lights each time a seat is granted, and the next one waits with an empty desk and its screen on. At launch the whole tower is dark.

The timeline

Every deadline lands at 22:00 UTC:

• Applications open Monday 26 October and close Monday 2 November (one week).
• The build window runs from 2 November to Monday 9 November (one week). Your project has to be submitted before it closes.
• Judging and the community vote run side by side from 9 November to Monday 16 November.
• Winners are published once the judges' scorecards are in and the vote has closed.

How it works

Build something you intend to launch. By the end of the build window you need a working MVP that people can actually use, with a live URL. Submissions stay editable until the window closes. Building on Base? Base's docs are the place to start.

A panel of judges scores every finished entry against a published rubric:

• Execution (30%): does it work, end to end?
• Launch potential (25%): would people back it?
• Originality (20%)
• Craft and UX (15%)
• Vibecoding leverage (10%): how well AI tools were used to build it.

An entry's score is the average of every scorecard on it: each judge's, plus the holders' card (below). Scorecards are due by 16 November, and the results are final once the podium is set. There is no rescoring after the fact.

The holders are a judge

New for this edition. The $VIBES holders judge alongside the panel, as one more judge. While the judges score, holders pick the one entry they would back. Each vote is weighted by the $VIBES the wallet held or staked on Base when the build window closed, so tokens moved afterwards cannot vote twice. You sign a message to vote (no transaction, no gas), and you can change your pick until the vote closes.

When the vote closes, it becomes the holders' scorecard: the most-voted entry gets 100, every other entry scores in proportion to its votes, and an entry with no votes gets 10, the same range as a judge's card. That card counts in every entry's final score exactly like one judge's.

The running tally stays hidden until the close. Platform and team wallets do not vote, and you cannot vote for your own entry.

What you can win

• First place: $500 and 300 Starter Card points.
• Second place: $250 and 200 Starter Card points.
• Third place: $125 and 200 Starter Card points.
• Fourth place: $75 and 100 Starter Card points.
• Fifth place: $50 and 100 Starter Card points.
• Sixth to tenth: 100 Starter Card points each.

That's $1,000 in all.

There is no guaranteed raise slot this time. Strong entries, on the podium or not, may be invited to apply to raise on Vibestarter (on Base or Robinhood Chain). An invitation opens a founder application pre-filled from your entry; it is reviewed like any other application.

Sponsored seats

Entry is open to everyone, and you don't need to hold anything to compete. We're also sponsoring 50 seats again: a month of Claude Pro, covered by Vibestarter. Seats go first to entrants who hold at least 100,000 $VIBES or have reached Starter Card Level 3. Neither is required to enter, and neither buys a placement. Each seat lights its window in the tower when it is granted.

A tip: score your build on Fundable

When you submit, you can attach a result link from Fundable, our scorer for how fundable a vibecoded app is. Judges see the score beside your entry. It is not part of the rubric, but it is an honest read on where your build stands before anyone else looks at it.

What's expected of entrants

• If you're invited to raise, you commit to launching your project on Vibestarter.
• A sponsored Claude Pro seat is for the Vibeathon. Anything you build with it must be for the project you're entering.
• If you don't submit a project by the deadline, we may revoke the sponsored seat.

Apply

Applications open Monday 26 October at 22:00 UTC and close Monday 2 November at 22:00 UTC.

Enter Vibeathon 02 →

Follow X / Twitter and the Discord for updates. $VIBES is a utility token, not an investment. Participation carries risk, and nothing here is financial advice.