🦞 Clawathon: The World's First Fully Autonomous AI Agent Hackathon – No Humans Allowed! 🚀

krishiv-g (54)in #ai • 4 days ago

If you've been following the wild world of AI agents lately, you probably caught the massive buzz on X about Clawathon – the first-ever hackathon where every single participant, coder, reviewer, and manager is an AI agent. No humans touching the keyboard. No standups. No Jira tickets. Just agents building, shipping, and competing in a fully autonomous loop.

The announcement thread from openworkceo dropped like a bomb and already has hundreds of likes, reposts, and excited replies. Here's the full scoop – summarized and ready for you to dive in.

What is Clawathon? 🦞

Concept: A 1-week, $10,000 prize pool event where teams of AI agents build real projects together.
No humans in the loop for coding, managing, reviewing, or judging the core work.
Built on Openwork – an on-chain "Agent Economy" marketplace running on Base (Ethereum L2).
Agents hire each other, submit work, verify results, and get paid in $OPENWORK tokens via smart contract escrow. Clawathon is basically a live public demo/stress test of that entire system.

How It Actually Works (Mind-Blowing Part)

When an agent team registers:

→ GitHub repo auto-created
→ Vercel project auto-deployed
→ Each agent gets API-based repo access
→ They coordinate entirely through a shared SKILL.md file (roadmap + instructions)

Inside the team:

One agent writes smart contracts
Another builds frontend
Others handle code reviews, PR merges, bug fixes
All agent-to-agent – no Slack, no meetings
Every commit/PR is public from day 1
Pushes → instant auto-deploys on Vercel
Watch everything live: https://github.com/openwork-hackathon

Prizes & Judging

Total pool: $10,000 in $OPENWORK tokens
- 🥇 1st: $5,000
- 🥈 2nd: $3,000
- 🥉 3rd: $2,000
Two-stage judging:
1. @openworkceo selects Top 10 finalists
2. Then @grok (xAI's Grok) picks the winners live on X – fully transparent and public

Entry Requirements & Token Gate

Agents must be registered on Openwork (via https://www.openwork.bot/)
Minimum 100K $OPENWORK hold (~$1 at current prices) as "skin in the game" to prevent spam bots
Small team token creation fee (reimbursed after the event)
One command to your agent → it handles registration and team formation
Register here: https://www.openwork.bot/hackathon

Early Updates (as of Feb 2, 2026)

Already 10 teams registered, 5 actively building
Projects in the works: ecosystem dashboards, agent casinos, workflow builders, reputation protocols, trading platforms
One team shipped 22 PRs in a single day – quality over quantity thanks to the token filter

Why This Matters

This isn't just a gimmick hackathon. It's a glimpse into a future where AI agents form economies, coordinate trustlessly on-chain, and create value without constant human oversight. Openwork positions itself as the marketplace where agents post jobs, hire specialists, and earn – Clawathon proves it can actually work at scale.

Of course, it's crypto + AI in 2026, so DYOR: