On 25 August 2026, 90+ builders registered and 30+ joined live for ninety minutes with the Algorand Foundation — a build-along that took a working local API to a paid, pay-per-request endpoint on Algorand MainNet, settling real USDC and listed on the Global x402 Challenge leaderboard.
// Registrations and live attendance are different numbers. About 38% of registrants joined live, within the 31–40% band across AIB's four earlier Algorand sessions. Figures from the Luma guest export of 26 August 2026, rounded down.
Turn an API into a service that charges per request — and gets paid by an agent, not a subscriber.
$100,000 USD plus 500,000 ALGO across the Global x402 Challenge. Ranking is on real on-chain usage, not on a pitch.
New entrants could register until 1 September (Official Rules §5a, §6).
Registered entrants submitted their project details. Finalist selection uses both the leaderboard and this submission.
The top 50 on the leaderboard are considered for 10 finalist spots. The Official Rules set finalist notification for 9 October.
Finalists present remotely on a live broadcast. $25,000 / $22,500 / $20,000 / $17,500 / $15,000 for the top five, plus 500,000 ALGO across the top 20 endpoints. The rules give 12 November as the latest date for announcing winners.
// Status from the challenge page as read on 8 October 2026; dates from the Official Rules as revised 3 September 2026. Algorand may amend them — the Program's official website governs.
// The leaderboard is operated by GoPlausible and is provided as-is. Algorand's rules (§19g) disclaim its accuracy and availability, so treat it as an indicator, not a record.
AI Agents Berlin opened with the deadline, not the agenda — seven days to a live MainNet endpoint.
The qualifying path end to end: TestNet, then MainNet, the GoPlausible facilitator, Bazaar discovery, the x402-global-challenge tag, and a first real USDC payment.
Qualifying, the leaderboard, and what the judges actually weigh.
The build sprint moved to the AIB Telegram for the week that followed.
Four criteria, evenly weighted: volume of USDC settled through the endpoint · use case quality, meaning x402 is in the core payment flow rather than bolted on · sustained potential beyond the prize window · innovation in how x402 is applied.
Just over half the registrations — 54% — were founders, co-founders or C-level, with a further 22 engineers and AI builders. 88% named an employer or their own company, and 68 volunteered a GitHub handle, which is an unusually high share for a registration form and a fair proxy for how technical the list was.
On agent maturity: 19 were already running agents in production or had shipped one to real users, 15 were building agent infrastructure or tooling, and 37 were experimenting or prototyping.
Being online moved the geography. 34 registrations came from Germany — 29 of them Berlin — against 14 from elsewhere in Europe and 43 from the rest of the world. An in-person AIB meetup runs 60–120 in a Berlin room; this one traded that for reach.
// Aggregate only. AIB does not share individual attendee records, emails or profile links with partners. The registration form for this event carried no partner-sharing consent, so aggregate is also the only lawful basis. The location question could not distinguish Austria and Switzerland from the rest of Europe, so Germany — not DACH — is the reportable figure.
Nothing here expires with the Challenge. If you want an API that charges per request — whether or not you are competing — this is the same path.
The Algorand Foundation's full walkthrough: entry types, the qualifying checklist, and how to get onto the leaderboard.
The reference implementation the workshop built on — clone it, run it on TestNet, then deploy.
Protocol reference for pay-per-request endpoints on Algorand — low fees, instant finality, USDC settlement.
Building with an AI assistant? Algorand's agent skills, and the GoPlausible plugins for OpenClaw and Claude Code.
Questions about the facilitator, the Bazaar or the tag go to the Algorand Discord, where the people who built it are.
Where the sprint ran in the week after the session, and where the next one will.
Data — datasets, reports, market signals, verification results, one request at a time. Compute — pay only when a model runs or a file is processed. Actions — an agent pays when it sends a message, books a resource or generates a file. Verification — trust scores, proofs, audit trails, reputation checks.
The technical walkthrough was led by the Algorand Foundation, the team running the Global x402 Challenge. The session was hosted by AI Agents Berlin and co-hosted on Luma with Michael Rizhakov. The leaderboard and facilitator infrastructure are built and operated by GoPlausible.
Earlier in the same programme: the Agentic Commerce x402 Hackathon in June, which has its own recap.
Agentic commerce is the thread through the whole AIB season. Next up: the Agentic Economy Forum on 14 October, 150 curated seats on Germany's role in the agentic economy.