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🐝 Swarm at Common S3nse 2026
Common S3nse, decentralized S3 — skip the bucket, join the Swarm.
Online starting 31 August · De Hallen Studios, Amsterdam · 4–5 September 2026
TL;DR — what we're bringing
Swarm is data infrastructure — it plugs into what you were already going to build rather than competing with it. Build the project you actually came to build, then put its data on Swarm.
- Already using cloud storage? Put that data on Swarm and your users hold it rather than rent it.
- Building with AI? Put the agent's memory on Swarm — readable from any device and any app the user permits, instead of living inside one provider.
- Working on privacy? Encrypt it, grant and revoke access by key, and keep it retrievable from any node for as long as its storage is paid up.
What you get from us
- Free storage. Swarm brings gift codes that cover storage for the whole hackathon, so no team needs to acquire xBZZ or xDAI to build. Come find us — @yjkellyjoo. At the booth both days, or #hackathon on Discord or Telegram if you're online.
- Engineers who read your code. At the booth both days — read your code, debug your uploads, argue about your architecture.
- A bootcamp before you arrive. How to run a Bee node — the tutorial is here, every command step by step. Install at home, arrive with funded postage stamps. You can start today. It reaches a step that asks you to fund a node. Don't buy anything — come find us for a gift code.
- Agent skills that do the setup for you. Your agent handles install and troubleshooting, and can tell you what your node is doing.
- A 20-minute post-mortem on Saturday. After submissions close at 9AM CET, come review your project with us, whether it runs or not. Get honest feedback on where the project actually stands, what is worth carrying on and not, and leave with one concrete next milestone.
- A conversation that continues after the hackathon. Swarm Foundation is interested in projects worth carrying on. If yours is one, a grant conversation can start — nothing committed in advance.
Pick your route
🌱 New to Swarm → start from the bootcamp. Work through the tutorial slides and arrive with funded postage stamps, set up at home. At the booth we go deeper 1:1: access control, updateable addresses, encryption, PSS.
🔧 You know your way around Swarm → go straight to the booth. Skip the bootcamp. Read the technical guide, get your stamps funded before you travel, and bring your integration and architecture questions. The booth is staffed both days — no schedule to work around.
Either route, don't buy xBZZ. Come find us for a gift code before you spend anything.
Not sure? Take the bootcamp anyway — it's an hour, whenever suits you.
Schedule
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Online, available now — work through it before Fri 4 Sept | The bootcamp — How to run a Bee node. Every command, in order: install, fund your node, buy storage, upload a file and get it back. Get your gift code at the booth first. |
| Fri 4 – Sat 5 Sept, De Hallen | The Swarm booth — 1:1 support and Gift codes Stamps through a gateway if you arrive without a node, debugging, architecture, project ideation. Come at hour two, not hour forty. |
| Sat 5 Sept, after the 09:00 CET submission deadline | Bookable post-mortems. Twenty minutes each — sign up at the booth. |
What Swarm is
Somewhere to put data that isn't a company's server. You buy space directly — an amount of storage for a length of time, no account, no sign-up — and it's held and served by thousands of independent machines.
It's a subscription you hold, not a platform account that holds you. Keep the space topped up and your data stays; let it lapse and it goes. Your content hash matches your content value — as long as the content stays the same, so does the hash.
The technical guide has the full picture — what you can build, common pitfalls, and project ideas worth stealing.
What to bring
Everyone:
- A laptop. macOS or Linux. On Windows, set up WSL2 before we start.
- Node.js 18 or newer. Your agent can do this for you.
- A coding agent. Our skills target Claude Code; anything else works, you'll just paste more.
Starting with the bootcamp? That's all. Don't pre-install Swarm — the bootcamp is the install. Run it at home, not at the venue: a first-time node sync leans on a public RPC endpoint, and a room full starting at once rate-limits everyone.
Going straight to building? Start from the technical guide, the docs, and the cheatsheet. Bring what breaks to Amsterdam.
Come with funded postage stamps — they're what lets you store data, and the bootcamp ends with them in hand. You don't have to go and buy the tokens, come find @yjkellyjoo at the booth, or #hackathon on Discord or Telegram.
Still lost with setting up a node? We will help you set up postage stamps through a gateway, nothing to install — or use Beeport for browser uploads on someone else's node.
Come find @yjkellyjoo at the booth, or #hackathon on Discord or Telegram.
Saturday: book a post-mortem
Submissions close at 09:00 CET, which frees the rest of Saturday for the conversation that's actually useful.
Bookable 20-minute slots at the booth. Bring the running project, the repository, or the wreckage — all three are valid. We'll talk about who it's for, whether it's worth carrying on, and what would have to be true for it to work. Our engineers will read the architecture and tell you what breaks at a hundred users. You leave with one concrete next milestone.
No scorecard, so come in whatever state you're in — polished projects get as much out of this as wrecked ones. If it's something Swarm Foundation would like to see exist, this is where the funding conversation starts. Nothing is committed in advance.
Where to go next
- Technical guide — what Swarm can do, project ideas, setup, and the mistakes agents reliably make
- Agent skills —
/swarmin Claude Code - Cheatsheet — two pages, print-friendly. Paper copies at the booth
- Docs
Find us
The Swarm booth at De Hallen, both days · Discord: https://discord.ethswarm.org