The organizers of Japan's inaugural XRPL DeFi hackathon have revealed the application process details and highlighted the key areas of XRP-focused development that prospective participants should focus on. Emi Yoshikawa, the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Ripple, is among the jury members for the event.

Emi Yoshikawa, who holds a high-ranking position at Ripple, extends an invitation to all developers with a focus on XRPL to participate in the XRP Ledger DeFi hackathon. This exciting event kicks off today, on November 26, 2023, in Shibuya, Tokyo. Interested individuals can submit their applications to the organizers until December 10, 2023, as stated on the official event website.

The successful products arising from this event will have the opportunity to present their pitches during the demo day scheduled for December 12, 2023. The XRPL DeFi hackathon team has outlined three primary focus areas for developers working on smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).

In this upcoming hackathon, there will be a strong emphasis on applications related to XRP Ledger transactions. This includes the development of decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges with automated market-making tools, tokenization solutions, and more.

Furthermore, the XRPL community encourages developers to submit applications that utilize the Hooks amendment, cross-chain bridges, and other programmable features of the XRP Ledger.

The total prize pool for the winners is set at a maximum of $10,000 in equivalent value. Additionally, a separate pool of $1,500 will be distributed among projects that make use of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain, as stated in the official announcement.

In addition to Ripple, the hackathon enjoys the support of prominent contributors within the XRP Ledger ecosystem, such as Ginco, Crossmark, XRPL Labs, and other key players.

At the same time, the XRP Ledger is approaching a significant DeFi milestone. At the time of this report, 40% of its validators have cast their votes in favor of activating the XRPL AMM amendment.

According to data from the XRPScan explorer, several influential entities within the XRPL community, including Ripple, a fintech giant, and the XRP-friendly Bitrue exchange, have already expressed their support by voting "yes."

The voting process is currently in progress.