The Time2Build developer challenge has announced its winners for 2025, marking a significant milestone in the ongoing integration of Bitcoin into various applications. Organized by Breez in collaboration with several esteemed partners—Tether, Lightspark, Fulgur Ventures, Plan ₿ Network, PlebLab, Geyser, and Draper University—the challenge ran from October 7 to November 15, 2025, culminating in a robust demonstration of developer ingenuity.
A total of over 50 developer communities from around the globe participated in this initiative, aimed specifically at incorporating self-custodial Lightning Network payments into existing open-source applications utilizing the Breez SDK. The focus was on creating long-lasting plugins, tools, and integrations rather than mere one-off demonstrations. Insights gained from the submissions highlighted key trends in practical Bitcoin functionality across several sectors, including merchant payments, social platforms, identity protocols, and applications based on the Nostr standard.
One notable trend that emerged was the use of Lightning as an interoperability layer. Developers often combined Lightning with protocols such as Nostr and Cashu to facilitate the transfer of value between different systems while maintaining their native designs. Moreover, there was a clear preference among developers for lightweight plugins over deep integrations into existing platforms. This approach not only allowed for more rapid deployment but also provided the flexibility for independent iteration without relying on approval from upstream maintainers.
The winners of the challenge were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, which included notable figures such as Abubakar, Giacomo, Jeff, Kevin, Keyan, Lisa, Roy, and Subash. Prizes were awarded in Bitcoin, with the top entrants receiving $3,500.
Among the $3,500 prize winners was the BTCPay Server plugin, developed by Team Aljaz. This plugin facilitates Lightning payments on the widely used open-source payment processor, BTCPay Server, by utilizing the Breez SDK. It allows operators to avoid the complications of managing a full Lightning node and its channel liquidity while maintaining a self-custodial Bitcoin framework.
Another leading project was Evento, created by Team Brianna, Andre, and Aaliyah. They integrated Lightning into their social events platform, thereby enabling participants to tip, support hosts, and transact directly within the app through services like Bitrefill, thereby fostering peer-to-peer value flow at community events.
Team Alessandro, Gianluca, Gabriele, and John delivered Portal, a protocol and mobile app enriching identity and payments functionalities by embedding the Breez SDK. This integration enables any application built on Portal to naturally inherit capabilities for sending and receiving Bitcoin.
Lastly, Primal, developed by Team Daniel, incorporated Lightning into its widely used Nostr web client. This integration transformed the previously custodial onboarding process, which often required KYC compliance and could be hindered by geographical or email restrictions. The new onboarding process is streamlined to require no personal information and can be completed in approximately one minute.
Additional $1,000 prizes were awarded to various other projects, including efforts recognized for their contributions to educational gamification and Nostr-focused wallets. Special prizes went to Lib de Satoshi and B4OS for a community platform that gamifies education, and to Sparkihonne, a wallet experience that integrates identity, messaging, and payments.
With many notable non-winning submissions like Sabi Wallet and OpNode, the challenge has clearly stimulated significant developer interest in incorporating Bitcoin payments into platforms where users are already active. Organizers emphasized that future developments are contingent on ongoing participation from builders in diverse areas such as messaging apps, wallets, and innovative applications.
In a statement shared with Bitcoin Magazine, the Breez team expressed their excitement for the future, declaring, “The era of building has begun. Whether that means adding Bitcoin to messaging apps like Signal or integrating it into leading crypto wallets, we can’t wait to see what you do next. It’s time to build.”
