Peter BUDLONG@pete_budlong448

Every day, 100,000 new apps are born on platforms like Replit and Lovable. Personal trackers. Budget calculators. Niche tools built by non-engineers in minutes. They're incredible—and invisible. Because building is now easy, but distribution is still broken. VibeCard changes this. We're a viral rewards network that pays people to share. Platforms fund USDC reward pools. Creators add our snippet. When someone shares, they earn instantly—real money in a Circle Wallet, settled on Arc in seconds. No signup friction, no KYC to earn. Just share and get paid. Creators earn 40% of every action on their content, forever. Early sharers earn from everyone downstream. The incentives compound: share early, earn more. This only works now because stablecoins make $0.80 payments practical and x402 enables atomic multi-party splits. Traditional payments would require identity verification upfront, killing the viral loop. VibeCard is the distribution layer for the long tail of vibe-coded software. Circle Product Feedback Products Used: Arc, USDC, Circle Wallets, and the x402 Gateway facilator. Why These Products: VibeCard requires instant micropayments to multiple recipients without requiring user KYC upfront. Circle Wallets enable frictionless wallet creation (users earn before they verify identity). USDC on Arc provides the stable value and low transaction costs needed for $0.80 rewards. x402 enables atomic multi-party splits—one transaction paying creator, upstream sharers, and actor simultaneously. What Worked Well: The non-custodial wallet model is perfect for our "earn first, KYC later" approach. Arc's low gas costs make micropayments economically viable. The x402 protocol elegantly solves multi-recipient payments that would require complex ledger management on traditional rails. What Could Be Improved: Easier implementation for x402 batching SDK. I'm a vibe coder and could not get that to work in Replit. Recommendations: Get the App builder farther along for the next event.

In this hybrid hackathon powered by Arc, developers will build the next generation of agentic commerce systems using Arc with USDC. Explore a world where AI agents and web services can pay for APIs, data, compute, and content in dynamic, usage-based ways, while Arc provides stablecoin-native settlement with predictable USDC fees and deterministic, sub-second finality. This hackathon is supported by Google & Google DeepMind, with a dedicated challenge and $40,000 in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) credits awarded for the best use of Gemini models and Google AI Studio. 📅 January 9 – 24, 2026 • Jan 9 – 23 (Online Phase) – Collaborate and build online with developers and AI innovators from around the world. All projects must be submitted by the end of the online phase on January 23rd. • Jan 23 (On‑site Build Day – San Francisco, CA) – Selected participants will be invited to an exclusive in‑person session to refine their projects and connect directly with mentors. • Jan 24 (On‑site Demos & Awards – San Francisco, CA) – Live pitching sessions to a panel of judges and ecosystem partners, followed by the official winner announcement. Get guidance from Arc and Circle experts through on-site support. 📍 On-site Venue (Jan 23–24): MindsDB SF AI Collective 3154 17th St, San Francisco, California, USA 🤝 Go solo or team up, it's your flow. 🏆Compete for $50,000 in USDC & GCP Credits. 📍 On-site participation is by invitation only. Travel and accommodation expenses will not be covered. 🧑🏻‍💻 Secure your spot now - sign up before the Kick-Off Stream!