Ali Ben Yezza and Eli Benbaruk, engineering students at ESILV and KRYPTOSPHERE® DeVinci members, were awarded second place at the HAKS Hackathon 2025 by XRPL Commons for their project AetherPay, a modular SDK designed for seamless XRPL payment integrations.
Here’s a look back at a weekend of high-level innovation and teamwork at the intersection of AI and blockchain.
A Weekend of Tech Innovation with XRPL Commons
Organized by XRPL Commons, a non-profit dedicated to developing impactful use cases on the XRP Ledger, the HAKS Hackathon 2025 brought together developers, students, and tech enthusiasts for an intense weekend of collaboration and creation.
Participants could choose between two thematic tracks:
- AI & Blockchain, focusing on the synergies between artificial intelligence and decentralized systems;
- Crypto for Good, exploring blockchain’s potential for social and environmental solutions.
The event fostered an open and dynamic environment, challenging teams to build practical applications on the XRP Ledger and compete for over €5,000 in prizes.
AetherPay: Simplifying XRPL Payments
ESILV students Ali Ben Yezza, and Eli Benbaruk, both class of 2028, members of KRYPTOSPHERE® DeVinci, De Vinci Higher Education blockchain association, stood out with their project AetherPay, a modular and testable software development kit (SDK) tailored for XRPL integration.
Their solution provides a robust suite of tools, including:
- Wallet management capabilities,
- Memo encoding and decoding,
- Transaction building and history querying,
- Support for the x402 protocol.
Designed for developers building wallets, payment systems, or transaction facilitators, AetherPay aims to streamline operations while remaining highly adaptable. The project earned them the second-place prize of €1,500, recognizing its technical depth and real-world application.
Top Projects and Awards
Three projects received awards from the jury:
- First Place (€2,500): KoVault
A multi-signature crypto vault with an AI co-signer acting as a real-time firewall. - Second Place (€1,500): AetherPay
ESILV students developed a modular SDK for XRPL integration. - Third Place (€1,000): Eclipse
A tool that converts product databases into verifiable, XRPL-certified digital passports.
Additional honors included a bonus prize to Ievgen Gerasymchuk (XRP TV) and a special mention to the XRPerience Great Vision team.
A Collaborative and Inspiring Jury
The jury—Helder Salvador, Martino Bettucci, and Mélanie Dinane—praised the submissions’ creativity and functionality. Their feedback and insights, alongside guidance from mentors and volunteers, created a supportive ecosystem that encouraged bold experimentation.
Fintech Major: ESILV’s Role in Nurturing Future Innovators
This acknowledgement emphasizes ESILV’s dedication to equipping students with the necessary skills to succeed in emerging fields such as blockchain, Web3, and financial technologies.
Through the Fintech Major, which offers hands-on experience and advanced project-based learning, ESILV equips its students to thrive in competitive tech environments and contribute meaningfully to real-world innovation.
About the Financial Engineering major at ESILV
ESILV offers a CTI-accredited Engineer’s Degree with a major in Financial Engineering. Based on the Paris campus, the program will equip future engineers with the technological and analytical skills required to navigate the evolving finance landscape.
It focuses on cutting-edge topics such as fintech, data science, and blockchain, preparing students to contribute to industries that are transforming financial services.
The major reflects recent legal, technical, and strategic changes that have reshaped finance, including the rise of fintech. Notably, ESILV pioneered blockchain education: led by research professor Cyril Grunspan, it was the first French engineering school to offer a dedicated course on blockchain and Bitcoin.
The school also initiated academic research and continues collaborating on applied blockchain projects with industry partners, positioning the program as a reference for institutions and professionals.
