Cypher Tank is again.
Functions for 2026’s Bitcoin-focused pitch competitors are actually open after final yr’s occasion drew over 4,000 individuals from 64 nations.
Like 2025’s occasion, the format, promoted and funded by the Plan ₿ VC Fund and the Plan ₿ Basis, pairs a “Shark Tank”-style negotiation format with a documentary-style manufacturing, filming actual pitches, offers and choose deliberations for launch as a web based sequence.
This yr’s version expands the finalist discipline to 12 initiatives — eight for-profit and 4 nonprofit — up from final yr’s eleven, with founders competing to barter direct funding from a panel of judges often known as the “honey badgers” and to win one among three $100,000 prizes in incubation, acceleration, or relocation providers.
Finalists are chosen by committee in opposition to three standards: alignment with the values of particular person freedom, privateness, decentralization, and resilience; execution skill, sustainability, and market feasibility; and integration inside the broader Plan ₿ ecosystem.
The competitors unfolds in 4 phases. Functions opened August 13 and shut September 25, after which finalists are notified beginning September 30. The finals themselves run October 25–27 at PoW House Lugano, instantly following the Plan ₿ Discussion board — starting with a training day the place finalists rehearse pitches with communication consultants, adopted by two days of reside pitching and negotiation break up into batches on October 26 and 27.
Winners are chosen on the shut of the second day. The recorded episodes then go into post-production by way of the top of the yr, airing on-line in January 2027, with the winners’ incubation and acceleration assist kicking off on the finish of February as soon as their NDAs lapse.
The present’s first season launched in 2025 with equally excessive stakes — over $850,000 in complete prizes and a judging panel that included Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Blockstream’s Adam Again, Ten31’s Matt Odell, Lightning Ventures’ Mike Jarmuz, and Ego Loss of life’s Preston Pysh.
It rode the momentum of a record-breaking Plan ₿ Discussion board, which drew greater than 4,000 attendees from 64 nations and upward of 800,000 livestream viewers, earlier than its episodes premiered at Plan ₿ Discussion board El Salvador in January 2026 and winners have been formally honored in Lugano that March.
With season two now underway, Cypher Tank is betting {that a} larger finalist pool and a tighter four-phase construction can construct on that first-season visibility — persevering with its push to place Lugano as a worldwide hub for Bitcoin and freedom-tech innovation.
For extra info and purposes, founders can go to the application portal.
