Editor’s Note: With so much volatility in the market, keep up with the daily news! Get up to speed in minutes with our quick roundup of the news and expert opinions you need to read today. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) – Toyota, the world’s largest auto company in terms of cars sold, is furthering its exploration of the potential applications of blockchain technology by sponsoring a Web3 hackathon for decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) developers.

The Astar Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping advance the development of the Astar Network (ASTR), announced the upcoming Web3 hackathon on Tuesday, the first such event hosted by the project, which is scheduled for February.

Astar Network is a multi-chain smart contract and decentralized application (DApp) that originally launched on Polkadot but now supports a variety of blockchains.

The hackathon is organized by HAKUHODO KEY3, a company co-founded by Astar, and HAKUHODO, one of the largest advertising companies in Japan. Participants are scheduled to attend a launch event on February 25 and will have until March 18 to complete their products. The hackathon will take place in Astar’s Polkadot-based metaverse, COZMISE.

The first round of judging will take place on March 23, and groups that make it through this round will be able to participate in a launch event scheduled for March 25. A total of $100,000 will be awarded to the winning projects, which will be chosen by Toyota, Astar Foundation, web3 Foundation, Alchemy and HAKUHODO KEY3.

Toyota has its own ulterior motives for sponsoring the hackathon. The automaker hopes that the event can help generate DAO support tools within the company that its employees can use in future internal projects.

“We are looking at potential products, not just for PoC [Proof of Concept] within Toyota, but also to scale to external parties,” the announcement read. “By setting its own rules through smart contracts on the blockchain, the organization can be transparently managed and operated with the cooperation of many people. Anyone with access to the Internet can participate in this type of organization, and anyone with the tokens that each organization uses can participate in decision making.”

Toyota decided on the topic of developing DAO support tools for enterprises based on their belief that “if we could manage projects like a DAO, an organization where team members can operate autonomously and decision making is distributed, we could reduce the manager’s workload while helping team members improve the impact they have on the growth of the company.”

For its part, Astar is dedicated to helping Toyota achieve this goal, as it will help increase the level of interaction with the Astar Network.

“During the event, our goal is to develop the first PoC DAO tool for Toyota employees. If a good tool is produced, Toyota employees will interact with Astar Network products on a daily basis,” said Sota Watanabe, founder of Astar Network. “At some point in the future, I think we will see blockchain integrations in cars. Today, we are still in the exploratory stage, but very excited about the various possibilities.”

Astar’s ultimate goal is to “become Japan-backed blockchain,” and the project has already established a new company called Startale Labs to help make this goal a reality. “Government, business, and web3 solutions in Japan are actively working with Astar to bring together a global platform originating from Japan,” the announcement said. “Astar is accelerating to create a ‘new era’.”