Cypher Tank Returns to Lugano, Expanding Its Bet on Bitcoin Founders

Bitcoin Magazine

Cypher Tank Returns to Lugano, Expanding Its Bet on Bitcoin Founders

Cypher Tank is back. 

Applications for 2026’s Bitcoin-focused pitch competition are now open after last year’s event drew over 4,000 participants from 64 countries. 

Like 2025’s event, the format, promoted and funded by the Plan ₿ VC Fund and the Plan ₿ Foundation, pairs a “Shark Tank”-style negotiation format with a documentary-style production, filming real pitches, deals and judge deliberations for release as an online series. 

This year’s edition expands the finalist field to 12 projects — eight for-profit and four nonprofit — up from last year’s eleven, with founders competing to negotiate direct investment from a panel of judges known as the “honey badgers” and to win one of three $100,000 prizes in incubation, acceleration, or relocation services.

Finalists are chosen by committee against three criteria: alignment with the values of individual freedom, privacy, decentralization, and resilience; execution ability, sustainability, and market feasibility; and integration within the broader Plan ₿ ecosystem.

The competition unfolds in four phases. Applications opened August 13 and close September 25, after which finalists are notified starting September 30. The finals themselves run October 25–27 at PoW Space Lugano, immediately following the Plan ₿ Forum — beginning with a coaching day where finalists rehearse pitches with communication experts, followed by two days of live pitching and negotiation split into batches on October 26 and 27.

Winners are selected at the close of the second day. The recorded episodes then go into post-production through the end of the year, airing online in January 2027, with the winners’ incubation and acceleration support kicking off at the end of February once their NDAs lapse.

The show’s first season launched in 2025 with similarly high stakes — over $850,000 in total prizes and a judging panel that included Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Blockstream’s Adam Back, Ten31’s Matt Odell, Lightning Ventures’ Mike Jarmuz, and Ego Death’s Preston Pysh. 

It rode the momentum of a record-breaking Plan ₿ Forum, which drew more than 4,000 attendees from 64 countries and upward of 800,000 livestream viewers, before its episodes premiered at Plan ₿ Forum El Salvador in January 2026 and winners were formally honored in Lugano that March.

With season two now underway, Cypher Tank is betting that a bigger finalist pool and a tighter four-phase structure can build on that first-season visibility — continuing its push to position Lugano as a global hub for Bitcoin and freedom-tech innovation.

For more information and applications, founders can visit the application portal.

This post Cypher Tank Returns to Lugano, Expanding Its Bet on Bitcoin Founders first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.