Hackalajara 2.0 Returns as PlebLab Brings Startup Day to Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, June 7th, 2026 — PlebLab has announced that Hackalajara 2.0 and Startup Day Guadalajara will take place August 20th–21st, 2026, bringing Bitcoin founders, lightning developers, investors, operators, students, and local builders together for two focused days of building, demos, startup programming, and community in Guadalajara.

The two-day experience begins Thursday, August 20th, with Hackalajara 2.0, a Bitcoin Lightning hackathon hosted at Stacker Space, a Bitcoin only Hackerhouse in Guadalajara. Builders will work on practical projects around Bitcoin Lightning payments, infrastructure, developer tooling, education, local adoption, and payment experiences.

On Friday, August 21, those same teams will continue into PlebLab Startup Day Guadalajara, where other founders, builders, investors, and operators will gather for a full day of product demos, startup conversations, speaker sessions, and high signal networking.

“Guadalajara has the Bitcoin talent, energy, and local community needed for a serious builder moment,” said Car, Co-Founder of PlebLab.

“Hackalajara in 2024, covered by Bitcoin News, gave builders a room to ship. Startup Day in 2026 now gives them a stage to be seen. The mission at PlebLab is simply to help more Bitcoin projects, startups and founders get discovered, supported, and pushed forward in their journey.”

This is an important time for Bitcoin builders in Mexico and Latin America.

The conversation around Bitcoin is moving beyond price, speculation, and theory. More people are asking practical questions: How do we build better payment tools? How do we make Lightning easier to use? How do local communities actually adopt Bitcoin? How do founders turn open-source ideas into real companies?

That is why Hackalajara 2.0 and Startup Day Guadalajara are happening together for the first time.

Hackalajara gives builders a focused room together with others to experiment, ship, and learn by doing. Startup Day gives those same builders a public stage to be seen by other companies, investors, operators, the wider Bitcoin ecosystem and most of all other founders.

The timing matters because the next wave of Bitcoin adoption will not come from panels and podcasts alone. It will come from people building useful tools, testing them with real users, and forming companies around the problems that matter for their local communities.

Guadalajara is also the right place for this moment because the community work has already been happening on the ground. Chris and the Bitcoin Lightning Guadalajara team have spent the last four years building the local foundation through meetups, education, technical conversations, and community led Bitcoin efforts.

Founded in 2021, Bitcoin Lightning Guadalajara is a Bitcoin only community focused on learning, sharing knowledge, and educating people about Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

That existing local work matters. Events like Hackalajara and Startup Day are strongest when they are not dropped into a city from the outside, but built alongside the people who have already earned trust there. Chris and his team have helped create the foundational layer for Guadalajara’s Bitcoin community.

For PlebLab, this is part of a larger mission. Bitcoin needs more builders who can move from idea to prototype, from prototype to product, and from product to company. That is what this week in Guadalajara is designed to support.

The goal is not just to host another event. The goal is to help more Bitcoin founders get discovered earlier, to be supported better, and connected to the people who can help them continue on their journey.

Hackalajara 2.0 takes place Thursday, August 20th, 2026, at Stacker Space in Guadalajara.

The hackathon will focus on Bitcoin, Lightning, payments, education, local adoption, developer infrastructure, and real world use cases for Guadalajara.

Participants can join solo, bring a team, or meet collaborators during the event. The day is designed for developers, designers, founders, students, and anyone ready to learn by building.

Prize categories include:

Best overall Bitcoin build
Best Lightning payments experience
Best Bitcoin education tool
Best design / UX
Best developer tool or infrastructure
Best local Guadalajara use case

ShockNet is sponsoring the “Best Project Using CLINK” category with a prize of 500,000 sats.

CLINK, or Common Lightning Interface for Nostr Keys, gives developers a Nostr-native way to build Lightning interactions for wallets, apps, and node services. Builders can explore static payment codes, invoice requests, debit authorization flows, Nostr identity, Lightning payments, and self-custodial user experiences.

Justin first unveiled CLINK in Startup Day Yucatan in 2025 since then CLINK has grown a ton he will lead a remote workshop on building with CLINK and will provide remote support during the hackathon for teams experimenting with CLINK integrations.

PlebLab Startup Day Guadalajara takes place Friday, August 21st, 2026, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

The event will bring together founders, investors, operators, and Bitcoin builders for a full day focused on startups, infrastructure, capital, product demos, and the next wave of Bitcoin native technology.

Gustavo J. Flores Echaiz, CEO and Founder of Aureo, has been announced as the keynote speaker for Startup Day Guadalajara. Featured speakers also include Car of PlebLab, Brandon Keys of Green Candle Investments, Maciej Cepnik of Aureo, and Chris Guida of Stacker Space.

Startup Day Guadalajara will also give hackathon teams a chance to carry their momentum into the next day. The projects from Hackalajara 2.0 will have a path to demo in front of the broader Startup Day audience, creating a necessary  bridge between builders, community members, investors, and operators.

The purpose is to make the week feel connected. Builders can come in with an idea on Thursday, work on it with other people in the room, get feedback, demo what they built, and then connect with a larger audience during Startup Day.

Hackalajara 2.0
Thursday, August 20th, 2026
9:00 AM Guadalajara time
Stacker Space, Guadalajara

PlebLab Startup Day Guadalajara
Friday, August 21st, 2026
8:00 AM Guadalajara time
Ciudad Creativa Digital, Guadalajara

Hackalajara 2.0 Demos
Friday, August 21st, 2026
3:00 PM Guadalajara time
Ciudad Creativa Digital, Guadalajara

Startup Day Celebration and Hackalajar Winners Announcement
Friday, August 21st, 2026
7:00 PM Guadalajara time
Cervecería Gibbons, Guadalajara

Apply to build at Hackalajara 2.0:
https://hackalajara.pleblab.com/

Get Startup Day Guadalajara tickets and event details:
https://www.pleblab.dev/startup-day-guadalajara

Sponsor the hackathon, fund a prize, lead a workshop, judge projects, or help amplify the winning teams:
https://hackalajara.pleblab.com/

Contact:
[email protected]
[email protected]

PlebLab is a founder-led Bitcoin hackerspace and community accelerator based in Austin, Texas. Since 2021, PlebLab has supported early stage Bitcoin founders through hands on mentorship, Startup School, Top Builder, Startup Day, and a global network of builders, operators, investors, and open-source contributors.

PlebLab exists to help the next generation of Bitcoin builders move from idea to product, from product to company, and from company to real adoption.

Hackalajara is a Bitcoin and Lightning hackathon in Guadalajara focused on practical building, local adoption, payments, education, and open-source collaboration. After bringing Bitcoin builders together in Guadalajara in 2024, Hackalajara returns in 2026 for a bigger second chapter built around workshops, mentorship, demos, and real world projects.

Startup Day Guadalajara is PlebLab’s annual Bitcoin startup event in Mexico, bringing founders, builders, investors, and operators together for product demos, startup conversations, capital formation, and community connection. The event highlights the teams, tools, and infrastructure shaping the next wave of Bitcoin native companies.