Consultancy giant Deloitte is now a gold sponsor for the EtherCamp, five-week long virtual accelerator hackathon.

Alex Shelkovnikov, Deloitte Ventures & Blockchain Lead from Deloitte, who is also a judge on the hackathon, said "We are really pleased to be sponsoring the EtherCamp online Hackathon. We are looking forward to seeing a lot of great ideas being worked on, and hope that some of these are going to become great start-ups in the future."

Deloitte joins the German energy company Innogy and WanXiang Blockchain Labs as the third gold sponsor of the hackathon, highlighting the potential of the Virtual Accelerator to extend the reach of blockchain technology across markets.

Currently over 40 teams have set up camps, laid out their plans and are working away developing their prototypes. From Thursday 24 November the audience will be able to back the teams using HackerGold, the token of the Virtual Accelerator.

Roman Mandeleil, the CEO and founder of EtherCamp, said "We're very pleased to see so many innovative teams on the platform making real progress in the first week of the competition. Others are starting to see our vision and the potential of the Virtual Accelerator, Deloitte is a partner who understands that vision and we wholeheartedly welcome them onboard"

The Virtual Accelerator and HackerGold token sale will run through until 22 December, after which the grand prize of $50,000 in cryptocurrency will be awarded to the winning team.