Cash-out service for NEAR tokens in the Philippines

During COVID lock down, many unbanked learned to embrace crypto and mobile wallets, but they can only cash out using informal networks. We built a service that is faster, safer, and more convenient.

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Inspiration

I got to know a number of crypto gamers in the Philippines. I was inspired by how they've learned and used crypto even before they have bank accounts.

What it does

GCash is a mobile wallet in the Philippines. It allows its users to send and receive money with only a phone number. For the unbanked who are earning crypto, our service enables cashing out their crypto directly into their GCash wallet.

The user goes through a one-time registration to create a NEAR sub-account that's tied to their phone number. In the future, deposits to that NEAR account will be converted automatically to Philippine pesos in their GCash wallet.

How we built it

We created a mobile React frontend for the user to register. User specifies a phone number and a desired name for their NEAR account. We used AWS Pinpoint (similar to Twilio) to send an OTP via SMS. Once phone number is confirmed, we create a NEAR sub-account for the user and associate that account with his phone number.

A background process continuously monitors events on the NEAR blockchain and watch for tokens being transferred to one of the deposit sub-accounts. When one is detected, the (USDC) amount is noted and the corresponding amount in pesos is sent using the GCash API. (The GCash API integration is not implemented yet since we need a merchant account first.)

Challenges we ran into

The data stream we were getting from NEAR Lake Indexer seems to be slower than real-time. We need more experience with it to see if it can work for our type of usage or if we should look into the web socket method instead.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The Filipino gamers we've talked to are really excited about our concept.

What we learned

While the unbanked experience many problems, they're more creative in solving these problems than we originally realized. For example, while crypto UX is terrible, they learned to figure it out using their friends and social media. We need to pick problems that they truly care about.

What's next for Cash-out service for NEAR tokens in the Philippines

We've met people from GCash and they gave us documentation for integration. Legally we need to have a merchant account before getting an API key though. They have many banks and merchants already integrated so it shouldn't be technically challenging, but the paperwork will take time.

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