Bountini

Inspiration

Small tasks deserve a clear path from “I need help” to “the work is done.” A student club might need a flyer, a developer might need a bug reproduced, or a creator might need a short translation. For these jobs, defining the work and agreeing on payment can become more effort than the task itself.

Bountini brings the brief, funding, conversation, deliverables, and review into one quest. Our initial audience is student communities, independent builders, and creators who need small, clearly scoped tasks completed.

What it does

Bountini is a bounty marketplace with Requester and Worker dashboards. Requesters can write a quest or talk through it with an ElevenLabs conversational agent. Gemini turns the idea into an editable description and acceptance requirements. The requester reviews the agreement and funds a custom Solana escrow before a worker claims the quest.

Participants collaborate in a private workroom. Workers submit written responses, labeled links, and private files. A frozen submission manifest commits a SHA-256 hash on-chain, tying the receipt to the exact submitted version. Requesters can inspect original and revised deliverables, consult Gemini’s advisory review, request a revision, and approve a payout under the escrow rules.

AI helps people draft and evaluate work; it cannot sign transactions, authorize payouts, or change deadlines. The current hosted beta uses Solana Devnet test SOL only, with no cash value.

How it was built

The application uses Next.js, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. Better Auth provides email/password accounts, while Neon PostgreSQL stores profiles, quest data, messages, notifications, and transaction operations. Private attachments live in Vercel Blob behind participant authorization.

A custom Rust program built with Anchor handles escrow on Solana Devnet. Browser wallets sign transactions, and a separate reconciliation worker on Render verifies finalized chain activity before updating application state. Vercel hosts the web application.

Gemini supplies structured quest requirements and advisory review of supported submitted materials. ElevenLabs provides the voice conversation and hands an agreed task back to the editable quest form. Participants retain control of their briefs and wallet signatures.

Challenges

Keeping the interface consistent with the blockchain was the hardest engineering problem. A wallet prompt can be rejected, a connection can drop, or a transaction can confirm after the browser closes. We persist signed transaction signatures before broadcast and reconcile finalized chain state rather than treating a browser success message as proof of settlement.

Wallet account changes and Devnet signing also required careful handling. We guard against stale account responses and explicitly scope MetaMask signing to Devnet. For deliverables, we freeze the reviewed version before signing and protect files and revision history with participant access checks.

Voice drafting introduced another challenge: preventing a delayed AI response from overwriting the requester’s edits. The handoff preserves existing rewards and concurrent edits, and the proposal remains editable before funding.

Proud Accomplishments

We shipped a hosted application and deployed a working custom escrow program. Real two-account Devnet walkthroughs exercised funding, claiming, original and revised submissions, feedback, payout, and cancellation/refund. The latest hosted release also verified private file access, exact on-chain manifest hashes, signature recovery, and preservation of confirmed deliverables.

The release passed 142 regression tests, TypeScript checks, and a production build. The tests cover escrow authorization and settlement, account boundaries, transaction recovery, deliverable validation, and asynchronous interface behavior. A real microphone walkthrough also confirmed the voice-to-quest handoff.

Insights

A useful blockchain product needs more than a transaction button. People need a clear agreement, understandable state, private collaboration, and reliable recovery when something goes wrong. Separating account identity, wallet ownership, and transaction authority helped us build that flow.

We also learned where AI is most useful here: turning an unclear idea into explicit requirements and helping a requester inspect work, while keeping the final decision with the human.

What's next for Bountini

Next we want to test the experience with student organizations and independent creators, improve onboarding, and learn which quest categories produce successful matches. We also want stronger moderation tools and better operational visibility. Any future real-money release would require additional security review and carefully designed dispute and payment policies.

Try it

Visit https://bountini.us and create an email/password account. A Solana Devnet wallet with test SOL is needed for escrow actions. Explore the marketplace, draft a quest, or walk through the requester and worker flows with separate accounts. Source code: https://github.com/richmondazadze/bountini.