Catalyze Finance

Catalyze finance

Inspiration

I've been using Starknet for over a year now, and I kept running into the same annoying problem. Every time I wanted to turn my crypto earnings into real money, it was a huge headache. I had to wait about 12 hours for my money to show up on the exchange. Sometimes I paid fees as high as 7% on ramping services just to get my own money out!. Catalyze Finance solves this by allowing user exchange starknet tokens (USDC, USDT, STRK, ETH, WBTC) for fiat seemlessly and fast (Less than a min) for a simple 1% fee. We take the project a little further by enable user to earn defi native yield on their assets (powered by Troves).

What it does

Catalyze Finance is a mobile-first platform designed to bridge the gap between traditional finance and DeFi for users across Africa. Its core functionalities are:

Seamless Crypto-Fiat Transactions: It allows users to easily on-ramp from fiat to crypto and off-ramp from crypto back to their local fiat currency, bypassing the slow and expensive processes of traditional CEXs.
Fiat Access to DeFi Yields: Catalyze empowers users to deposit their local currency and have it automatically deployed into secure, audited DeFi protocols to earn high-yield returns. It abstracts away the complexity of blockchain, allowing anyone to benefit from DeFi without needing to manage wallets, seed phrases, or gas fees.

In short, Catalyze Finance provides the simplicity of a mobile payment app with the powerful earning potential of the decentralized financial world.

How we built it

We took a composable approach, integrating best-in-class solutions to build a robust and secure platform:

User Wallet Management: We leveraged the Chipi SDK to securely create and manage user wallets. This allowed us to implement account abstraction from day one, providing a seamless and gasless onboarding experience.
DeFi Yield Integration: To expose users to DeFi-native yields, we integrated with Trove Finance. This enables users to deposit fiat and have it seamlessly deployed into yield-bearing DeFi protocols.
Fiat Payment Rails: To ensure reliable and familiar local transactions, we connected to established African payment gateways Monnify and Yellowcard, covering both fiat deposits and withdrawals.
Liquidity Reservation System: We implemented a reserve method to manage liquidity. When a user indicates an intent to purchase, the required liquidity is held for 30 minutes. This guarantees the funds are available for their transaction upon payment, or frees up the liquidity if the intent expires, ensuring efficient use of the system's capital.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the hackathon, we navigated several key challenges:

Cross-System Integration: Interfacing blockchain-native SDKs with traditional FinTech APIs was complex. We had to carefully manage different authentication methods, data formats, and asynchronous callbacks to ensure transaction integrity.
Regulatory and Compliance Hurdles: We recognized that launching a FinTech service in Africa requires navigating a complex regulatory landscape. Planning for future compliance, including implementing KYC/AML procedures and obtaining necessary certifications like the SCUML, was a significant consideration.
Simplifying DeFi Concepts: A major challenge was designing a UI/UX that could explain "DeFi yield" to a user who may only be familiar with a standard savings account. We focused on clear, simple language, avoiding jargon wherever possible.
Ensuring Real-Time Status Updates: Providing users with accurate, real-time feedback on their transaction status whether it's pending on-chain, being processed by the payment gateway, or complete required careful state management in our application's backend.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud of what we achieved during this hackathon. Our main accomplishments include:

Building a Functional End-to-End Prototype: We successfully integrated a complex stack of technologies from account abstraction to payment gateways and DeFi protocols to create a working demo that solves the problem we set out to address.
A Truly Simple User Experience: We successfully abstracted away the most intimidating parts of blockchain. A user can onboard, deposit fiat, and start earning yield in a few taps, without ever seeing a seed phrase.
Solving Our Own Problem: We turned a personal frustration into a functional solution. The platform we built is one that we would personally use, which is a testament to its utility and design.

What we learned

Building Catalyte Finance taught us so much:

Understanding Starknet: We learned a lot about how smart contracts work and how to make them secure.
How Money Services Work: I used to just be frustrated with these services. Now we understand how they actually work behind the scenes.
Making Things Simple: The biggest lesson was learning how to make complicated things feel easy. That's what makes people actually want to use something.

What's next for Catalyze Finance

This is just the start! Here's what we want to do next:

User Testing and Feedback: Launching a beta program to gather feedback from real users to continue refining and improving the platform.

Launch a Liquidity Provider (LP) Program: To solve the liquidity challenge long-term, we will introduce a program for partners to provide liquidity for our on-ramp/off-ramp pools and earn a portion of the transaction fees, creating a sustainable ecosystem.

Add Bill Payments: Allowing users to pay for everyday services like airtime, data, and utilities directly from their Catalyte Finance balance.

Go to More Countries: Integrating more payment gateways to expand our service to more countries across Africa.

Diversifying Yield Opportunities: Adding support for more DeFi protocols to give users a wider range of yield-bearing strategies to choose from.