Equity

Mortgages are expensive and illiquid, leaving borrowers overpaying and investors shut out. Equity makes mortgages competitive for borrowers and tradable for investors through fractional shares.

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Inspiration

Mortgages are traditionally opaque and illiquid. Only large institutions can participate at scale, which limits competition and keeps rates high. We wanted to explore a way to democratize access for borrowers and retail investors while visualizing liquidity in one of the largest fixed-income markets in the world. Early work involved generating and refining concepts to identify key pain points, sketch potential user flows, and prioritize the most compelling ideas before prototyping.

What it does

Equity is a prototype platform where multiple lenders can compete to fund a mortgage, and investors can buy tokenized Fractions, which are pro-rata claims on interest payments that can be traded on a secondary market. Initial iteration focused on making these financial interactions intuitive for both borrowers and investors. The demo illustrates how Stripe could handle fiat onboarding and payments, and how Solana could enable on-chain Fraction trading with fast, low-cost settlement.

How we built it

  • Developed and refined early concepts to determine feature priorities and user flows.
  • A frontend showing the full user flow for borrowers and lenders.
  • A backend prototype supporting mortgage listings, lender bids, Fraction creation, and a mocked secondary market.
  • Interactive portfolio views that track yield, risk, and diversification.

While Stripe and Solana integrations are not implemented, the interface demonstrates how they would fit into the flow.

Challenges we ran into

  • Designing a realistic user experience for a complex financial product in a short timeframe.
  • Modeling real-time competition and liquidity in a purely simulated environment.
  • Balancing clarity and interactivity in the frontend while keeping the backend functional.
  • Narrowing down and refining ideas into a coherent, testable prototype.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a complete end-to-end demo flow from mortgage request to Fraction trading in under 20 hours.
  • Developed a prototype that clearly communicates the concept and potential of Equity.
  • Successfully turned initial concepts into a cohesive, functional product.

What we learned

  • Rapid prototyping helps clarify complex financial ideas and user flows.
  • Even without live integrations, demonstrating interactions like bidding, funding, and secondary market trades conveys the value proposition.
  • Visualizing liquidity and market mechanics is essential to make the concept tangible.
  • Iteratively refining concepts and user flows is critical for aligning on the right features and messaging.

What's next for Equity

  • Integrate Solana to mint and trade Fractions on-chain.
  • Continue refining features and flows based on user feedback and further concept development.
  • Deal with legal constraints and edge cases around mortgage default and asset liquidation.
  • Implement live Stripe onboarding and payments for borrowers and lenders.
  • Create functionality to allow third party brokers to use our platform.

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