Escrowly

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Inspiration

Everything is cheaper in crypto: paying, receiving remittances, receiving salaries, paying to other countries, exchanging currencies, etc. But onramping to crypto is usually much more expensive than buying with a credit card directly or performing any service in traditional means.

On the other hand, there are many people around the world with cryptocurrencies who want to have liquidity in FIAT, but the sales channels charge them high fees. The largest P2P service is centralized and requires you to present documentation sometimes much stricter than banks.

So we identified the opportunity to create an application that allows anyone to buy or sell cryptocurrencies, of any kind, without KYC and using their favorite payment method: digital wallets, bank transfers or cash, regardless of the country where they operate.

What it does

Escrowly is the Uber of buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

We automate the contact between buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies for a safe and decentralized transaction of buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Anyone can become a "cryptocurrency exchange" and start selling the cryptocurrencies they own, accepting the payment method they prefer. How does it work?

• Buyers: connect their wallet, choose their local currency to buy cryptocurrencies, choose the most popular payment method in their region. At that moment, their order is processed by Escrowly, which assigns them a seller who meets the specified purchase parameters.

• Seller: connects their wallet, chooses the payment option and enters the account where they want to receive the FIAT for the sale of cryptocurrencies. At that moment, the available offers will appear and they must accept them. After accepting one, they must interact with our Smart Contract and deposit the cryptocurrencies to that Smart Contract.

• Escrowly custody: our Smart Contract will custody the cryptocurrencies until the seller confirms that they have received payment to their selected payment method. At that moment, our Smart Contract will release the cryptocurrencies to the buyer's wallet. Escrowly's smart contract acts as an intermediary to ensure that both parties fulfill their commitments before completing the transaction.

In case of disputes, we integrate into a decentralized dispute resolution system so that the case can be resolved without any problems. This way you can buy and sell Fantom, stablecoins or any other token without the need to go through an exchange.

How we built it

• We have developed a web frontend solution based on React and a backend based on Python.
• We developed the smart contracts using Solidity 0.8.2 and the Remix IDE.
• We have a relational off-chain database to persist purchase orders, and when the orders are executed, the backend invokes the smart contracts to perform deposits and withdrawals.

Challenges we ran into

Due to time constraints, we were unable to fully integrate our off-chain backend. The smart contract is deployed, but it is not yet fully interacting with the project's backend. For the MVP, we used a mobile wallet from Peru, which does not have a public API that allows us to integrate directly.

Our smart contract only allows transactions with the native token of Fantom, which is FTM. We would like to support ERC20 tokens, but at the moment, we have found that it would only be viable using the web3.js library to read the logs of the smart contract off-chain.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We developed an MVP in almost two weeks, with limited time and few resources, in a technology that, while not complicated, was new to the team. On the other hand, we found considerable acceptance from other people when we showed them our prototyped MVP. The interest of members of the local crypto community in being independent sellers or "exchanges" themselves has attracted their attention.

• Validation of the MVP in the local crypto ecosystem.
• Development of the smart contract in record time and with support for multiple networks (Fantom, Polygon, Ethereum).
• Identification of a real problem (pain point) and combining current fintech solutions with blockchain technology.

What we learned

• We learned more about the Fantom ecosystem and Solidity.
• We learned about the restrictions we have in Solidity for performing on-chain operations.
• We learned different ways to deploy a smart contract.

What's next for Escrowly

We plan the following:

• Complete the integration of our backend.
• Optimize the Smart Contract for transactions with stablecoins.
• Allow sellers to deposit a quantity of cryptocurrencies and have them deducted from a liquidity pool with multiple orders automatically.
• Add functionalities for the buyer: they can place any wallet to receive cryptocurrencies or create their own wallet within the dapp.
• Develop the mobile version of the dapp.
• Define whether to create a DAO to manage the project and have the commission earnings as an Escrow of the platform be part of the DAO Treasury.

Built With

• python
• react
• remix
• solidity