FreshCredit

Inspiration

FreshCredit was inspired by personal experience with identity theft and the frustration of dealing with outdated, centralized credit systems. I realized how broken the credit reporting model is—opaque, restrictive, and completely out of the user's control. What if people could own and control their own credit report, share it on their terms, and never pay for something they don’t use?

That question became the foundation for FreshCredit: a decentralized, privacy-first infrastructure where users generate and hold their own verifiable credit reports, and providers only pay when a transaction succeeds.

What it does

FreshCredit enables users to:

Authenticate using Firebase
Connect financial accounts using Plaid
Complete KYC automatically before linking payments
Store and control their credit data via a libSQL ephemeral database
Generate a Verified Credential (VC) using Microsoft Entra ID
Privately encrypt and store their report with a hash committed to Substrate
Share and verify their report with providers, without third-party intermediaries
Pay and get paid with embedded Dwolla support

Providers can:

Request or receive reports directly from users
Score those reports using their own logic or FreshCredit’s simulation engine
Only pay 1.5% per transaction—no subscriptions, no upfront fees

How we built it

🔧 Tech Stack

Frontend: Next.js + React + Tailwind
Auth: Firebase Authentication
Ephemeral DB: libSQL (local + encrypted)
KYC & Data Sync: Plaid Identity + Transactions + Balance APIs
VC Issuance: Microsoft Entra Verified ID
Payments: Dwolla API integration
Blockchain Hashing: Substrate (Polkadot-based)
Infrastructure: GCP Cloud Run, Docker, Pub/Sub
AI Tooling: Gemini, Vertex AI, Cursor

🔄 Flow

Sign in via Firebase
Spin up a temporary libSQL database
Connect account with Plaid
Fetch Identity, Transactions, Balance
Complete KYC → Issue Verified Credential
Analyze and simulate score report
Commit encrypted report hash to Substrate
Share VC-locked report with providers
Enable payments via Dwolla

Challenges we ran into

Microsoft VC Pricing Confusion: Originally thought VC issuance would be cost-prohibitive. After digging into Microsoft’s billing structure, we realized you only pay on issuance—not for each use. That changed our unit economics dramatically.
Plaid Integration Order: We initially fetched transactions too early, before confirming identity. We restructured the flow to ensure Plaid calls are optimized and not wasted.
Balancing Hackathon Speed with Long-Term Architecture: It was tough to simplify a global decentralized credit system into a two-day MVP while preserving privacy, integrity, and future extensibility.
Working Through Dyslexia: As a dyslexic engineer, keeping structure and syntax consistent is a challenge. Thanks to AI tools like Cursor and Copilot, I was able to work visually and stay in flow.
Making It Real, Not Just a Demo: This wasn’t about showing off features—it was about building something real that works beyond the hackathon. That required intentional design choices and efficient implementation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Fully implemented a decentralized identity and credit workflow in under 48 hours.
Created a working Verified Credential issuance tied to encrypted report data.
Built a live ephemeral storage model that doesn’t store sensitive user data permanently.
Designed an onboarding sequence that minimizes drop-off and maximizes trust.
Delivered a meaningful MVP while aligning with the long-term FreshCredit protocol vision.

What we learned

Verified Credentials can be low-cost and high-impact when used strategically.
It’s essential to sequence onboarding and verification APIs to minimize costs and avoid friction.
Privacy-preserving storage like ephemeral libSQL gives users meaningful control while enabling provider-side verification.
A trust-based architecture is more scalable than a compliance-based one when designed with the user in mind.
Accessibility and inclusion aren’t just user goals—they affect how we build, think, and ship.

What's next for FreshCredit

Launch the open protocol for self-hosted, verifiable reports so others can build on it.
Expand integrations to include more global KYC/KYB providers, telecom identity verification, and Apple/Google Wallet support.
Build the marketplace where providers can request and reward verified reports directly.
Add scoring customization, allowing providers to publish open or monetized algorithms.
Enable consumer data enrichment, giving users power to add and dispute items in their reports.
Finalize open-source infrastructure for community contributors and developers to grow the platform.

FreshCredit is more than a credit app. It's a new foundation for global trust, powered by the people.