Gaze | Devpost

Logo
Homescreen for mobile app
Payment Request
Payment approved and sent
Demo Checkout
Scan Face
Voila

Inspiration

We all know how bullish the market is on crypto and Web3, but there’s still one major flaw: spendability . Using crypto for everyday payments still feels slow and clunky: copying addresses, scanning QR codes, switching apps. It’s all too much of steps . I wanted it to feel instant and invisible, like contactless payments - but with no cards, no taps, just a glance - thats exactly what Glaze delivers.

What it does

With Glaze, paying is as simple as looking.

You register once in the app with a quick selfie.
Next time you're buying a zero-sugar Monster from a vending machine, you just look at the camera.
A payment request pops up on your phone.
You tap once to approve and you’re done.

No cards, no QR codes, no extra steps — just glance → approve → done.

How we built it

Devnet Solana to handle transactions on-chain.
Anchor framework to build and deploy the smart contract.
React for the vendor checkout demo.
Face-api to generate face embeddings for recognition.
Node.js + SQLite backend to match users and handle requests.
Expo (iOS app) for users device to register and approve transactionss.
Phantom Deeplinks to make the payment flow feel seamless.

Challenges we ran into

At first, I tried storing face embeddings and user mappings directly on-chain. But testing showed it was too slow and expensive, especially as the data grows. I also explored The Graph Protocol to query data more efficiently, but their subgraphs aren’t supported on Solana yet, and making a relayer to mirror transactions isn't efficient. So for the hackathon, I pivoted to an off-chain backend to keep things smooth.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

For the first time, the Web3 part felt easier than the Web2 part. Setting up transactions on Solana was smoother than wiring up the app, backend, and pushing notifications across multiple platforms.