Haiku 🎰💸

Inspiration

While vibe-coding a casino on-chain, we ran into a recurring pain: there was no smooth, fast, and testnet-friendly wallet that supported staking directly on a platform. So instead of just building a casino, we shifted gears and built Haiku — a lightweight Web3 wallet that works on testnets and supports platform-level staking out of the box.

What it does

Haiku is a developer-friendly wallet with:

✅ Testnet support for rapid prototyping and experimentation.
🧱 Built-in staking features for platform-native tokens.
🚀 A simple UI/UX designed for fast onboarding and real-world dApp testing.
🔐 Non-custodial, secure key management.

How we built it

Frontend: React + Tailwind for a snappy, clean UI.
Backend: Actix Web (Rust) to interface with Solana.
Blockchain: Solana Program in Rust to handle staking logic and token management.
Serialization: Borsh for fast, reliable state encoding/decoding.
Wallet Logic: Inspired by Phantom, but leaner and focused on dev/test environments.

Challenges we ran into

Interfacing between Solana's program model and a custom wallet experience.
Handling token staking mechanics in a secure but flexible way.
Dealing with limitations and lack of tooling when working on testnets.
Designing something usable while pivoting mid-project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a testnet-compatible staking wallet in under a weekend.
Smooth integration with Solana smart contracts.
Creating something we genuinely needed — and now others can use too.
Having a working product even though we started with a completely different idea.

What we learned

Sometimes the real problem only shows up mid-build — and it's okay to pivot.
Developer UX matters as much as end-user UX.
Writing Solana programs and integrating them with real-world apps requires good tooling — which we’ve now helped improve.