LotusLink

LotusLink is a fully decentralized Link Page Generator, allowing creators, businesses, and professionals truly own their links with a single payment rather than to pay monthly subscription fees.

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Inspiration

In January 2023, Linktree increased their prices from $3/month to $9.50/month for their pro-plan. This more than 3x increase in price trapped millions of business, creators, and professionals alike due to their difficult cancellation processes and how deeply reliant their users had become on the tool. This was SaaS user entrapment at it's finest.

What it does

This tool allows users to legitimately own their link pages and protect them from subscription price hikes, sudden termination of services, and more. By leveraging the permanence and ownership capabilities of the blockchain, users can own their link page forever with a one-time payment.

How I built it

  • Link Page Generator: Create a personalized link page with custom links, and mint it onto the Arweave Blockchain.
  • Arconnect Integration: Authorization and Authentication are handled securely using Arconnect, ensuring a seamless user experience.
  • Arweave Blockchain: Your link page is yours forever. Once minted, it resides on the Arweave Blockchain, providing true ownership without recurring fees.
  • Svelte Framework: Built using Svelte, LotusLink utilizes hash routing to enable a multi-page application experience on the Arweave Blockchain.
  • Profile Image Storage: Profile images are stored using a user's unique ArDrive account. If a user doesn't have an ArDrive account, one will be created upon minting their first link page.
  • One-Time Payment: Unlike traditional services that require monthly subscriptions, LotusLink requires only a minimum of 1.6 AR to mint a link page, providing lifetime ownership.

Challenges I ran into

-ArweaveKit- While trying to use the Arweave Wallet Kit, I ran into many issues due to the incompatibility of Svelte with React components. No matter what I did, tried svelte-prepocessing-react or svelte-react packages, it always turned into a "square peg... round hole" situation. After learning of the capability of using hash routing with React from Greg O during the final weekend, I believe I may do a full rebuild of the application to ensure optimal scalability.

-Storage- One of the major issues I'm still trying to overcome is the storage of links and images being displayed on the demo UI. Though I discovered several possible solutions, I've yet to decide which direction is the most scalable solution.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Honestly, building solutions that people genuinely see a demand for is always fulfilling. Even if the project isn't complete yet I greatly intend to see this project through to the end and offer LotusLink services to the general public.

What I learned

I learned a great deal about hash routing, ArNS, ANTs, ArDrive, Arconnect, Arweave Kit, Arweave-JS, and many more things along the way. I've taken notes that will take days for me to compile, but I now feel well-versed in my ability to navigate the Arweave ecosystem.

What's next for LotusLink

I'm not stopping, regardless of the results. I want to see this project through, scale it, and potentially consider exiting on the business. I've now registered LotusLink as a Delaware C-Corp in the United States and will be seeking funding as soon as I open LotusLink for an Alpha Round.

Video

https://www.loom.com/share/bda2a39e68e34161978462e0818a0b64

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