SafeStakes

Commit, Stake, Succeed.

Inspiration

The idea for SafeStakes emerged from the need to make goal-setting and commitments more engaging and financially accountable. Many people struggle to stay committed to their personal or community goals because there’s often no real incentive. By combining crypto staking, AI verification, and automated reward distribution, SafeStakes transforms goal-setting into a trustless and self-sustaining system. We were inspired by behavioral psychology concepts like loss aversion, where people are more likely to follow through if they have something at stake. Additionally, leveraging blockchain and AI ensures that the process is decentralized, fair, and seamless.

What It Does

SafeStakes is an AI-driven crypto commitment platform running on the NEAR Protocol. It allows individuals, friends, and communities to stake crypto against personal or shared goals through a Discord bot. The workflow is simple:

Set a Commitment – Users set a goal and stake crypto as proof of commitment.
Stake and Pool Funds – The staked crypto is added to a shared pool.
AI Verification – On-device AI agents ensure fair verification of goal completion.
Reward Distribution – Once the goal deadline passes, funds are equally distributed among those who successfully complete their goal.

Everything is managed directly through Discord slash commands, making it user-friendly and efficient. The NEAR blockchain ensures low transaction fees, and Lit Protocol’s PKP (Programmable Key Pairs) securely stores wallet addresses of pools.

How We Built It

SafeStakes is powered by a combination of cutting-edge technologies:

NEAR Protocol – Enables smart contracts for staking, pooling, and distributing funds at minimal gas costs.
Ollama, LangChain, and LangGraph – AI-driven agents running on-device to verify goal completions and automate moderation.
Discord Bot – The entire system operates through Discord slash commands, ensuring seamless user interaction.
Lit Protocol (PKP) – Securely stores wallet addresses for staking pools, ensuring decentralization and security.
Smart Contracts – Handle fund management in a trustless and transparent way.

Challenges We Ran Into

Decentralized Goal Verification – Ensuring fair goal completion checks without a central authority was a challenge. Using AI agents running on-device helped solve this while maintaining privacy.
Secure and Low-Cost Transactions – Many blockchain platforms have high fees. By choosing NEAR Protocol, we achieved fast, cost-effective transactions.
Seamless User Experience – Making the staking and verification process smooth for non-technical users required deep Discord bot integration.
Secure Wallet Storage – We needed a way to store wallet addresses without compromising decentralization. Lit Protocol’s PKP was the perfect solution.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

Successfully integrating AI-driven verification with crypto staking.
Creating a seamless, gas-efficient commitment platform powered by NEAR.
Building an intuitive Discord-based UX where users can set, verify, and complete commitments effortlessly.
Using Lit Protocol’s PKP to securely manage wallet addresses while keeping everything decentralized.

What We Learned

The importance of financial incentives in commitment-building.
Optimizing AI verification for decentralized and trustless validation.
How to securely manage crypto wallets using Lit Protocol.
The power of Discord as an interface for Web3 applications.

What’s Next for SafeStakes

Multi-Chain Expansion – Supporting other blockchains beyond NEAR.
Advanced AI Verification – Adding image and video-based verification to enhance validation methods.
More Commitment Types – Allowing team-based and recurring commitments.
NFT-Based Achievements – Introducing NFTs as proof of completed commitments.
Community Partnerships – Expanding SafeStakes to DAOs and online communities.