Building a Web3 Remittance Platform

BridgePay - Remittance System: Building a Stablecoin-Based Blockchain Solution

When I signed up for my first hackathon, I thought I was prepared. My teammate and I had spent days perfecting our presentation—outlining a stablecoin-based remittance system that could make cross-border transfers fast and affordable. We boarded the train to IIIT Naya Raipur confident and excited. Then, just thirty minutes later, the organizers released the actual problem statements. Suddenly, terms like “blockchain,” “stablecoins,” and “decentralized authentication” felt completely foreign.

My teammate had never even heard of “Web3,” and I only understood blockchain on a conceptual level—mostly from non-technical articles. We looked at each other, shrugged, and decided: “Alright, ChatGPT to the rescue.”

The Hackathon Experience

• Arrival and Setup: The campus was impressive, the hostels comfortable, and the welcome speech from the institute director really pumped us up.
• The 24-Hour Sprint: We knocked out the frontend in just two hours using familiar web technologies—HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For a moment, we thought, “Yes! We’ve got this!”
• The Backend Struggle: Then came the hard part. Setting up secure authentication between our server and the blockchain network took nearly ten hours. Every fix led to another error log. By 3 AM, after gallons of coffee and a lot of trial and error, we finally saw that “Success” message. It was one of the happiest moments I’ve ever had in coding.

The Real Challenge

After wrapping up our code in 22 hours, we raced back to the train station to catch our ride home. That Sunday, we arrived in Nagpur at 11 PM—just in time to collapse before two exams the next morning. Those 50–55 hours with virtually no sleep left my health in shambles, but they also gave me a huge confidence boost.

Lessons Learned

1. Be Ready to Pivot: You can’t predict every requirement. Learning on the fly and staying calm under pressure are your best friends.
2. Secure the Basics First: Quick wins on the user interface keep morale high, but don’t forget that a reliable backend is what makes your product usable.
3. Resilience Matters More Than Expertise: Even without deep knowledge of Web3, we shipped a working prototype by refusing to give up.
4. Keep Your User in Mind: Focusing on real problems—like lowering fees for migrant workers sending money home—helps prioritize features and keeps your team motivated.

We didn’t win first place, but what we gained was more valuable: proof that two beginners can tackle unfamiliar technology and build something meaningful. That experience taught me that with persistence and the right mindset, no challenge is too big—even if it means powering through a 24-hour hackathon with almost no sleep.