AuthNet | Devpost

Inspiration

The rise of digital credentials and the prevalence of forged certificates inspired us to build a secure, tamper-proof certification system. We wanted to create a platform where anyone can instantly verify the authenticity of a certificate using blockchain technology, inspired by the trust and design of Singapore’s SingPass system.

What it does

AuthNet allows organizations to issue digital certificates directly onto the blockchain. Recipients and third parties can verify the authenticity of any certificate by looking it up on-chain. The platform features a professional, inspired UI, real-time blockchain integration, and user-friendly certificate management.

How we built it

Smart Contract: Written in Solidity, deployed on Ethereum Sepolia testnet, using OpenZeppelin libraries for security.
Backend: Node.js with Express.js, ethers.js for blockchain interaction, dotenv for configuration.
Frontend: React (CDN), Babel for JSX, modern HTML/CSS.

Challenges we ran into

Handling blockchain transaction timing and certificate ID generation.
Ensuring reliable certificate lookup and parsing on-chain data formats.
Designing a professional, government-style UI that’s also user-friendly.
Managing environment variables and secure private key handling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Fully functional end-to-end blockchain certificate system.
Real-time, on-chain certificate verification (no mock data).
Clean, professional, and accessible UI inspired by real-world digital ID systems.
Robust error handling and configuration for production and test environments.

What we learned

Deepened our understanding of Solidity, smart contract deployment, and eventless return value handling.
Gained experience integrating React UIs with blockchain backends.
Learned best practices for secure key management and environment configuration.
Improved skills in modern CSS and responsive design.