Inspiration
Blockifi was inspired by the increasing popular trend of decentralized dApps developed across the distributed ledger blockchain everyday. Imagine a scenario where Sally is a consumer and she is buying a Louis Vuitton bag from either a friend, second hand or third parties. However, she is concerned if the bag is a counterfeit or not - our product is able to solve this problem with ease by using a blockchain.
What it does
Our team built an application that allows a manufacturer to associate an ERC-721 collectible token with a luxury item. This essentially authenticates an item on the blockchain and allows customers (the other users of the application) to tell if the item is a counterfeit or not.
How we built it
The front-end of the application is built with React. The back-end is a Solidity contract which was deployed locally with Truffle and Ganache. Web3.Js functions as a middleware between the front and back ends.
Challenges we ran into
Surprisingly, designing the UX/Front-End and implementing the Smart Contracts on the Back-End was the easy part. However, configuring the middleware properly so that the front-end of the application interacts properly with the back-end of the application was the biggest difficulty.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our team is extremely happy that we managed to get all the core features for the proof-of-concept working. This includes: add new item onto the blockchain, verify if a product is authentic or not (based on barcode-qr code), returning any item on the blockchain based on id and track an item's history based on timestamp and geolocation (produces a data visualization of all authentic items).
What we learned
Our team learned how to create an Ethereum dApp with react-web + truffle contract + web3 and understanding/implementing the ERC-721 standard.
What's next for BlockiFI
Initially, our mission was to help consumers exchange expensive brands/items or rare publicly traded items with other consumers without worrying about counterfeiting/duplication. Extending this further, our most aggressive goal is to track any items' history and see where it has been around the world and this can help data scientists predict better solutions to solving many different kinds of problems.
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