Decentralized Futures: KwickBit - Non-Custodial Payment Gateway for ECommercers

Hi everyone,

My name is Charles-Edouard LADARI, and I have a background in Maths, Machine Learning, and Computer Science. I recently graduated with distinction from the Polkadot Blockchain Academy cohort in Singapore. I am an alumnus of École Centrale Paris, having also completed a research internship at ETH Zurich. With 8 years of experience in software development, including dev, DevOps, and data engineering, I am excited about the potential of Polkadot’s technology to address modern challenges.

Tagline:
Non-custodial crypto stripe-like payment gateway for E-Commerce.

Brief description:

KwickBit wants to enable e-commerce businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments seamlessly. Our non-custodial gateway will integrate easily with WooCommerce, allowing customers to choose KwickBit at checkout for a straightforward payment experience. Unlike custodial solutions, KwickBit will let businesses retain control over their funds, aligning with the core principles of cryptocurrency. By simplifying crypto transactions, KwickBit bridges the gap between digital currencies and e-commerce.



How does the project relate to Polkadot:

KwickBit leverages the advanced capabilities of the Polkadot/Substrate network to enable seamless crypto payments on e-commerce websites. We chose Polkadot/Substrate for its comprehensive infrastructure, meeting our need for a secure and reliable platform. By facilitating payments in USDT/USDC, we offer an efficient solution for businesses and customers. Our project not only addresses real-world needs but also showcases Polkadot’s strengths, helping to bring new users to the network and market it as a powerful blockchain solution.

Plans:

Our immediate goal is to implement a smart contract to manage on-chain logic and launch our product quickly. While we aim to evolve into a parachain for enhanced resilience and features, we believe a step-by-step approach is more practical.

As we grow later and evolve to a parachain model - if by then it makes sense as we envision it - we envision offering subscription models akin to those with credit cards, and integrating with state identity providers in Europe, such as Smart ID in the Baltics or Impots.gouv in France, to facilitate seamless on-chain identity verification.

Why are we carrying this project:

  1. Banking Exclusions: Many people are unjustly denied bank accounts simply because banks don’t like their activities, even when these activities are legal. This exclusion leaves people without essential financial services.
  2. Distrust of Third-Party Entities: There’s a growing reluctance to trust third-party entities with funds due to numerous cases of accounts being frozen without valid reasons. People want more control over their own money.
  3. Preventing Financial Censorship: Blocking access to banking is a common way to censor individuals. We believe in democracy and that only justice—not companies—should decide when someone is punished. Our non-custodial solution ensures users maintain control over their funds.
  4. Making Crypto More Practical: We agree with Gavin Wood that much of current crypto use is speculative. We aim to make crypto more useful for everyday transactions, bringing it into real-world applications.
  5. Growing Potential of Crypto Payments: While online crypto payments are currently significant ($11 billion), they are still tiny compared to total online payments ($6 trillion). We believe we are at the start of a major shift towards crypto payments, similar to the early days of online shopping, and we want to help drive this change.

Team:

Partially grant supported:

Not grant supported:

3 Likes

Here I provide more details at the request of some people
(Thank you to them, they who will recognize themselves :slight_smile: )

Why KwickBit Relates to Polkadot

  • Customization for Commercial Applications : We chose the Polkadot/Substrate framework because it enables us to customize blockchain applications, specifically for commercial online applications.
  • Examples of Applications : Our use cases include online payments, invoicing notifications, and subscription services for recurring payments (e.g., SaaS subscriptions in USDT/USDC).
  • MVP Focus : Initially, we are focusing on developing a minimum viable product (MVP) with smart contracts and indexers. We plan later to utilize existing parachains or infrastructure like Kreivo and integrate custom pallets for our needs, such as connecting with state identity providers like Smart ID.
  • Enjoyable Features of the Polkadot Ecosystem: One particularly enjoyable feature of the Polkadot ecosystem is that USDT/USDC on AssetHub can be paid/transferred by paying fees in USDT/USDC instead of DOT. Another great feature is the low slippage fees compared to other chains.

Benefits for the Polkadot Community:

  • Crafting Blockchain Solutions : Polkadot was built to create blockchain applications that solve specific problems, and KwickBit is a prime example of this.
  • Showcasing Real-World Utility : By making a product usable by e-commerce businesses, we can have another showcase of Polkadot as a practical blockchain real world solution, distinguishing it from more speculative-oriented blockchains.
1 Like

We need easy to use and integrate payments solutions and e-commerce is a huge industry! Virto will be happy to welcome and assist KwickBit to deploy their product on Kreivo where they can make use of an existing payments infrastructure and smart contracts with the relay-chain native token.

2 Likes

happy to collaborate

Lovely post and much needed in the ecosystem.

few questions

  1. how will subscriptions work since you cannot directly take usdt/usdc from somebody’s account like you would charge a credit card

  2. in terms of censorship resistance, if the mode of exchange is usdt/usdc, its still censorable since tether or circle can just freeze your assets. are there plans to be an intermeditary such that i can set up a payment in a way that i recieve BTC instead of usdt/usdc?

2 Likes

Hi Ryan,

These are great questions !

  • 1. Subscriptions: We’ve considered the importance of subscriptions, even though they were initially not part of our MVP to expedite the release. However, we’ve realized that integrating subscriptions might be more feasible than anticipated. For example, the Kabocha network on Kusama has implemented a similar solution, which we could leverage. Our current plan involves (not for MVP production) - making an “exploration”/poc pallet to allow users to grant permission to another account to withdraw a specified amount of USDT/USDC every X blocks. This functionality could be tested on Kusama and later on a Polkadot testnetwork to ensure reliability and security.
  • 2. Censorship Resistance: We recognize the concerns around USDT/USDC being susceptible to censorship by issuers like Tether or Circle. While our initial focus is on mitigating broader censorship issues, such as banking restrictions, we are also exploring ways to enable merchants to receive payments in less censorable cryptocurrencies like BTC. It’s worth noting that bank censorship is more common than many realize, with banks sometimes shutting down accounts or refusing to open new ones without even justifying their decisions. To address these issues, we are considering integrating bridges that facilitate the conversion of USDT/USDC to BTC, providing greater flexibility and censorship resistance for eCommerce transactions.