Hi everyone, I’m Pres, a fullstack engineer. This is my first attempt at building a consumer app on Polkadot, so along with the idea itself I am asking for advice on how to do this right.
Why I am building this
Polkadot has very few consumer apps. Most of what gets built here is infrastructure, DeFi, or tooling, and there is little aimed at everyday users who do not care about crypto. I want to try building one small consumer product and see how far it goes.
The product is SlabVault, a mystery pack platform for PSA-graded trading cards, starting with Pokemon.
The problem
The online “pack ripping” market for graded cards runs on trust. A buyer pays for a pack with a chance at a rare card, but has no way to check that the odds are honest or that the operator did not swap out the prize. Disputes over rigged odds are common in collector communities, and graded cards trade in a market worth billions.
In my region, platforms like this already exist, but they run fully off-chain. None of them integrate with a blockchain, so as a buyer I am never sure whether the number of graded slabs in a pool or the stated odds are real. That doubt is exactly what I want to remove.
What SlabVault does
A buyer opens a mystery pack for a chance at a real PSA-graded slab. The difference from existing pack ripping sites is that the odds are locked in before any pack is sold, the draw cannot be steered by anyone (including me), and there is a public page where anyone can check that a result was fair. That trust layer runs on Polkadot Hub.
For payment, I will try on-chain first. If buyers turn out to prefer paying off-chain, I will switch to an off-chain option for the time being, since the target users are Pokemon collectors who mostly do not use crypto. Custody and shipping stay off-chain: local sellers keep their own slabs and handle shipping.
The first launch is one region, Indonesia. The main reason is shipping: a graded slab is a physical item that has to reach the buyer safely, and I can only handle that locally for now. It also helps that the Pokemon TCG scene there is very active, with card events almost every weekend, so there is an existing market to launch into rather than one I have to build. Wider shipping can come later.
To be upfront: a pay-to-open pack with a random prize can read as gambling. I see SlabVault as closer to a blind-box collectible than a bet. Every pack contains a real graded slab, so a buyer always receives a card of value, and the odds are published where anyone can verify them. There is no cash-out and no prize pool that grows over time. I know this topic draws strong opinions, and I would rather hear them here than after a referendum goes up.
What I plan to ask the treasury for
- 10,000 USDT on Asset Hub, which should land on the Small Spender track.
- Build phase (6,000): 1 to 2 months of full-time work by me (solo). The contracts, the web app, and a first real pack drop with a local seller, tested on a Polkadot Hub testnet first, then deployed to mainnet.
- Marketing phase (4,000): after the app is done, 1 to 2 months of introducing the product to local collectors and sellers. I will not do this part alone.
- The full draft proposal is still being written.
Where I could use advice
Since this is my first time going through OpenGov, I would appreciate pointers on:
- Process: is forum post, then referendum on Small Spender the right order?
- Scope: is a single milestone acceptable for a first-time proposer?
- Anything else a first-time proposer usually gets wrong.
Happy to answer any questions about the product or the mechanics. Thanks for reading.
