Base has a bold and inspiring mission- to bring the next billion users into the world of blockchain! What’s even more exciting is that Base is powered by a superchain, and has unique features that are carefully developed with the end user in mind. As the Mellow Finance Team, we are building on Base to ensure that every user enjoys benefits such as gasless transactions and smart contract wallets. Participating in Based Africa serves equally as an inspiration and a challenge to us; to build user-centric, innovative decentralized Apps that solve real world challenges.
We are using Base to create a user-friendly platform that helps young Africans access loans using cryptocurrency as collateral. This will empower them financially and open up new opportunities, such as starting a business, operating existing enterprises, saving consistently and investing for their future.
The Base Buildathon also presents an opportunity to collaborate with other skilled developers in Africa. Our experience at the Base workshops and throughout the buildathon has been rewarding, with the mentors providing incredible technical support. This has inspired us to innovate and push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

Problem statement;
A large proportion of Gen Zs and millennials lack traditional assets like homes and cars, preventing them from accessing the conventional credit system that requires these assets as collateral. According to a survey that was conducted in Vietnam, 65% of homeowners were Baby Boomers, 40% were millennials and a meager 28% were Gen Zs. This lack of access to credit can consequently hinder the ability of younger generations to achieve financial goals, such as starting a business, buying a home, or pursuing higher education.

In contrast, Gen Z and millennials are the leading generations in the ownership of cryptocurrency. A study conducted in the United States of America found that 75% of individuals who owned crypto were within the age bracket of 18-34 years, compared to 35% who were between ages 35-54.
The growing adoption of cryptocurrencies among younger generations presents a unique opportunity to create a more inclusive credit system. By leveraging crypto assets as collateral, Mellow Finance can provide credit access to individuals who might otherwise be excluded from traditional financial services.
This is how it works:

Step 1: A User visits the Mellow Finance platform and logs in, providing necessary information.
Step 2: Deposit Collateral
The User connects their cryptocurrency wallet to the Mellow platform and deposits the required collateral (e.g., Ethereum).
The smart contract verifies the deposit and mints the equivalent amount of local stablecoin (USDC).
Step 3: Borrow Stablecoin
The user generates real value from the minted stablecoin. For example, making a deposit for a house or purchasing stock for their business
Step 4: Repay the Loan
User repays the borrowed stablecoin amount plus interest to the Mellow smart contract.
The smart contract verifies the repayment and releases the original collateral back to the user's wallet.

Challenges I ran into? (specific hurdles- technical and non technical, and how you overcame them)
We experienced some technical difficulties while building the platform. However, we are grateful to the organizers of the Based hackathons, as well as our mentors for their consistent support throughout the development process
Firstly, connecting base names to user wallets proved to be quite difficult. For this, we consulted Damilare, one of the team members at Based Africa, who mentioned that as long as we have a functioning smart wallet, then integrating Base names to our solution was not a prerequisite.
Additionally, we did not have any Base Sepolia testnet tokens for our loan dashboard’s liquidity pool. However, we reached out to Dami and he sent us 1000 USDC testnet tokens as well as Base Sepolia ETH as the need arose.
As mentioned before, our goal was to issue loans in the form of local stablecoins, because this provides protection to the user in case of dollar slippage. We had originally deliberated on providing credit in local stablecoins that were native to two African countries, but this was not possible as they are not yet listed on Base. Our ultimate recourse was to redeem customers in USDC, one of the most popular and widely used stablecoins that offers a hedge against price volatility .
Lastly, Our on-campus schedule made it difficult to meet with the Base team during their designated office hours. We were able to resolve the scheduling conflict by requesting a meeting with a Base mentor outside of their regular office hours