The problem SmartChit solves

Traditional chit funds in India are often prone to fraud, lack of transparency, and mismanagement, leading to significant financial losses. Our platform solves these issues by using blockchain technology to ensure:

Transparency: All transactions are recorded on the blockchain for easy tracking and verification.
Security: Decentralized structure reduces the risk of fraud and mismanagement.
Efficiency: Eliminates intermediaries, making the process faster and cost-effective.
Accessibility: Users can easily participate in chit funds without relying on intermediaries.
This platform provides a secure, transparent, and efficient way for individuals to manage and participate in chit funds, enhancing trust and reducing risks in the process.

Challenges we ran into

Integrating Blockchain with Frontend: One of the biggest challenges was integrating the blockchain with the React frontend. Specifically, ensuring seamless interaction between smart contracts on the blockchain (using Solidity) and the frontend (using React and ThirdWeb). Initial communication between the frontend and the blockchain was unreliable, causing delays in retrieving data and executing transactions.

Solution: We resolved this by implementing useContractRead and useContractWrite hooks from ThirdWeb, which allowed us to interact more efficiently with the smart contracts. Additionally, we improved error handling and implemented loading states to enhance the user experience during blockchain interactions.

Handling Gas Fees: Managing gas fees for transactions was tricky, especially when the platform needed to be user-friendly for participants unfamiliar with blockchain concepts. Calculating the most efficient way to handle gas fees without burdening users became crucial.

Solution: We included a feature to estimate gas fees before executing transactions, which gave users a clearer understanding of costs. We also made sure to abstract these details in the UI to keep the process simple.

Smart Contract Security: Ensuring that the smart contracts were secure and resistant to attacks such as reentrancy was another hurdle. Testing smart contracts thoroughly for potential vulnerabilities was time-consuming.

Solution: We used tools like Hardhat for testing and OpenZeppelin contracts for secure implementation. We also conducted multiple rounds of testing with mock data before deploying the contracts on the live network.

Ensuring Cross-Browser Compatibility: Some UI components were not rendering as expected on different browsers, which affected the user experience.

Solution: We used Tailwind CSS for responsive design and ran extensive cross-browser testing to identify and fix any issues.