Asic Jungle
Our client stands at the forefront the dynamic Bitcoin mining sector, redefining hardware procurement via brokerage services. From its inception, our client's company has empowered miners, adapting to industry shifts, and driving transformative growth. With unwavering commitment to innovation, our client shapes the future of Bitcoin mining, catalyzing industry evolution and shaping financial infrastructure.
Project Overview
We crafted a digital marketplace reminiscent of Amazon's functionality, tailored exclusively to the cryptocurrency mining hardware industry's unique requirements. This bespoke solution connected buyers and sellers, eliminating the need for costly brokerage services.
The marketplace empowers buyers to explore and search through a worldwide array of seller posts, and provides functionality to foster a transparent, smooth and safe environment for negotiation, deals and transactions.
Key Features
Undertaking this project was a significant achievement, and its successful outcome is a source of pride for us. See some of its key features below
The Buyer Experience
- Provided buyers with an intuitive browsing experience, granting access to a global array of seller posts and offerings functionality such as search capabilities and favorites managements.
- Introduced negotiation capabilities through a real-time chat feature, enhancing transparency and communication.
- Implemented a profile review system to improve the buyer protection experience, establishing a transparent and trustworthy buyer/seller environment.
The Seller Experience
- Implemented an approval-only registration system for sellers. This allows the company to vet the sellers on the platform through a KYC process.
- Offered sellers a dedicated platform to showcase their products, tailored to the cryptocurrency mining hardware sector.
- Implemented sales enhancing features such as allowing sellers to extend personalized, unlisted offers to select buyers.
- Empowered sellers to provide manual shipment updates and shipping tracking links, fostering transparency and communication with their buyers.
- Implemented In-App notifications ensuring users stay informed about crucial events in real-time.
Advanced Payments
- Automated Purchase order and Invoices generation.
- Card payments: Added support for payments with credit cards in fiat Currencies through the integration of the Stripe API introducing convenience and ease for buyers.
- Cryptocurrency-based Payments: We provisionned an instance of BTC Pay Server and integrated its API with our client's system. This allowed buyers to conveniently employ cryptocurrencies for their transactions.
- Wire Transfers: We meticulously crafted a process manager synchronized between the administration panel and the user-facing system, to allow users to initiate Wire Transfers offline, adding a versatile dimension to the payment process.
Shipping & Logistics
- Automated shipping cost calculations, optimizing resource allocation for the client's company.
- Implemented strategic rules to identify logistical opportunities aligned with the client's business goals.
- Enriched the buyer experience with shipment tracking features, enhancing transparency and post-purchase confidence.
- Enabled buyers to effortlessly initiate disputes when needed, ensuring a fair and reliable marketplace.
Support & Operations Agents
- Provided support and operations agents with a robust administration panel, centralizing daily management tasks.
- Equipped agents to manage and vet accounts, verify marketplace listings, and provide shipping quotes.
- Empowered agents to oversee the entire transaction process, ensuring compliance with business-specific rules.
- Established a comprehensive system for handling disputes, ensuring fair resolutions when needed.
A Quest for Transparency
Dissatisfied with the lack of transparancy regarding prices in the cryptomining hardware sector, the client wanted to develop an online Marketplace bringing together buyers and sellers of cryptomining hardware, providing an all around solution to the buying and selling process.
Since there was no established/well-known company in that niche at the time, they wanted to position themselves as pioneers and become the reference for selling and buying cryptomining hardware online. To this aim, they reached out to us, with a desire to have a Digital Marketplace specifically tailored to this niche, and customized to their business model and processes.
This initial implementation of the marketplace was to be considered an MVP, serving as a proof of concept for the company.
They also sought the development of an administration panel, which would facilitate customer management and support on the platform. This backoffice was designed for customer account approval, customer support, shipping process management, payment verifications and content authorization and auditing.
Finally, their objective was to deploy these two platforms online, utilizing a new infrastructure.
A New Endeavor
Faced with uncharted digital terrain, our client embarked on a journey fueled by determination yet marked by limited familiarity.
While their tech team showed promise, the scale and scope of the project surpassed their capacity. Embracing their ambition, we collaborated closely, unraveling their aspirations, molding essential features, and aligning user expectations. Morébec stood as their reliable guide and technical partner, leading them toward triumph in these uncharted digital territories.
To align their vision with practicality, we initiated an Event Storming activity, bridging the gap between conceptual ideas, business objectives, and technical solutions. Through a series of Event Modeling sessions, we pinpointed the feature set, established a timeline, and defined an associated budget. This requirements analysis workshop empowered them to sculpt the platform's future without delving into technical intricacies. At every turn, Morebec guided them, ensuring their journey remained on course and true to its purpose.
With the requirements solidified and a comprehensive project plan in place, we were ready to develop their new system.
A Fullfledged Solution
In order to respond effectively to the needs of the client it was imperative to create a fast and reliable web experience that would inspire trust among its customers.
The mission of the system wasn't just to be an online marketplace; but to become THE indispensable tool for conducting successful and transparent purchases and sales of cryptomining hardware.
Therefore, it required great care in making sure the system fit the bill for the client's customers.
Throughout the project, we artfully balanced the pursuit of innovation with the creation of a successful Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Our meticulously prepared project plan ensured alignment between pioneering market presence and a refined end product.
The project, was actually divided into three main components:
- Pre-launch Site: This represented the preliminary website that we developed and launched before the full marketplace was ready for user engagement.
- The Marketplace: The core of the project encompassed the primary system, complete with all its user-facing functionalities, catering to the interaction between buyers and sellers.
- The Adminsitartion Panel: also known as a backoffice, was the vital supporting system who's mission was to enable support and operation agents at the client company to manage the and administer the marketplace, ensuring efficient operations behind the scenes.
Pre-Launch Site
The initial phase, the Pre-Launch Site, presented a significant challenge as our client embarked on their journey to envision digital products and understand their intricacies. With the boundless possibilities that digital platforms offer, making choices became paramount. However, this proved to be a double-edged sword, as the desire to explore every avenue caused shifts in their vision and impacted the timeline of this phase.
Our role was pivotal in guiding them through decision-making and providing a foundation for their digital initiation. Morébec helped them navigate through these uncharted territory, to ensure they wouldn't get lost along the way and that they could keep their eyes focused on the project plan we had prepared together.
This proved to be an invaluable lesson for their team, setting the stage for tackling the more complex Marketplace component.
From a technological point of view, the Pre-Launch Site was brought to life using the Grav CMS, which we chose due to its flexibility and the client's familiarity with its user-friendly content management capabilities. They also recognized the potential of the tool for future utilization, such as creating a blog and a news platform using the same setup.
In short, throughout this phase, their team gained insights into project management intricacies, understanding how each decision influenced the budget, scope, and timeline. This learning process was instrumental in preparing them for the more intricate challenges that lay ahead with the Marketplace.
The Marketplace
With the lessons learned during the Pre-Launch Site phase, the team embarked on the development of the Marketplace component. Armed with newfound knowledge of digital product design and software development, they navigated this phase with more conviction. The experience garnered from the previous stage helped them maintain course, making decisions with greater precision and clarity, all of that reinforced by the requirements analysis workshops we had done earlier.
On the technological side, Morebec implemented the Marketplace using PHP and the Symfony framework, capitalizing on the familiarity of the client team's knowledge in these technologies, would they need to extend the system in the future independently. We chose to use Vue.js for the frontend to facilitate real-time features like in-app notifications and chat, enhancing the user experience. Despite being a new technology for the client's team, they quickly adapted and approved our decision.
The database selection was also a strategic move, we chose to use MongoDB's schema-less structure aligning perfectly with their evolving requirements. This flexible approach ensured that their platform could readily adapt to changing needs of the client, without the constraints of a rigid schema. For the more technical readers, the lack of ACID properties (at the time) of MongoDB was offset by clearly defining the consistency boundaries of each domain concept and to restrict state changes to a single document at a time.
The Administration Panel
At the project's outset, the client inadvertently overlooked the value of the administration panel, not recognizing its pivotal role in ensuring a comprehensive, safe and secure system. A crucial intervention was required to underscore the significance of a robust backoffice to address potential challenges of operating any public-facing system. By engaging the client in discussions surrounding security, prevention of spam, scams, and user abuse, we highlighted the importance of a secure foundation.
Collaborating closely with their CTO we reinstated the administration panel as an integral aspect of the project's success.
On a technical note, this subsystem was developed as a module of the main system to complement the Marketplace, and to leverage the already existing code simplifying maintenance, keeping the budget in line.
Final Launch and Ongoing Collaboration
For the final launch, we embarked on a deployment strategy that utilized containerization to enhance replicability, security, and isolation. With the client's CTO as a key collaborator, we engaged in a comprehensive discussion about the benefits of containerization and automated deployments using technologies like Ansible.
This collaborative learning journey empowered the client to grasp the underlying value and potential of such approaches. Our ongoing teaching, guidance, and advisory role empowered them to absorb crucial aspects of digital product development – from requirements analysis to architecture, and from implementation to deployment and operations.
This holistic approach not only ensured a robust, extensible system but also equipped the client with newfound skills to confidently extend and deploy changes, even without the same level of expertise present at Morebec.
Today, the journey continues, as we provide ongoing support and guidance, ensuring their platform and company continued success and evolution.