Stellar Community Fund

By Upesa (formerly utoken)

Utoken [Phase 2]

SCF #35

$31.6K

Build

Awarded

Self-custody digital wallet that leverage local stablecoin to foster secure, low-cost, instant payment for individuals and businesses.

Products & Services

Utoken is a self-custody digital wallet powered by local stablecoins on Stellar, like USDC and EURC, integrated with traditional payment rails like mobile money and bank transfers to offer seamless payment for individuals and businesses.

Through SCF, we will be supporting:

Direct payment with USDC & EURC into local banks in EU countries and the USA
Escrow payment for freelancers and businesses offering digital services
Support for more local stablecoins e.g eKsh in Kenya
EURC & USDC deposits from other blockchains

Soroban

Yes

Requested Budget

$31.6K

Success Criteria

The total number of users onboarded and the equivalent number of wallets created. We are targeting 50k to 100k+ users before the end of the year 2025.
Volume of transactions processed daily, weekly, and monthly. We are targeting over $1M in transaction volume monthly by Q4 2025.

Go-To-Market Plan

Referral program: We will start with the referral program, which has been built into the app to allow people to earn by onboarding new users on the platform. This feature is important to explore the P2P transfer available on the app. This is our first line of action on distribution.

Influencer Marketing: The influencer marketing approach will leverage the referral program in place to onboard more users by working with content creators and influencers on platforms like Instagram to onboard users through referral and live streams to showcase the functionalities available on the app.

Talent Accelerators: Our collaboration with talent accelerators like the 3MTT program in Nigeria and AyaHQ will expose us to thousands of technical talents who are currently upskilling to offer digital services across the globe. Our goal is to support these developers at the early stage to create the connection to use the platform as part of the requirement to get technical support like data subscriptions, etc.

In-app reward: This will be targeted at the users to foster continuous use of the app for peer-to-peer payment, payment into local banks, card payment, and use of the marketplace.

Traction Evidence

Participated in Stellar Startup Camp 2024
We have built an MVP (a mobile app) that supports secure bill payment, direct payment with USDC and EURC (iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/utoken-app/id6480348587, Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=network.utoken.app&hl=en)
We have implemented direct payment into traditional banks in Nigeria
We have implemented top-ups and withdrawals with our crypto-funded debit card and bank transfers (currently available in Nigeria)

Tranche 1 (Deliverable Roadmap) - MVP

Our MVP deliverables will focus on the integration of stablecoin to fiat currency features and handling stablecoin deposits or withdrawals from other blockchains.

Deliverable 1: Enabling crypto to local bank transfer

Description: We will be integrating with existing traditional switching providers to provide seamless settlement of transactions between local stablecoins and traditional payment rails in Europe and the USA
Measuring completion: Users will be able to top up, withdraw, and make payments with local bank transfers on the mobile app on Android and iOS.
ToC: The application will be available 3 weeks from first funding
Budget: $10,000

Deliverable 2: Integration with Circle CCTP

Description: We will be developing a cross-chain deposit feature that will allow a user with a supported stablecoin like USDC on a different blockchain to access the functionalities we provide on Stellar.
Measuring completion: Users will be able to deposit USDC and EURC from chains like Arbitrum, Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, OP Mainnet, Polygon PoS, and Solana.
ToC: The feature will be available 2 weeks after deliverable 1
Budget: $4,800

Tranche 2 (Deliverable Roadmap) - Testnet

Deliverable 3: Developing mini-service marketplace and integrating escrow

Description: We will be working with the Trustlesswork (https://www.trustlesswork.com/) escrow platform and developing our mini-service marketplace so users can access secure payment with escrow on the embedded service marketplace.
Measuring completion: The escrow functionality will be available to users on our app for testing in Apple Testflight and Android Store
ToC: The functionality will be available 3 weeks after deliverable 2
Budget: $7,200

Tranche 3 (Deliverable Roadmap) - Mainnet

Following Trustlesswork's launch in May we will switch to mainnet and completion of previous deliverables

Deliverable 4: Final integration and beta testing

Description: We will be testing all the functionalities developed by working with a small number of users to test the app and give their feedback
Measuring completion: The mobile app with top-up and withdrawal with local bank transfers in the USA and EU, service link sharing, contract management, service listing, etc., will be available publicly for download on Google and Apple app stores
ToC: The fully functional app will be available in production mode 4 weeks after deliverable 3

Budget: $9,600

Team

Boyejo Oluwafemi (founder and product manager):

Boyejo is a trained mechanical engineer turned product manager with a strong passion for the real-world application of blockchain technology. He was a freelance engineer for over 4 years before co-founding the Wasset Protocol, former CTO of Novus X LLC, and has led several projects, including Inclusive Blockchain for Africa (https://dfmlab-1661264159599.hashnode.dev/all-you-need-to-know-about-inclusive-blockchain-for-africa-ib4a).

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hardwareguy/

Ray King (Frontend and mobile application developer)

King is a talented front-end and mobile application developer. He is a highly skilled full-stack developer adept in JavaScript, Ruby, Solidity, TypeScript, and Node.js. He has worked on several blockchain projects, including Wasset and Beam. He is also an instructor at the Blockchain Innovation Hub.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/king-ray/

Owolabi Bassit (Backend developer)

Backend engineer at Wasset with over three years of experience. His experience spans building server-side applications with Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and PostgreSQL.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bassitowolabi/