Stellar Community Fund

By Beans app

Beans app

SCF #10

$220.0K

Legacy v3.0 Award

Awarded

Beans is a super simple, free payments app with healthy yield on your savings.

Products & Services

Beans is a non-custodial payments and savings app built on Stellar. Most blockchain-based apps have targeted the crypto community. We have taken a different approach and will target the general public. Inside the app, all blockchain-related things have been abstracted away, offering a bank experience using blockchain technology! We are aiming to be the first app to get significant traction on blockchain payments! Next to that, we want to offer regular people a way to access crypto yield by making the process super easy.

The beans app (iOS & Android) offers: Free (international) payments, savings accounts with healthy yields, and an amazing user experience that anyone can understand.

The problem with crypto payments: For a majority of people, the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies is extremely complex and very hard to understand. News media cover stories of heavily fluctuating cryptocurrencies, feeding the uncertainty that people have about cryptocurrencies in general and their underlying blockchain technology. While struggling to learn what it is all about, the uncertainty leads to not adopting a technology that could be very beneficial to a large group of people and potentially change their lives.

Because of this, we want to enable people to start using the great functionalities that these technologies have to offer without having to bother them with complexity. Words like wallet, assets, lumens, and stablecoins do not contribute to a flawless user journey; they only cause uncertainty and scare people away. In fact, why should they even know that they are interacting with blockchain technology, unless they choose to delve into it? People are comfortable using their traditional banking apps without knowing the driving technologies behind them. Why should they bother about it this time?

Our focus has been to build an app that feels like a regular banking app but uses blockchain behind the scenes. To do this, we have chosen to let users pick a preferred currency. This currency will be used to send, request, and receive payments. All payments between users, no matter the currency, will auto-convert. No need to think about currencies or trustlines ever again. Payments are free; we will even sponsor the network fees through feebumps. This is how it works.

Creating an account: When setting up an account, users choose their preferred currency. A spendable balance in this currency is created. In the back-end, they will hold anchored stablecoins on Stellar. By using a fixed currency, we can create a very user-friendly, bank-like experience. We know which user prefers what currency and can use this knowledge in deposits, payments, and payment requests. Users will never have to think about trust lines or choose what asset to send. It will all be seamless. Beans, at the start, will choose one anchor per currency, so that users do not have to deal with this complexity either.

Sending money: When a user initiates a payment, the app will find the preferred currency of the receiver and show the right conversion window. When the user fills in the amount they want to send, in their currency, they will automatically see how much their friend will receive in their preferred currency. When two users have the same preferred currency, no conversion window is shown. In the back-end, a Stellar path payment will be used to convert the funds. Beans uses fee bump and sponsored reserves to offer a bank-like experience without charging fees. This implementation gives users the experience of a general banking app, with the advantage of near-instant, feeless, cross-border transactions. This means that if Ben sends 12 USD to John, John will actually receive 12 USD. No fees, not even network fees are deducted, giving Ben a great user experience. At the same time, Claire can send 15 USD to Mike, who prefers Peso. The app will automatically show that Mike will receive 3,000 Peso.

Requesting money: Users can request a payment via a link, QR code, or other native sharing functionalities of their smartphone. If a user requests money from a user with a different preferred currency, the app will automatically fill in the conversion window so that the paying user can see an estimation of how much the payment will cost them in their preferred currency. All they have to do is accept the conversion and the payment will be done in seconds.

Opening a savings account: Users can set up a savings account in, for example, USD, ARS, and EUR and earn up to 9% yield. More advanced users can also choose to save and earn in cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, or XLM. Conversions in and out of savings accounts will have zero fees, not even network fees. Like we said before, we will sponsor the network fees through feebumps. This way, a user in Argentina can have an ARS account for payments while saving and earning interest in USD. As a result, the user will not only earn interest but also escape inflation. Someone else can choose to pay with USD while saving in XLM, or any other combination. Users can also choose to earn and save in multiple currencies.