Good idea, but you're several years too late to the web3 market.
I know you're probably hoping for the non-crypto businesses to use it, but there's little incentive. The hiring company holds the cards when it comes to payments most of the time anyway – when you hire a remote worker, they often deliver 100% of the work before getting paid
Even in higher end contracts it's rare to find a company that is willing to pay a deposit.
We are looking for web3 natives who are using blockchain in their daily work and I think nowadays there are more than ever before. It's going to prove difficult without a strong marketing campaign though
I think your idea has potential, in some alternate universe, or crypto configuration (such as Monero).
From my point of view the problem is that most cryptocurrencies are used as speculation instruments, and there's a significant hoop to pay someone in crypto.
Building on top of Monero would alleviate some of those issues, while targeting an even smaller niche of people.
From a business perspective the landing page does not do any work in reassuring me. Focusing on fees rather than vetted freelancers, testimonials, and without any form of results "assurance", escrow system or dispute resolution why would any company take on the risk of hiring a freelancer this way while also gambling with all the issues crypto brings?
> and there's a significant hoop to pay someone in crypto
Not sure why that would be. Being paid in Bitcoin is very easy. Download a non-custodial Wallet such as Phoenix Wallet or Wallet of Satoshi (new version is non-custodial) and you can receive on-chain bitcoin, or even better, lightning payments right away. You create an invoice as a link or QRcode and send it to your employer, and done.
The payer (employer) most likely will need to convert fiat/cash to bitcoin first, but since the kacet project aims to attract companies in that space, there shouldn't be an issue.
The project idea came from me paying freelance designers for work using Solana and wishing there was something to keep me safe. At the time it seemed like all of the freelance work platforms were using Ethereum which had extortionate fees, so I decided to look into bringing such a platform to Solana.
I like the idea of a crypto-focused platform. I don't see payment in particular a neccessity of the platform though, no need for smart contracts for that case. You should bring together employers and freelancers, and they can sort out payment themselves. Crypto is a heterogenous bubble anyway (just as I, for example, am a Bitcoin-only guy and will reject every other crypto).
Solana is great because fees are so low, the wallet apps are great, there's loads of stable coins and there's a big pool of users.
I don't think using Monero would be a good platform because it does not have smart any contract functionality. The only thing Monero has going for it is hiding transactions, and we don't need that for kacet.
I agree the marketing website isn't great. We are two developers and don't have much marketing experience. Now we have something online we are looking into improving our online presence.
You should try to connect with someone from one of the previous attempts at a decentralized Upwork and understand why it didn’t work out for them. One example is this: https://docs.talentlayer.org/
> Payments are handled by Solana smart contracts, with a React frontend (TanStack Start).
This is disappointing.
Solana has a highly centralized validator set that will keep shrinking over time as the cost to run one out paces the rise in the SOL price.
This leads to our being very centralized.
Solana is also missing core cryptographic primitives like state receipts, meaning I can be easily tricked by a dishonest validator about whether my transaction happened.
Without a mempool, sending transactions is a nightmare during high network usage and my transaction can dissappear forever, or be executed multiple times.
Solana isn't even significantly cheaper than the alternatives anymore.
I know you're probably hoping for the non-crypto businesses to use it, but there's little incentive. The hiring company holds the cards when it comes to payments most of the time anyway – when you hire a remote worker, they often deliver 100% of the work before getting paid
Even in higher end contracts it's rare to find a company that is willing to pay a deposit.
Not ideal, but I guess internationally it's less of an issue :)
From my point of view the problem is that most cryptocurrencies are used as speculation instruments, and there's a significant hoop to pay someone in crypto.
Building on top of Monero would alleviate some of those issues, while targeting an even smaller niche of people.
From a business perspective the landing page does not do any work in reassuring me. Focusing on fees rather than vetted freelancers, testimonials, and without any form of results "assurance", escrow system or dispute resolution why would any company take on the risk of hiring a freelancer this way while also gambling with all the issues crypto brings?
Not sure why that would be. Being paid in Bitcoin is very easy. Download a non-custodial Wallet such as Phoenix Wallet or Wallet of Satoshi (new version is non-custodial) and you can receive on-chain bitcoin, or even better, lightning payments right away. You create an invoice as a link or QRcode and send it to your employer, and done.
The payer (employer) most likely will need to convert fiat/cash to bitcoin first, but since the kacet project aims to attract companies in that space, there shouldn't be an issue.
The project idea came from me paying freelance designers for work using Solana and wishing there was something to keep me safe. At the time it seemed like all of the freelance work platforms were using Ethereum which had extortionate fees, so I decided to look into bringing such a platform to Solana.
There is talks of Monero-like privacy on Solana so that will come in useful later
I don't think using Monero would be a good platform because it does not have smart any contract functionality. The only thing Monero has going for it is hiding transactions, and we don't need that for kacet.
I agree the marketing website isn't great. We are two developers and don't have much marketing experience. Now we have something online we are looking into improving our online presence.
It’s always nice trying to build stuff but I really hope this is just a hobby project for you..
This is disappointing.
Solana has a highly centralized validator set that will keep shrinking over time as the cost to run one out paces the rise in the SOL price.
This leads to our being very centralized.
Solana is also missing core cryptographic primitives like state receipts, meaning I can be easily tricked by a dishonest validator about whether my transaction happened.
Without a mempool, sending transactions is a nightmare during high network usage and my transaction can dissappear forever, or be executed multiple times.
Solana isn't even significantly cheaper than the alternatives anymore.