The Problem We Were Actually Solving
Our users weren't just any users. They were digital creatives – artists, writers, musicians, and designers – who desperately needed to monetize their work. By building a crypto-payment gateway that bypassed traditional payment processors, we aimed to create an inclusive platform where creators from all over the world could sell their talents without geographical restrictions. It was a matter of economic equity.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
Initially, we attempted to use the popular crypto-payment library, CoinPayments, to integrate crypto payments into our platform. However, this approach failed miserably. The CoinPayments API proved unresponsive, with an average latency of 2.5 seconds, which was far beyond our acceptable threshold of 500 milliseconds. Moreover, the API's cost per transaction was exorbitant, with a query cost of $0.05. Our target was to keep the query cost below $0.005. This was unacceptable.
The Architecture Decision
