Alice Fans
Fullstack Engineer — solo client build
2024 · ~2 months
Web3 marketplace for digital collectibles
A Web3 marketplace where people store, showcase, and purchase exclusive digital collections, with a smooth, secure trading experience on blockchain rails. Built solo, end to end, from an empty repo for a client in about two months. Live at alicefans.com.
The project
Alice Fans (which grew out of the Sekuya digital-assets project) is a marketplace where users store, showcase, and purchase exclusive digital collections, powered by blockchain underneath. I built it for a client — solo, from an empty repository, in about two months.
It's a full-stack product: a Next.js frontend styled with Material UI and Tailwind, an Express.js API backed by PostgreSQL and Prisma, and a Web3 layer using Alchemy and Ethers to handle on-chain transactions. Users can browse and buy digital collections through a familiar, Web2-style flow, with the blockchain machinery kept out of the way.
The frontend was the centerpiece of the brief — a clean, modern consumer marketplace that makes a crypto product approachable to people who don't think of themselves as crypto users. This case study is a lighter, focused engagement than my longer roles; I'm featuring it for the frontend craft.
What I shipped
- Built the entire product solo — Next.js frontend and Express.js / PostgreSQL / Prisma backend — from scratch to a live client product in about two months.
- Designed and implemented the marketplace experience: browsing, showcasing, and purchasing digital collections through a clean, modern UI.
- Integrated the Web3 layer with Alchemy and Ethers for on-chain transactions, kept behind a familiar checkout so non-crypto users could buy without friction.
- Crafted the frontend with Next.js, Material UI, and Tailwind — the visual heart of the product — wired to the API and data model I designed.
- Owned the full stack end to end as the sole engineer: UI, API, database schema (Prisma / PostgreSQL), and blockchain integration.
Challenges worth talking about
Consumer-grade polish, solo, on a two-month clock
As the only engineer with a tight deadline and no design team behind me, I leaned on Next.js with Material UI and Tailwind and a component-driven approach to ship a cohesive, polished marketplace UI — the part of the brief the client cared about most — without the surface feeling rushed.
Making blockchain approachable
End users shouldn't have to think about chains, wallets, and gas to buy something. I wrapped the Alchemy/Ethers transaction path behind a familiar browse-and-buy flow, so the Web3 rails stay invisible and the product feels like an ordinary online store.
One engineer owning the whole stack
Frontend, Express API, PostgreSQL/Prisma schema, and on-chain integration all had to fit together and stay maintainable under one person. I kept the data model and API boundaries deliberately simple so a solo build could ship on time and still be easy to reason about.
Stack
Frontend
- Next.js
- React
- Material UI
- Tailwind CSS
Backend & data
- Express.js
- PostgreSQL
- Prisma
Web3
- Alchemy
- Ethers
- On-chain transactions
Outcomes
- Delivered a live, client-facing Web3 marketplace — built solo, from scratch, in about two months.
- Shipped a polished, consumer-grade frontend (Next.js, Material UI, Tailwind) that makes a blockchain product feel like an ordinary online store.
- Handled on-chain transactions (Alchemy, Ethers) behind a familiar purchase flow, backed by an Express / PostgreSQL / Prisma API I designed and built.