MuseMarket

MuseMarket is a decentralized content marketplace built for creators, powered by Filecoin and PayPal’s PYUSD. It allows musicians, writers, educators, and other creators to upload their digital content in encrypted form to Filecoin’s decentralized storage network via Lighthouse. This ensures that content remains secure, tamper-proof, and retrievable only by verified buyers.

To solve one of the biggest pain points in Web3 — poor user experience with repeated wallet popups — MuseMarket introduces a credit-style PYUSD payment system. Instead of confirming every single micro-purchase with MetaMask, buyers can browse and unlock multiple pieces of content seamlessly. Purchases are logged onchain as “credit” transactions, and users can settle their balance later in one smooth PYUSD payment. Similarly, creators can claim their earnings in bulk instead of withdrawing after every sale. This flow mirrors the ease of Web2 checkout while retaining the transparency and security of Web3.

By combining encrypted Filecoin storage for content protection with PYUSD pay-later rails for smooth checkout, MuseMarket creates a real-world, creator-first platform. It’s essentially a decentralized Gumroad where creators own their content, buyers enjoy frictionless payments, and the entire process is transparent and censorship-resistant.

I started building MuseMarket at the beginning of the hackathon, focusing first on getting a clean, mobile-first PWA frontend ready so users could have a polished experience on both web and mobile. The frontend was built with React, TailwindCSS, and Shadcn UI components, and I added smooth animations to make it feel production-ready rather than a quick hack.

Once the UI was in place, I moved to the backend and integrations. For content storage, I used Lighthouse to encrypt and upload files directly to Filecoin’s Calibration Testnet, ensuring every upload returned a CID that was then mapped to the creator and stored in the app’s metadata. This let me implement secure, permissioned access so only verified buyers can retrieve the content.

For payments, I integrated PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin but with a twist: instead of the usual “pay-per-click” model (which would require multiple MetaMask confirmations and ruin UX), I built a credit-style payment system. Buyers can unlock multiple pieces of content seamlessly, and the system logs those purchases onchain as credits. At the end of their session, they settle everything in one bulk PYUSD transaction, and creators can claim all their earnings in a single payout as well. This part was hacky but fun — I had to rethink the normal payment flow to make it Web2-smooth while still keeping everything decentralized.

The project pieces together as:

Frontend: React + TailwindCSS PWA for UI.

Storage: Filecoin via Lighthouse SDK (encrypted uploads + Calibration Testnet deployment).

Payments: PYUSD stablecoin with custom credit aggregation + bulk settlement system.

Smart Contracts: Simple Solidity contracts to manage content registry, credit logs, and claimable balances.

By combining Filecoin storage and PayPal’s PYUSD rails, the project directly benefits from the sponsor technologies: Filecoin secures creator content, and PYUSD makes global, stable payments easy. The hackiest but most impactful part was designing the “credit card-like” PYUSD flow, which solves a real-world Web3 UX problem.