OpenRelief

Open Relief is a revolutionary disaster relief protocol that transforms how humanitarian aid is distributed globally, solving the twin crises of fraud and accessibility in emergency assistance.

The Problem: Disaster relief is fundamentally broken. $13.6 billion in aid is lost to fraud annually while 70% of legitimate victims can't access help due to slow, bureaucratic verification processes.

Traditional systems rely on paper forms, take weeks to verify victims, and have no way to prevent fraudsters from claiming aid multiple times across different organizations. Meanwhile, cross-border donations are limited by banking infrastructure, and victims often lack the financial tools to receive digital aid.

The Solution: Open Relief creates the world's first fraud-proof, gasless disaster relief ecosystem that connects global donors with verified victims in real-time:

• Fraud Prevention: Advanced cryptographic identity verification ensures only legitimate victims receive aid, while preventing duplicate claims across all relief organizations. Our system verifies age, nationality, and sanctions status to create tamper-proof victim credentials.
• Instant Global Donations: Donors can contribute from any blockchain network, with funds automatically routed and converted to USDC for immediate distribution. No more waiting for international wire transfers or currency conversions.
• Gasless Experience: Victims receive aid without needing crypto knowledge, wallet setup, or transaction fees. Our embedded wallet system handles all technical complexity behind the scenes.
• Cross-Border Distribution: Pool managers can create verified relief funds for any disaster, automatically distributing aid to verified victims based on geographic location and need assessment.
• Full Transparency: Every donation, verification, and distribution is recorded on-chain, providing donors with real-time tracking of their impact and ensuring accountability.
• Real-World Impact: When a disaster strikes, pool managers immediately create relief funds. Victims complete one-time identity verification through their mobile device. Donors worldwide contribute instantly from any blockchain. Verified victims receive immediate, gasless USDC aid directly to their digital wallet—all while preventing fraud through cryptographic proofs.

This project leverages three key partner technologies to create a seamless disaster relief experience:

Self.xyz Integration (Celo Network):

• Deployed IdentityVerifier contract (0x94B75FD0Ca61d43777FF1471fBe66e1eb362Fbb8) inheriting from SelfVerificationRoot
• Frontend QR code verification using Self.xyz SDK with nationality, age, and OFAC screening
• Prevents duplicate aid claims through cryptographic nullifier tracking
• Custom verification hook implementation for disaster relief context

Circle CCTP v2 Integration (Multi-Chain):

• Base Sepolia as primary network for ReliefPools contract (0xa25348385CFB7d8C434B5dd27b744750bF895155)
• CCTP v2 hooks enable automated cross-chain donation processing with embedded pool metadata
• Custom BurnMessageV2 library for parsing Circle's attestation messages
• Circle Gas Station integration for gasless recipient transactions
• Supports 6 testnets with automatic USDC bridging and minting

Privy Integration (Consumer Experience):

• Embedded wallet creation with social login (Google, Twitter, Discord, Email)
• Session signers for gasless transactions and remote message signing
• Server-side authentication with token verification for API protection
• Seamless onboarding with createOnLogin: "users-without-wallets", we generate a wallet address for users who are not native to crypto

Technical Architecture:

• Next.js 14 frontend with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS
• Hardhat deployment with OpenZeppelin security patterns
• The Graph Protocol subgraph for real-time blockchain indexing
• Custom CCTP service handling multi-chain attestation and minting
• EIP-712 signature verification for cross-chain identity proofs

Notable Technical Achievements:

Location based donations

• We pass in location browser geodata into our smart contracts so the user location is propagated downstream to the graphql events, which is then displayed on the browser
• This enables us to create paths on our globe that visually show the donation on earth!

Cross-chain identity verification from Celo to Base

• Self Protocol is only deployed on Celo, meanwhile CCTP V2 and our infrastructure is deployed on Base
• To solve this fragmentation we listen to events on Celo in our backend, and emit transactions on base such as claimRelief if and only if we verify the results from Celo are valid, i.e. the nationality on the safe protocol matches what our base contract expects

Hook-based automated USDC processing without manual attestation

• Our backend admin verifies CCTP V2 transactions specific to our project only, and automatically processes custom hooks to validate and deposit funds to the specified relief fund
• All chains resolve on base to give a cohesive experience while maintaining multi-chain operability from a doner's perspective

Gasless experience relief fund claiming

• The claimRelief transaction is sent by our backend automatically once the user verifies themselves as being a resident of the country where the relief funds are pooled through Self Protocol

Real-time fraud prevention through shared nullifier tracking

• We leverage Self unique identifiers and custom data injection to prevent replay attacks and double dipping in our contracts

One-time identity verification for lifetime aid eligibility

• The Safe Protocol leverages a single passport per user, so whenever there is a relief fund created in their region they are eligible for claiming those funds until their identification document expires

Two solidity versions in hardhat environment

• Due to Self using Solidity v0.8.x, and CCTP v2 using v0.7.x, we had to develop a boilerplate which accommodated both versions (istanbul and paris)
• This allowed us to use both protocols and deploy efficiently

All in all OpenRelief showcases how modern Web3 infrastructure can solve real-world humanitarian problems through cryptographic identity verification, cross-chain payments, and consumer-friendly user experiences.