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Daniel Ioni
Daniel Ioni

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📱 MyZubster Mobile: NFC Payments and the Road to a Fully Decentralized App

📱 MyZubster Mobile: NFC Payments and the Road to a Fully Decentralized App

A personal journey: from hiring a company to building everything myself – and why I'm sharing it all open‑source.
đź§­ Where This Story Begins

I've always believed in the power of decentralization – not just for money, but for building things. MyZubster started as an idea: a marketplace where anyone could tokenize real‑world assets and trade them privately with Monero.

But like many projects, the road was not straightforward.
💸 The First Attempt – Hiring a Company

I wanted to move fast. I reached out to a company in Rimini (PianetaItalia) to build a mobile app for MyZubster. I had a vision, I had some budget, and I thought: "Let the professionals handle the app while I focus on the backend."

I paid for the development. I trusted the process.

But after the initial work, I realized:

The app was not aligned with my vision

The codebase was hard to maintain

The costs were adding up faster than the features
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In the end, I couldn't afford to rebuild it with them. The budget was gone. The app was incomplete. The project stalled.
🔨 The Second Attempt – Doing It Myself

I took a step back. I looked at what I had built so far:

âś… A fully functional Node.js gateway

âś… Monero payments with subaddress generation

âś… Kali Linux + DeepSeek AI for security

âś… Tari integration for NFTs

âś… Escrow and AI dispute resolution

âś… A React frontend with login, marketplace, and token creation
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The backend was solid. The frontend was working. But the mobile app – the piece that could bring MyZubster to the real world – was missing.

So I decided to build it myself.
📱 What I'm Building

I'm now working on a React Native mobile app for MyZubster. It will be:

Open‑source – anyone can fork it, customize it, and run their own marketplace

Private‑first – Monero payments with subaddresses, just like the web version

NFC‑ready – tap‑to‑pay with Monero for physical stores and events

Cross‑platform – iOS and Android from a single codebase
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This is the first time I'm building a mobile app alone. I'm learning React Native, NFC integration, and mobile security as I go. It's slow. It's hard. But it's also exciting.
đź’ł The NFC Integration

One of the most exciting features I'm planning is NFC payments.
How It Will Work

The seller creates an order on MyZubster (via the web or mobile app).

The gateway generates a unique Monero subaddress for that order.

The mobile app writes the payment request (address + amount) to an NFC tag or emulates it via the phone's NFC chip.

The buyer taps their phone – their Monero wallet reads the request and prepares the transaction.

The buyer confirms the payment on their wallet.

The PaymentMonitor (already running on the gateway) detects the incoming transaction and completes the order.
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This means you can pay with Monero just by tapping your phone. No QR codes. No manual address typing. Just tap and pay.
đź§© Why I'm Sharing This

I'm writing this post for three reasons:

  1. To Be Honest About the Journey

Building a decentralized marketplace is hard. Building an app on top of it is even harder. I've made mistakes, spent money I didn't have, and wasted time on dead ends. But I'm still here, still building, still learning.

  1. To Invite Collaboration

I can't do this alone forever. If you're a developer, designer, or privacy advocate, I'd love to collaborate. Fork the repo. Open a PR. Ask questions. Share ideas.

  1. To Show That This Is Possible

You don't need a company to build a mobile app. You don't need millions of dollars to launch a decentralized marketplace. With open‑source tools, a bit of patience, and a willingness to learn, you can build something that works.
🔮 The Future – A Marketplace for Everyone

My ultimate goal is not just to build MyZubster. It's to build a template that anyone can use to launch their own marketplace.

A backend that handles tokenization, payments, and security.

A frontend that works on web and mobile.

A payment system that accepts Monero with a tap.

An AI that resolves disputes automatically.
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And all of it open‑source.
đź’¬ What I Need

If you want to help, here's what I need most:

React Native developers – to help with the mobile app

Designers – to make the app beautiful and intuitive

Testers – to break things and tell me what doesn't work

Privacy advocates – to make sure we're doing it right
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Even if you just share this post, that helps.
đź”— Links

Live Demo: https://myzubster.com

GitHub (Backend): DanielIoni-creator/MyZubsterGateway

GitHub (Frontend): DanielIoni-creator/MyZubsterWeb
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🏷️ Tags

ReactNative #Monero #NFC #OpenSource #Decentralized #Marketplace #MyZubster #BuildInPublic #Privacy #MobileDevelopment #Blockchain #CryptoPayments

Built with ❤️ and a lot of coffee by the MyZubster team.

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