While I was in school last year, I observed a rapid growth of peer to peer (P2P) currency exchanges among African immigrants. These transactions were often conducted informally through social media platforms, messaging apps, and word of mouth. Despite the increasing demand, there was no structured, secure, or cost effective platform catering specifically to this market.
Recognizing the opportunity, my friend and I set out to build Mola Exchange, a side project aimed at providing a secure, user friendly, and efficient currency pair trading platform. Though still in progress, our goal is to bring structure to informal currency exchanges while maintaining the community driven approach that makes them effective.
With African immigrant communities heavily relying on P2P exchanges for remittances and business transactions, it became clear that a structured, secure, and transparent platform was needed. Ensuring safer transactions with an escrow system, providing a fair marketplace for better exchange rate comparisons, and reducing costs and improving accessibility. Mola Exchange aims to enhance and formalize P2P exchanges while maintaining the community driven nature that makes them popular.
To create a seamless trading experience, we focused on a modern and intuitive user interface to simplify trading for both new and experienced users, real time data updates to provide live exchange rates, an escrow system to add security to transactions, and low cost transactions to make the platform more appealing than traditional remittance services.
We experience some roadblocks such as implementation of escrow system to protect buyers and sellers, attracting enough traders to maintain a dynamic marketplace, researching financial regulations to ensure adherence, and educating users about the benefits of using a digital P2P exchange.To address these, we developed a secure authentication system to protect user accounts integrated real time webSocket updates for live exchange rate monitoring, and focused on a community centric approach to build trust and drive adoption.
To ensure mola exchange is secure, scalable, and efficient, we chose javascript, python (for efficient data processing and API integrations), and websocket technology(for real time updates on currency pair pricing). We implemented the following key features and functionalities:
Real time trading: live updates on currency prices using websockets, escrow system, secure transactions by holding funds until both parties confirm.
Cost effective transactions, minimal or no transaction fees compared to traditional remittance services.
Custom alerts, users can set price notifications for specific currency pairs.
Secure authentication, strong security measures to protect user accounts and funds.
Marketplace transparency, users can compare seller rates before making a trade.
Community centric approach, built around the existing trust and familiarity of informal exchanges.
Newsletter integration to keep users updated on market trends and new features.
For our current development stage: Core trading functionalities are in place, Real time pricing updates are functional, secure authentication and escrow system with early user testing are in progress.
Furthermore, I learnt in this project that designing a real time trading platform requires careful UI/UX planning, community driven platforms need strong engagement strategies to thrive, and that security and trust building features are crucial for financial transactions.
Some of our planned enhancements are integrating detailed ratings, reviews, and a trader reputation system, ensuring the platform aligns with financial laws, supporting additional trading pairs for a broader reach, and launching a mobile app to Provide a seamless trading experience on the go.
Mola exchange is still evolving, but its vision remains clear: to transform P2P currency exchanges by making them secure, transparent, and community driven.
