Mountain Madness 2026 Hackathon: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

Solaryx is a Solana-based charity donation platform with a twist: the noble narrative of donating to charities is contrasted directly with the inherently addictive and negative effects of gambling: embodying a good doctor (Dr. Jekyll) by day, and an evil murderer (Mr. Hyde) by night.

In Solaryx, users pit charitable organizations against one another in head-to-head markets. Participants purchase shares in a market to back their chosen recipient. When a market closes, a roulette wheel spins to decide which charity receives the entire pool of shares. A charity's probability of winning is directly proportional to the percentage of the market cap bought in their name.

To support this high-stakes charity market, Solaryx relies on a robust architecture spanning frontend, backend, database, and blockchain integrations:

┌───────────┐     ┌───────────┐     ┌────────────┐
│ SvelteKit │────▶│  Express  │────▶│ PostgreSQL │
│ :5173     │/api │  :3000    │     │ sorbet     │
└───────────┘     └────┬──────┘     └────────────┘
                       │
                       ▼
                 ┌──────────┐
                 │ Solana   │
                 │ RPC Node │
                 └──────────┘

• Frontend (SvelteKit & Tailwind CSS): The client application presents the head-to-head charity markets, real-time market share visualizations, and the thrilling roulette wheel animations. It handles user authentication, profile management, wallet operations, and live market updates.
• Backend (Express.js REST API): Manages core business logic including JWT-based authentication, user balances, charity configuration, market lifecycles, and cryptographically resolving market winners (the "roulette spin").
• Database (PostgreSQL): Maintains the ledger of users, profiles, charities, active and completed markets (JEKYLL and HYDE types), shares (bets), deposits, coupons, and payouts in a highly relational schema.
• Blockchain (Solana): Solaryx integrates with the Solana blockchain via RPC. Users deposit SOL to play, and when a market concludes, an automated on-chain transaction distributes the massive aggregated prize pool straight to the winning charity's Solana wallet address.
• Reverse Proxy (Nginx): Used in production environments to route traffic correctly to the SvelteKit frontend and the Express backend API.

• Node.js ≥ 18
• PostgreSQL ≥ 14

macOS:

brew install postgresql
brew services start postgresql

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib
sudo service postgresql start

createdb sorbet
psql -d sorbet -f db.sql

To populate with sample data:

psql -d sorbet -f seed.sql

Backend — copy and fill in backend/.env:

cp backend/.env.example backend/.env

Required variables:

Frontend

No environment variables are required for the frontend. It fetches its configuration directly from the backend API.

cd backend && npm ci
cd ../frontend && npm ci

Open two terminals:

Backend (terminal 1):

cd backend
node server.js

Runs on http://localhost:3000.

Frontend (terminal 2):

cd frontend
npm run dev

Runs on http://localhost:5173. The Vite dev server proxies /api/* requests to the backend automatically.

cd backend && npm run lint
cd ../frontend && npm run lint

---

## Solana RPC Configuration

Both `SOLANA_RPC_URL` (backend) and `VITE_SOLANA_RPC_URL` (frontend) must point to a Solana RPC endpoint.

**Development** — use devnet:

https://api.devnet.solana.com

**Production** — Solana's public mainnet endpoint (`https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com`) has aggressive rate limits and is **not suitable for production**. Use a dedicated RPC provider:

| Provider | Free Tier | Endpoint Format |
|----------|-----------|-----------------|
| [Helius](https://helius.dev) | 50k req/day | `https://mainnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=<KEY>` |
| [QuickNode](https://quicknode.com) | Limited | Custom URL per account |
| [Alchemy](https://alchemy.com) | 300M CU/mo | `https://solana-mainnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/<KEY>` |

Helius is the most common choice in the Solana ecosystem. Sign up, create an API key, and set both env vars:

```env
# backend/.env
SOLANA_RPC_URL=https://mainnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=YOUR_KEY

Defined in db.sql. Core tables:

See backend/README.md for full API documentation.