AI Product Developer – Blockchain Tariff Insurance

That time when I built a blockchain application, with AI, that automatically pays importers when tariffs exceed their pre-agreed upon threshold—no claims process.

Project Context

Problem

Importers face catastrophic tariff increases (up to 286%) with no rapid financial protection. Traditional trade insurance takes 6 to 12 months to pay claims and requires complex documentation.

Solution

Parametric insurance that monitors real-time tariff rates via blockchain and automatically pays within 60 seconds when thresholds are exceeded—no claims, no paperwork.

Approach

Solo development combining UX design expertise with self-taught full-stack development, blockchain smart contracts, and custom oracle creation during a hackathon.

Project Type

Human-Computer Collaboration with AI Hackathon Project building an FinTech/InsurTech blockchain application with data integration

Constraints

Prevent speculation gaming, make parametric insurance understandable to traditional buyers, and ensure economic sustainability while providing valuable coverage.

Time Frame

One month hackathon project (World’s Largest Hackathon by Bolt.new—130,000 participants, ~10,000 submissions) with COVID impacting one week of development

My Role

Solo Design Engineer: UX/UI design, front-end development, smart contract creation, oracle API development, blockchain integration

AI Team

Bolt.new
Anthropic Claude

Project Breakdown

01

Problem Context

Since 2018, tariff volatility has exploded into unprecedented chaos. By July 2025, average US tariff rates hit 17.6%—the highest since 1934. Chinese imports face up to 145% duties (swinging wildly from 10% in just months), steel tariffs doubled overnight from 25% to 50% with 5 days notice, and EVs face 100% rates. The Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs affect $2.3 trillion in imports (71% of total). This extreme volatility—with rates changing by 100%+ in days—affects $800B-$1.2T in US imports annually, yet 97% of importing SMEs lack protection against these shocks. Traditional insurance takes 6-12 months to pay claims while businesses fail.

Figure 1: Tariff Shield's landing page directly addresses the chaos of modern tariff volatility with clear protection timelines, instant payout promises, and the Early Spike Protection (ESP) mechanism that transforms a 3-6 month insurance nightmare into 90-day monitored, instant-payout protection.

02

Research Process

Discovered importers didn’t need complex insurance—they needed automatic safety nets. Analyzed customs APIs for real-time data availability, studied blockchain capabilities for automated execution, and identified the critical challenge: parametric insurance was virtually unknown to target users. Historical modeling revealed extreme events (30%+ tariffs) were rare enough to price affordably but devastating enough to demand protection. Current 2025 data validated this urgently: 350 S&P 500 companies mentioned tariffs in Q1 earnings calls (surpassing AI mentions), with implementation timelines as short as 3-5 days making traditional hedging impossible.

Synthesis

Key insight: The 90-day pending period elegantly prevents gaming while the “Early Spike Protection” (ESP) feature protects legitimate buyers. If tariffs spike during the initial 90-day monitoring period (when there’s no coverage), ESP extends monitoring to 180 days. At day 180, if rates remain high, users receive immediate payout; if rates normalized, coverage begins for days 180-270. This transforms speculation into genuine business protection. The system needs extreme simplicity—one product code, one route, one threshold, automatic execution.

Figure 2: Dashboard prototype validating research findings—real-time monitoring of actual tariff rates across diverse import categories (electronics, footwear, textiles) with risk visualization, demonstrating how customs API data transforms into actionable protection status that importers can understand at a glance.

03

Design

Created dead-simple interface: get quote → select threshold → purchase → monitor. The architecture combines real-time oracle service (15-minute updates from customs APIs) with Algorand smart contracts for transparent, automated execution. Key decision: absolute rate thresholds (30%, 40%, 50%, 100%) instead of relative increases—clearer for users and prevents baseline gaming.

Figure 3: Policy creation flow embodying the synthesis insight of "extreme simplicity"—one product code, one route, one threshold. The 5-step linear process eliminates insurance complexity while the 90-day coverage window and automated monitoring replace traditional underwriting with transparent, self-service protection.

04

Deliverable

Launched functional web app (tariffshield.app), deployed oracle service on Heroku with status API and real-time tariff monitoring, created Algorand testnet smart contracts for automated policy execution. Nearly achieved production blockchain state changes but encountered last-minute deployment bug preventing final integration.

Outcome

Technical Achievement:

First automated tariff insurance with <60-second payouts (vs 6-12 month industry standard)
0.3-0.6% pricing model validated against $4.8-8.2B market opportunity
Functional oracle service with 15-minute update cycles

Market Validation:

7,600+ steel importers facing 50% tariffs
$380B electronics import market under pressure
Average household paying $1,296+ additional costs annually

Personal Growth:

- Evolved from pure UX design to full-stack blockchain development in 30 days
- Built production-ready fintech during world’s largest hackathon (130,000 participants)

Reflections

Pushed beyond comfort zone from designer to developer, learning blockchain and full-stack development under extreme pressure. The elegant solution came from embracing constraints: the anti-gaming mechanism became the key innovation, transforming a potential weakness into the product’s core strength through the ESP feature.

Technical lesson: Always test production deployment early. The MIME type error that blocked final integration could have been caught weeks earlier with proper staging environment testing.

Business lesson: Sometimes the best insurance products prevent speculation rather than enable it. By making the product less attractive to speculators through the 90-day pending period, we created something more valuable for legitimate importers.

Personal growth: Proved I can solo-build complex technical products. In 30 days, evolved from pure UX designer to shipping blockchain smart contracts, custom oracles, and full-stack applications. The pressure of the hackathon compressed years of learning into weeks, validating that understanding user needs (the “why”) accelerates mastering technical implementation (the “how”).