Building Search, Admin Control, and MoonPay Into a Web3 Marketplace

The Product Had Two Jobs

SURE-RT was a Web3 sports betting marketplace with NFL and NFT-related betting flows.

That kind of product has two jobs.

First, the public marketplace needs to help users find the right betting options, understand live information, and move through crypto onboarding without getting lost.

Second, the internal team needs enough control to manage which bets are live and keep the marketplace clean behind the scenes.

If the user-facing app is strong but the admin flow is weak, the team slows down. If the admin flow works but the public search and payment path are messy, users drop off. SURE-RT needed both sides to fit together.

Search Was A Product Feature, Not A Page

Search sounds small until it sits inside a marketplace.

On SURE-RT, search was tied to how users explored betting options on the main Next.js website. That meant the frontend could not be treated as a static filter UI. It needed support from backend behavior and clean data handling.

The useful question was not "Can we add search?"

The useful question was "Can users find the thing they came for without feeling the product is fighting them?"

That is a better engineering lens. It connects UI, backend contracts, empty states, loading states, and the shape of the data.

Admin Control Needed Its Own Surface

The admin dashboard was built as a separate React app.

That was the right shape for the problem because bet management is not the same as public browsing. The operations team needed a focused place to manage which bets were live without turning the public website into a cluttered control panel.

Good admin tools should do three things:

• make the important state easy to see
• keep risky actions away from casual clicks
• help the team move faster without needing developer help for every small change

For SURE-RT, the admin side gave the marketplace team a clearer way to control live betting activity.

Charts Made The Betting Data Easier To Read

Betting products are data-heavy.

If the interface only shows raw numbers, users have to work too hard. Charts help turn changing scores and betting context into something people can scan.

The chart work on SURE-RT mattered because the product needed to make betting information readable inside the main experience. That is a small detail from the outside, but it changes how fast users can understand what is happening.

MoonPay Reduced The Web3 Onboarding Break

Web3 products often lose users before the main feature ever gets a fair chance.

The wallet step, funding step, or crypto conversion step can become the real blocker.

SURE-RT used MoonPay so users could convert fiat currencies into crypto inside the marketplace flow. That matters because payment onboarding is part of product design. If users have to leave, guess, or search for a workaround, the marketplace loses momentum.

MoonPay did not make the product "more Web3." It made the Web3 part less awkward for the user.

The Stack

• search page for the main website
• backend support for the search page
• charts for betting scores
• separate React admin dashboard
• admin controls for which bets were live
• MoonPay integration for fiat-to-crypto conversion

The main website used Next.js.

The backend work used Node.js.

The admin dashboard was a separate React app.

MoonPay handled fiat-to-crypto conversion inside the marketplace flow.

What To Protect On A Build Like This

The main lesson from SURE-RT is simple: marketplace work needs both customer UX and operator UX.

A Web3 sports betting product can look polished and still fail if search is weak, admin control is slow, charts are hard to read, or crypto onboarding breaks the flow.

That is why DevThinks treats product work as a full system, not a pile of tickets. Search, admin tooling, data display, backend support, and payment onboarding all affect whether the product feels reliable.

For the project page, read the SURE-RT case study.