Raffi3’s Testnet: BuildBear

Raffi3 was building an innovative NFT Raffle platform on Polygon and needed a reliable way to demo their hackathon submission. The core functionality involved smart contracts that would automatically draw a winner and transfer an NFT in a trustless, on-chain manner.

However, they were concerned about ensuring realistic test conditions. They wanted to validate their smart contract with actual deployed NFTs, simulate transactions as if on mainnet, and confidently demonstrate a full raffle cycle, from minting to distribution, without relying on mocks or theoretical logic.

BuildBear stepped in to help Raffi3 create a dedicated Polygon mainnet fork. This gave them an isolated but production-like environment for rigorous testing.

Through the use of BuildBear Sandboxes, the Raffi3 team was able to:

• Set up and log in within minutes
• Fork the Polygon mainnet for real-world conditions
• Access test tokens via faucet
• Impersonate accounts to simulate transactions
• Test the full user journey end-to-end
• Execute their raffle draw mechanism with full traceability

BuildBear's integrated block explorer offered deep insights into transaction success/failure, helping the team iterate faster and debug smarter.

What began as a hackathon experiment turned into a validated, production-ready workflow. Raffi3 ended up creating more than 10 private testnets throughout development, each tailored for different phases of testing.

Their confidence grew with every cycle, and their final product won one of Chainlink’s hackathon bounties, a testament to the value of realistic simulation, automation, and developer experience that BuildBear brings to the table.

In the competitive world of Web3 development, moving fast without breaking things is critical. By using BuildBear, Raffi3 proved that testing doesn’t have to be an afterthought, it can be the launchpad for success.

With powerful testnet forking, impersonation features, and seamless setup, BuildBear became the backbone of their QA and demo environment. It enabled the team to simulate, showcase, and succeed, all before ever touching mainnet.