The money model

The mental model that makes the rest of the API obvious.

Stablecoins are the backbone

Your balance is in USD. A stablecoin rail settles every movement. Money comes in as a local currency or as crypto. We change it to USD and add it to your balance. Money goes out in the currency or the asset that the destination needs.

Here are four examples. A customer in Nigeria pays naira, and we add USD to your balance. You pay a recipient in Kenya from your USD balance, and the recipient gets shillings. A customer sends Bitcoin, and we add USD to your balance. You send USD, and the recipient gets euros or a different asset.

Stablecoins are the settlement layer. Every movement uses this rail, but you never hold a stablecoin and you never touch one. This one hub is what makes anything to anything possible (see Orchestrate). It also keeps the pricing honest.

For a fiat side, you work in the local currency. For a crypto side, you work in the exact asset and network that you select. We operate the currency exchange, the on-chain rails, and the local rails between the two sides.

Corridors

A corridor is a country you can move money to or from, and how. Each corridor tells you:

• which payment methods are available (bank transfer, mobile money),
• the local currency your customer pays or receives,
• the min/max amount in that local currency.

To find them, use GET /v1/corridors. A corridor has two independent sides: collection for money in, and payout for money out. A country can support only one of the two directions.

The two directions

Collection (pay-in)

You ask a customer for money. Depending on the corridor:

• Bank transfer (e.g. Nigeria): we return a temporary virtual account; the customer transfers the exact amount to it. It expires after a short window.
• Mobile money (e.g. Kenya, Uganda): the customer approves a push prompt on their phone.
• Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico): a bank corridor that pays through a local instrument — a Pix code, a CLABE, a CVU, or a hosted checkout link. The instrument belongs to the customer, so it can be shown again rather than re-fetched for every payment.

After the customer pays, the funds settle and we add USD to your balance.

Payout (pay-out)

You send money to a recipient. You specify the recipient and a USD amount; they receive local currency at the current rate. We debit your USD balance and deliver to the recipient's bank or mobile-money account.

Exchange rates and fees

Before a movement between two currencies, you can ask for a quote. The quote shows four values. These are the USD that you send, the local amount that the recipient gets, the exchange rate, and the fees. You get all four before you commit.

We always show fees in USD. Each quote gives a platform fee and a routing fee.

Customers

When you transact on behalf of your end-users, represent them as customers. A customer can be an individual or a business, and ties your transactions to the person they belong to.

Next: the transaction lifecycle — how a single movement progresses, and the timeline you render to your users.