HighWayPay

HighWayPay (hwpay.io) is a non-custodial crypto payment gateway built for merchants of every size, letting any business accept USDC and USDT on multiple blockchains — including Solana — without requiring crypto expertise or surrendering custody of funds.

The Problem HighWayPay Solves

Traditional card payment networks charge merchants 1–5% per transaction, while many custodial crypto payment platforms charge even more — in some cases up to 15%. Specific industries are effectively shut out of conventional payment rails entirely: cannabis dispensaries and cultivators in legal states routinely cannot obtain merchant accounts from mainstream processors, forcing them to operate as cash-only businesses or turn to workarounds that carry regulatory and operational risk.

HighWayPay targets this gap — a compliant, low-cost stablecoin payment layer that works for any business, from an online e-commerce store to a brick-and-mortar coffee shop to a cannabis dispensary, without the overhead or risk of traditional payment infrastructure.

How It Works

At its core, HighWayPay is a non-custodial payment processor. Merchants keep full control of their funds at all times — the platform never holds assets on their behalf. A customer checks out on a merchant's website or at a physical point-of-sale terminal and pays in USDC or USDT. Settlement is near-instant. The merchant receives the stablecoin directly into their wallet, then can hold it, convert it to fiat, or pass it along to suppliers or employees — all from within the platform.

Supported blockchains include:

• Solana — sub-second finality and sub-cent fees, making stablecoin payments practical even for small-ticket purchases
• Ethereum
• Tron
• Binance Smart Chain (BNB Chain)

The multi-chain architecture means merchants are not locked to a single network, and customers can pay from whichever chain they already hold assets on.

Products and Integration Options

HighWayPay offers three main integration surfaces:

Online/Digital Integration — An API-based layer that lets merchants embed stablecoin payment acceptance directly into their website or mobile application. The integration is designed to require no prior crypto knowledge on the merchant side.

Point-of-Sale (POS) Add-On — A hardware and software add-on that extends cryptocurrency acceptance to physical retail environments. This makes HighWayPay relevant not just for e-commerce but for any cash-heavy or underbanked brick-and-mortar business.

K22N Wallet (Consumer App) — Available on both Android (Google Play) and iOS (App Store), the K22N Wallet is HighWayPay's companion mobile application for end users. It supports storing, buying, selling, and paying with cryptocurrency. The wallet is the consumer-side counterpart to the merchant-facing payment infrastructure.

Target Markets

HighWayPay's primary positioning is as a payment solution for businesses underserved or excluded by traditional financial rails. The cannabis industry is explicitly cited as a core target vertical — dispensaries and cultivators in legal states cannot obtain merchant accounts from mainstream processors, making stablecoin payments a practical alternative. Beyond cannabis, the platform targets general e-commerce, physical retail, and any business sector where lower fees and cross-border payment capability are advantageous.

Compliance and Regulatory Status

HighWayPay operates under K22N LLC, a Glendale, California-based company registered as a Money Services Business (MSB) with FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network). This registration places it within the regulated US financial compliance framework applicable to crypto payment processors. The platform implements Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks in line with those obligations. The team has documented AML expertise, and the CTO and developers have backgrounds in Web3 security.

This regulatory posture is a meaningful differentiator in the stablecoin payments space, where many competitors operate without formal MSB status. Compliance is increasingly a prerequisite for serving business customers in regulated industries such as cannabis.

Team and Background

The founding team reports five years of prior collaboration, two successful startup exits, and deep experience in AML compliance and Web3 security. The company is headquartered in Glendale, California. At the time of their fundraising disclosure, HighWayPay had 10 early-adopter businesses onboarded and was targeting 400 clients within its first year of broader operations, with a $355K annual revenue target. The company was raising a $700K seed round to fund that growth.

Fit Within the Solana Ecosystem

HighWayPay's inclusion of Solana as a supported payment network places it within an active and growing category of real-world payment infrastructure on Solana. Solana's combination of fast finality (sub-second block times), high throughput, and extremely low transaction costs makes it technically well-suited for payments at scale. Costs that make Ethereum-based stablecoin transfers impractical for small-ticket purchases become negligible on Solana, and merchants settling on Solana can receive confirmations in under a second.

HighWayPay distinguishes itself from Solana-native payment projects through its multi-chain architecture — customers are not required to hold assets on Solana — combined with its FinCEN registration and explicit targeting of regulated industries that traditional payment networks decline to serve. For businesses in those categories, HighWayPay offers a compliance-first entry point into accepting stablecoin payments with the operational simplicity of a standard payment gateway.