PayGrid

PayGrid is a non-custodial stablecoin payment clearing network that enables payment service providers and FX desks to net and settle opposing currency flows directly at mid-market rates, using a chain-abstracted API that supports Solana alongside five EVM chains.

The Clearing Layer Problem

PayGrid draws a sharp distinction between payment orchestration and payment clearing—a distinction it argues the stablecoin infrastructure space has largely missed. Orchestrators route individual transactions from sender to receiver, optimizing each hop independently. Clearing aggregates obligations across multiple participants, netting them before settlement and dramatically reducing the gross capital required to move the same economic value. The analogy PayGrid uses is CLS Bank, whose multilateral netting approach cuts gross funding requirements by 96% compared to bilateral settlement.

In the stablecoin context, PSPs running payment corridors must prefund accounts on both sides of each corridor—holding stablecoins for outbound payments and local currency for inbound conversions—regardless of how quickly the blockchain settles. PayGrid's clearing layer attacks this capital inefficiency directly, rather than offering credit-based workarounds or faster routing.

Core Mechanism

PayGrid operates as a two-sided open market connecting parties with opposing needs. On the supply side, PSPs and FX desks submit their corridor, direction, and best executable rate. PayGrid's matching engine identifies counterparties with opposite flow on the same corridor. Both sides settle directly at the midpoint rate—each party beats its own baseline without PayGrid taking a spread position or holding funds.

The live example corridors as of the platform's current deployment are USDT/NGN (Nigerian naira, saving roughly 27 basis points per side) and USDT/KES (Kenyan shilling, saving roughly 30 basis points per side), reflecting a deliberate focus on African payment corridors where FX fragmentation and prefunding costs are acute. Additional corridors are available on request.

For B2B payment flows beyond spot FX matching, PayGrid also batches compatible payments together into a Unified Clearing Price, grouping transactions by execution preferences to optimize costs across the group rather than processing each transaction individually. This mirrors how established payment schemes such as SEPA created specialized clearing rails for specific payment categories.

Technical Architecture

PayGrid's infrastructure has two public components. Grid (grid-network on GitHub) is an open, modular on-chain payment intent protocol written in Solidity and released under AGPL-3.0. Updated as recently as August 2025, it handles the on-chain settlement layer and payment intent execution. The Paygrid SDK (paygrid-sdk) is a TypeScript library licensed Apache-2.0 that provides a chain-abstracted payment stack for developers building payment workflows on top of the protocol.

The developer-facing payment API operates through four sequential stages: corridor routing and price discovery (fetching real-time cross-chain routes with fees and execution windows), payment intent authorization (capturing delegated permissions from payer accounts), payment intent creation and submission through the Clearing Gateway, and status tracking for reconciliation. Because permissions are delegated via signed payment intents, the system works with deposit accounts, self-custodial wallets, smart contracts, and embedded wallets alike.

Gas abstraction is built into the system: users and PSPs pay fees in stablecoins matching their payment asset—for example USDC—rather than needing to hold native gas tokens on each supported network.

MEV Capture for Payment Providers

An unusual element of PayGrid's value proposition is its explicit focus on MEV (maximal extractable value) as a recoverable asset for payment operators. The platform argues that every PSP processing blockchain payments already generates MEV—through order flow, predictable settlement timing, and batching opportunities—but currently surrenders that value to third-party extractors. PayGrid implements both negative MEV protection (blocking external extraction) and positive MEV capture through Coincidence of Wants matching, redistributing the captured value to PSPs and liquidity providers on the network. The framing repositions payments from cost centers to potential revenue generators for operators who process at scale.

Supported Networks and Assets

PayGrid's chain-abstracted API launched with support for five EVM-compatible chains plus Solana, covering three major stablecoins. Solana's inclusion reflects the network's growing role in stablecoin settlement—Solana processed over one trillion dollars in stablecoin volume in 2025 and held roughly 32% of weekly adjusted stablecoin transfer volume by early 2026. PayGrid's design is explicitly chain-agnostic; the corridor concept abstracts away the underlying network so that a USDC payment can route through whichever chain offers the best execution for that corridor at that moment.

Network Economics

PayGrid's business model aligns fees with outcomes: the platform earns only when participants beat their baseline rates, meaning fees are funded from the savings generated. This creates a self-reinforcing growth dynamic—more PSPs contributing volume improves batching efficiency and matching depth, which improves savings per participant, which attracts additional PSPs. Liquidity providers benefit from access to organized, predictable payment order flow and improved settlement conditions versus sourcing individual transaction flow independently.

Team

Khalid Al-Jaaidi is the principal public author of PayGrid's research output, having written the platform's core positioning essays on stablecoin structure, clearing theory, and MEV. The organization is US-based. The API was in closed beta at launch, with the platform expanding corridor coverage and chain support on an ongoing basis.

Token

PayGrid has no native token. There is no governance token, utility token, or planned token mentioned in any available source material.

Audits and Security

No public security audit has been announced as of available sources. The on-chain Grid protocol is open-source under AGPL-3.0, allowing public review of the payment intent logic.

Ecosystem Fit

PayGrid sits in the infrastructure layer of Solana's stablecoin payment stack rather than at the end-user application layer. Its target integrators are PSPs, remittance operators, FX desks, and liquidity providers who already run real payment volume on corridors and are looking for ways to reduce prefunding capital, capture FX savings, and reclaim MEV. As stablecoin payment volume on Solana grows and the number of PSPs using the network expands, PayGrid's network-effects model positions it as a shared clearing utility for the broader ecosystem rather than a product competing directly with those PSPs.