Payments.
How crypto payments work for a merchant: gateways, custody, fees, settlement, confirmations and the mistakes payers make.
How crypto recurring payments work: push, pull and the four billing models
Crypto recurring payments work in one of two ways: the customer pushes a new payment every period, usually after an invoice link, or the customer approves once and the merchant pulls each charge within an on-chain limit. A wallet never pays on its own, so a true automatic renewal needs that approval and a program that enforces it. On Solana, Fianto uses the Solana Foundation's Subscriptions program for this and pulls each period's USDC straight into the merchant's wallet.
PaymentsCompareCustodial vs non-custodial crypto payments: who holds your money
A custodial crypto payment gateway receives the payment into wallets it controls and pays you out later; a non-custodial one sends the payment straight to a wallet you control, so nobody holds your money in between. Custody can buy you payouts to a bank and no keys to guard. Non-custodial removes the balance a provider could freeze or lose, and hands you the keys, the refunds and the conversion to fiat.
PaymentsWhat a hosted USDC checkout does that a wallet address doesn't
Posting your wallet address gets you paid, but it tells you nothing else: which order the USDC was for, whether the amount was right, or when the transfer became final. A hosted USDC checkout wraps each payment in a session that carries your order id, writes the exact amount into the transaction the customer signs, expires on a timer, and tells your server only once Solana has finalized the payment. For a tip or a one-off payment from someone you know, an address is fine; for orders you fulfil automatically, use a session.
PaymentsDoes crypto auto-renew? Which services renew on their own and which send a link
Usually not. A subscription paid in crypto ends when the paid period runs out unless you pay again, because a wallet has no card number the merchant can charge. It renews on its own only when you signed an approval with a limit per period at checkout, as Helius autopay and Fianto plans on Solana ask for, and then it keeps renewing until you cancel it or a renewal cannot be paid.
PaymentsDataWho pays the fees in a crypto payment: payer, merchant, processor or sponsor
In a crypto payment the network fee is paid by the account named as fee payer, normally whoever signs the transaction, and a processor's fee is paid by whoever its contract bills, often the merchant. Some processors sponsor the network fee and fold it into their percentage. With Fianto the merchant pays nothing: the customer pays the Solana fee of the one transaction they sign, Fianto's charging key is the fee payer on each subscription renewal, and on plans created since 6 October 2026 the customer pays a flat 0.01 USDC network fee per subscription charge today toward those costs.
PaymentsWhat is a crypto payment gateway, and how does a Solana one work?
A crypto payment gateway is the software between a customer's wallet and your order system: it tells the customer exactly what to pay, recognises the payment on the blockchain, decides when it is final, and tells your server. The classic design watches an address for incoming coins, while on Solana a gateway can build the exact transaction for the customer to sign, which rules out underpayments and wrong-token mistakes. Fianto is a gateway of the second kind, for USDC on Solana, and it never holds the money.
PaymentsHow a merchant knows a crypto payment arrived: references, memos and order matching
To know a crypto payment really arrived, you need three answers: which transfer belongs to which order, whether it moved the right token and amount into your wallet, and whether the network has made it final. On Solana the first is solved with a reference key added to the transfer, the second by reading the transfer itself, and the third by waiting for the finalized commitment level. Fianto does all three and sends your server a signed order.paid webhook only once the payment is finalized.
ComparePaymentsStreaming payments vs per-period subscriptions: Superfluid and Fianto
Money streaming moves tokens from payer to payee continuously at a set rate per second, so the payee's balance grows every second until someone stops the stream or the payer's balance runs out; Superfluid does this on EVM networks with wrapped Super Tokens such as USDCx. A per-period subscription instead collects one fixed charge per billing period, which is how Fianto bills USDC on Solana: the customer approves once, and each 30- or 365-day charge is pulled within a cap. Streaming fits salaries, vesting and pay-as-you-go use; per-period billing fits a product sold by the month or year.
ComparePaymentsStripe stablecoin payments vs Fianto checkout for one-off USDC sales
Stripe's one-off stablecoin payments cost the merchant 1.5% of the amount on Stripe's pricing page as of 15 October 2026, accept USDC on five networks including Solana, and settle in your Stripe balance in your local currency. Fianto's checkout accepts only USDC on Solana, charges the merchant nothing, and the customer's transaction puts the USDC in your own wallet. Stripe suits US businesses that want dollars and one checkout for cards and crypto; Fianto suits sellers who want to keep USDC, or who cannot use Stripe's crypto payment method.
PaymentsDo you need a licence to accept crypto payments? What US regulators say
FinCEN's federal guidance has no separate category for a merchant paid in crypto: it says a user, a person who obtains virtual currency to buy goods or services, is not a money services business (2013), and that crypto payment processors, intermediaries that let merchants accept crypto, fall within the definition of a money transmitter (2019). New York's regulator says merchants that use virtual currency solely to buy or sell goods or services are exempt from its BitLicense; other states have their own laws. This post quotes those texts as of 15 October 2026, is not legal advice and does not say whether you need a licence.
PaymentsWalletsWrong amount, token or network: crypto payment mistakes and how a signed checkout prevents them
Once a crypto transfer is final, nobody can pull it back: not your wallet, not the network and not Circle, whose USDC terms say "Circle does not have the ability to reverse or recall any transaction once initiated." The only way to get mistaken USDC back is for whoever controls the receiving address to send it, and anyone who offers to "recover" it for a fee is almost certainly running a scam. A checkout that builds the transaction for the customer removes the usual mistakes before the wallet opens: on Fianto the amount, the token, the network and the destination are fixed by the server and checked again after signing.
PaymentsHow long does a USDC payment take to settle? Cards vs USDC on Solana
Measured to the moment it can no longer be undone, a USDC payment on Solana settles in about 12.8 seconds until the Alpenglow upgrade activates on 21 October 2026, and solana.com targets roughly 150 milliseconds after that. The money is in the merchant's own wallet from the moment the transaction lands; there is no payout to wait for. A card payment through Stripe in the US becomes available after 2 business days, the first payout takes 7 to 14 days, and the cardholder can usually dispute it for 120 days, sometimes longer.