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By Lumen Later
Offers instant, low-fee BNPL on Stellar to help global merchants and users access credit, enabled by Soroban smart contracts and native USDC.
Lumen Later brings to Stellar the first decentralized Buy-Now-Pay-Later protocol, enabling users to access instant, collateral-backed credit and merchants to receive instant USDC settlement, with all flows executed by Soroban smart contracts.
Features include over-collateralization, on-chain liquidation, 14-day interest-free periods, and a transparent insurance fund.
Leveraging Stellar’s sub-5-second settlement, native USDC, and SEP-compliant KYC, Lumen Later makes global, permissionless consumer finance and sustainable LP yield a reality, significantly expanding Stellar’s utility for everyday payments and credit.
Yes
$131.6K
Success will be measured by the number of users, merchants, and TVL from LPs deposited on Lumen Later. In the first 3 months post-mainnet, we expect to onboard over 2,000 users, 20 merchants, and $500k in LP TVL. As we scale, partnerships like the one in discussion with Travala will help drive adoption and validation. We anticipate a further surge in users when launching the BNPL card, enabling usage anywhere Visa is accepted. We recognize card products require KYC and regional compliance, and will actively manage these requirements to maximize impact and reach.
We will launch with a pilot of 10 merchants, waiving merchant fees for the first 3 months to drive rapid adoption and minimize onboarding friction. To create viral growth, we’ll leverage the Stellar community and ecosystem partners, sharing merchant case studies, launching a referral program, and collaborating with platforms like Rozo (CCTP-enabled multi-chain payments), Moonlight (trustless payments), and Soroswap (in-app swaps). Early integrations will let users bridge USDC from other blockchains directly to Stellar for seamless use.
Our goal is to remove as many barriers as possible: no fees for merchants or users at launch, with LPs earning APY after the initial growth phase. As user adoption grows, we plan to launch a credit card in partnership with Rain.xyz, enabling BNPL payments anywhere Visa is accepted and allowing users to access credit without selling crypto. We start with Stellar USDC and expand quickly to XLM, BTC, ETH, and other assets, making BNPL borderless, multi-chain, and open to the entire crypto community.
Lumen Later’s testnet deployment is live, featuring fully tested Soroban smart contracts, wallet integration (Freighter), merchant/user dashboards, and a USDC faucet.
Early user pilots and QA demonstrate frictionless bill creation, repayments, and protocol lifecycle, including dozens of successful testnet transactions and settlement flows for both users and merchants.
Received a $20K Stellar grant through StellarX Draper University Accelerator, validating project vision and technical capabilities within the Stellar ecosystem.
Confirmed integration roadmap and engineering discussions with Rozo (multi-chain stablecoin payments), Moonlight (trustless payments), and Soroswap (in-app token swaps), ensuring cross-ecosystem reach.
Currently in advanced partnership scoping with Rain.xyz for a Lumen Later-branded BNPL credit card–, enabling users to generate real-time BNPL loans for any Visa transaction, vastly expanding protocol reach into in-store and e-commerce payments.
Tranche 1 – MVP Deliverable Roadmap
Description:
Core Soroban contracts for BNPL: loan origination/repayment, collateralization, LP, liquidation, and fee logic.
Internal-only devnet deployment with automated unit/integration tests targeting >80% coverage.
MVP Next.js frontend for wallet connectivity, viewing/creating loans, and a minimal merchant admin dashboard.
Basic event indexer and developer documentation for quick onboarding.
How to measure completion:
Critical protocol methods deploy and function on devnet.
Automated unit/integration tests achieve >80% line coverage.
Demo and repository access provided to reviewers.
Video walkthrough and developer README available.
Reproducible scripts for create/repay workflows executed successfully.
Timeline: 6 weeks of work executed between September and late October 2025
Budget: 47,600 USD
Soroban+Rust contract engineering: 120 hours @ 80/hr — 9,600
Next.js/frontend engineering: 60 hours @ 75/hr — 4,500
QA and test automation/devops: 30 hours @ 60/hr — 1,800
Basic event indexer infra + backend: 45 hours @ 65/hr — 2,925
Project documentation, PM, code review: 50 hours @ 55/hr — 2,750
Cloud/development environment — 3,200
Video walkthrough and submission packaging — 1,500
Go-live/live support and contingency — 1,000
Protocol architecture and specs (timeboxed): 80 hours @ 80/hr — 6,400
UX/design for MVP and merchant flows: 50 hours @ 70/hr — 3,500
Security design and threat modeling (timeboxed): 40 hours @ 90/hr — 3,600
Additional engineering buffer (bug fixes/refactors): 60 hours @ 80/hr — 4,800
Tools/licenses and misc. dev utilities — 2,025
Tranche 2 – Testnet Deliverable Roadmap
Description:
Full protocol deployment to Stellar testnet with public dApp and contract addresses.
Role-based views for users/merchants/LPs; enable LP withdrawals; scripted liquidation to complete lifecycle.
Testnet onboarding: 2 volunteer merchants and ≥20 users executing ≥50 lifecycle transactions via reproducible scripts.
Light monitoring: health checks, fee/usage CSV summaries; public docs, Discord community
Timeboxed property-based/fuzz tests on loan math; plan to request SDF Audit Bank support post-testnet.
How to measure completion:
Public testnet dApp link and contract addresses documented.
Reviewer checklist for loan and repay flows completed.
Metrics CSV shows ≥50 lifecycle transactions from ≥20 users and ≥2 merchants.
issue tracker opened for feedback.
Timeline: 7 weeks of work executed between late October and December 2025
Budget: 46,350 USD
Soroban/Rust engineering (deployment, upgrades/bugfixes): 90 hours @ 85/hr — 7,650
Next.js frontend/role-based views: 70 hours @ 75/hr — 5,250
Off-chain CSV automation/static analytics: 50 hours @ 65/hr — 3,250
KYC mocking/testing/QA (incl. property-based tests): 45 hours @ 60/hr — 2,700
Technical documentation + onboarding guides: 40 hours @ 55/hr — 2,200
Public testnet servers/infra — 3,800
Demo video and submission packaging — 1,500
Go-live/live support and contingency — 2,000
Developer documentation, merchant integration guides, reproducible scripts: 80 hours @ 50/hr — 4,000
Security pre-audit preparation and remediation (timeboxed): 60 hours @ 90/hr — 5,400
Monitoring and alerting setup: 30 hours @ 70/hr — 2,100
Integration engineering and test playbooks (merchant flows) — 4,000
Vulnerability triage and patch sprint (timeboxed) — 2,500
Tranche 3 – Mainnet Deliverable Roadmap
Description:
Mainnet deployment of production contracts incorporating security feedback and testnet learnings
Production dApp onboarding for users, merchants, and LPs; CSV-derived analytics page for TVL and transaction counts; open-sourced code.
Go-live targets within first 5 weeks: ≥3 merchants, ≥30 users, TVL ≥ 50,000 USD, and ≥80 on-chain protocol transactions.
Practical compliance workflow: documented provider integration or handoff; final documentation, repos, and 3–5 minute launch video.
Reuse Stellar LaunchKit offerings where applicable (infrastructure credits, audit support requests).
How to measure completion:
Production contracts and frontend live on mainnet with public addresses and repositories.
Reviewer completes an end-to-end small loan flow on mainnet successfully.
Analytics CSV/static page shows ≥50,000 USD TVL and ≥80 transactions within 5 weeks post-launch.
Open-source codebase, final docs, and screen demo submitted.
Timeline: 8 weeks (December 2025–February 2026)
Budget: 37,600 USD
Mainnet contract delivery, upgrades and ops: 60 hours @ 100/hr — 6,000
Final frontend/merchant/LP onboarding: 70 hours @ 80/hr — 5,600
DevOps, monitoring, infra, production cloud (3 months) — 5,800
Compliance workflow (integration or documented handoff) — 5,000
Documentation, QA, launch support: 50 hours @ 60/hr — 3,000
Engineering for security feedback and hardening: 40 hours @ 90/hr — 3,600
Final video and submission packaging: 20 hours @ 75/hr — 1,500
Go-live/live support and contingency — 3,000
Incident response runbooks and on-call rotations: 40 hours @ 60/hr — 2,400
Release runbooks and integration checklists — 1,700
Tristan Kleine-Fournier: Co-Founder & CEO: Led Growth at Harmonix, Investment Partner at DPVS, Led Bitcoin Accelerator
Sungmin Aum: Co-Founder & CTO: Masters in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency 10+ Years System & Blockchain Engineering, Web3 exit, Deep On-Chain Systems Expertise
Seo Sangwon
Tristan Kleine-Fournier
No other submissions.