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By Bingtellar
What we’re building
Blink (by Bingtellar) is a Soroban-native programmable escrow and value distribution protocol that transforms USDC transfers into yield-bearing, identity-bound payment. By replacing complex public keys with encrypted URLs and embedding incentives throughout the payment lifecycle, Blink abstracts blockchain friction and turns dead settlement time into productive capital.
📌Our insight
DeFi adoption is constrained less by access and more by user experience. Rather than struggling to onboard users into DeFi, what if financial infrastructure meet users where real economic pain already exists. Across Africa, LatAm, SE Asia, remittances and business payments serve as a crucial lifeline for 40% of the population, (supporting freelancing income, healthcare support, commerce, supply payments, and business settlement), yet these flows currently represent the world’s largest pool of idle capital, typically sit at 0% yield while in transit or pending delivery. By embedding yield-bearing primitives directly into these high-frequency and high-friction payment workflows, we transform the payment rail itself and convert dead settlement time into protocol-driven APY (historically 6–13%).
This means, at scale, moving $1M annually generates $60k–$130k in incremental value, without changing existing payment behaviour.
By settling instantly and earning yield in motion, global payments evolve from a passive cost center into active value-creation infrastructure and deFi remain simple for non-crypto users.
✅ Our solution
Blink turns payment into a yield-bearing instrument governed by a deterministic escrow state machine, designed to facilitate both instant and time-based transfers. The protocol employs a set of smart contract agreements: Flow, Lockup (Set Time / Set Amount), Yield and claim. When creating a payment, the sender deposits the amount they are looking to pay into the Blink protocol and configure the settlement parameters/ set time ( claimTime, dueTime), following the distribution and settlement configuration set by the sender the funds are then progressively escrowed and routed to yield strategies and pools, waiting to get handed over and claimed by the recipient within the contract.
For instant payments, the recipient can withdraw and claim anytime but for time locked payments, once the contract detects that funds have claimTime and dueTime, the protocol automatically activates yield generation during the settlement window. Instead of sitting idle, the escrowed liquidity is routed to approved on-chain yield sources where it accrues return while the payment awaits redemption.
Yield accrual continues only while funds remain in escrow, and the moment the recipient claims the payment through the encrypted link, the contract deterministically unwinds the yield position and settles the principal to the recipient. The accrued yield is then programmatically distributed according to the payout rules defined at contract creation. This architecture turns payment latency “ historically a dead, non-productive settlement period“ into programmable financial throughput.
The result is a new category of infrastructure where businesses earn while they move money, unlocking yield from payroll, remittances, and global payout flows that traditionally generate zero return. This solution can be used for vesting for investors and teams, Payroll cycles for salaries and contractor payments, grant payments for NGOs, Foundations and DAOs, escrow-based vendor/supply payments, milestone-based payouts and also Airdrops.
🔄 How it Works:
1. Funding and Escrow Instantiation: A sender initiates a payment, the funds are locked directly into a Soroban Vault and the contract governs custody. Each disbursement creates a unique escrow instance containing: principal: i128, asset: Address (USDC SAC), sender: Address, claim_hash: Bytes32, expiry_ledger: u32, yield_policy: Enum, settlement_route: Enum, status: Enum { Active, Claimed, Expired, Cancelled }
Value & Impact: This moves custody from a discretionary wallet to a deterministic contract. It eliminates "sender's remorse" or "wrong address" errors, as the sender retains a permissionless cancellation right until the recipient claims. This introduces programmable trust to the network.
3. Identity-Bound Verification & Claim: The recipient accesses the "Link" and authenticates their identity (Email/OTP) to authorize the release of funds.
Stellar Implementation: SEP-10 is used for challenge-response authentication. Once verified, the recipient's browser-local keypair signs a transaction that matches the claim_hash stored on-chain.
Value & Impact: This provides cryptographic binding of funds to a specific individual without needing their public key upfront. It replaces the "Address Copy-Paste" UX with a familiar "Login" flow, making the protocol Sybil-resistant and institutionally viable for Enterprises.
4. Deterministic Settlement: Upon SEP-10 identity verification, the contract atomically releases the principal amount and splits the yield between parties according to the preset policy. If unclaimed by deadline, the contract automatically returns funds (and yield) to the sender.
5. Global Settlement & Off-ramping: Once the claim is validated, the recipient chooses their final settlement endpoint (Wallet, Bank accounts, mobile money, or Cash). Stellar Implementation: Integrated via SEP-24 and SEP-31. If the user chooses a non-crypto payout, funds are routed through Stellar Anchors (like MoneyGram or regional partners) for fiat delivery and also supported by Bingtellar on/ramp capabilities in certain corridors . Value & Impact: This completes the loop from Digital Asset to Real-World Value. By supporting both on-chain and off-chain endpoints, Blink positions Stellar as the universal settlement layer for global adoption.
Additional: Resource-Sponsorship & Account Abstraction: For new users and recipients without an existing Stellar presence, Blink programmatically provisions a non-custodial account.
Stellar Implementation: Utilizing CAP-0033, Blink executes a Sponsorship Sandwich. The project’s treasury account sponsors the base reserve (1.0 XLM) and the USDC trustline (0.5 XLM) via BeginSponsoringFutureReserves.
Value & Impact: This removes the primary barrier to entry, the 1.0 XLM minimum balance. It enables 0.0 XLM onboarding, allowing non-crypto users to receive funds without understanding gas fees or reserves. This significantly increases Stellar's Active Account metric.
📈 Impact on the Stellar Ecosystem
Blink acts as a differentiator and liquidity velocity multiplier for Bingtellar and it optimizes the network's economic surface area for Stellar:
Network Sticky-ness: By generating yield, we incentivize users to keep capital on Stellar longer. This transforms transient remittance and off-ramping flows into sticky network liquidity, directly increasing USDC TVL.
Drives Adoption: By removing the need for public keys and XLM, it lowers the CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) for the entire network, making Stellar viable for non-crypto NGOs and SMBs..
Protocol Synergy: Blink is a "Stellar-Native Glue" that stress-tests and aggregates the latest innovations (Soroban, Blend, DeFindex, and SEP-24/31) into a singular, high-utility product.
Real-World Utility: We solve the "Public Key Problem" for NGOs and businesses, moving Stellar from a "crypto-niche" to a global payment standard.
Developer Support: We offer a modular integration layer. Any payment operator or anchor on Stellar can integrate Blink to monetize their existing FX and payment flows without building yield-routing infrastructure from scratch.
Why Blink yield-bearing payments matter
Blink solves the hardest problems in payments:
Offsets fees: Yield subsidizes transaction and FX costs
Improves liquidity: Idle balances fund future payouts
Enables sustainability: Payments become self-reinforcing
-Aligns incentives: Senders, recipients, and platforms all benefit
For NGOs, yield reduces dependence on donor capital. For SMBs, it lowers payroll and vendor costs. For platforms, it creates new revenue without raising fees.
Money flows accruing yield second by second, withdraw-able anytime, and composable with DeFi. Access to income would become a function of time rather than a function of when a batch process executes. Blink’s mission is to exponentially grow onchain economies and communities.
$112.8K
We validated the architecture and product before writing this proposal, leveraging Bingtellar's proven cross-border infrastructure to meet market demand.
1. Proven Traction & Scalability 📈
🌍 Humanitarian Impact: Successfully facilitated a $1.5M USDC pilot with 4Health, delivering aid to 2,000+ frontline health workers across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, enabling 4Health to save fees and earn yield.
🤝 B2B Readiness: 20–30 partners are prepared for mainnet trials with projected volumes of $10M–$20M USDC.
👥 User Demand: 500+ consumer waitlist and a strategic Telegram partnership targeting 2M+ potential users.
🏘️ Local Presence: 150 SMB ambassadors across 5 African corridors providing localized onboarding and education.
2. Industry Recognition & Trust 🛡️
💎 Strategic Partner: Recipient of the inaugural Circle/USDC grant, validating our technical approach and stablecoin integration.
🗺️ Ecosystem Mapping: Featured in ArchetypeVC’s 2025 and 2026 on-chain payments landscape and Chuks (Paxos) Africa stablecoin ecosystem map.
🎓 Thought Leadership: Co-founder featured as a speaker for the StellarSurge (DFS Lab) program.
3. Technical Foundation ⚙️
🏗️ Architecture: Product design and Stellar integration pathways are fully documented and validated through feedback loops.
📄 Documentation: Whitepaper & Roadmap
_ _
⚡️Our Progress so far:
A: Integration Research & Discovery - Completed✅
B: Figma Prototype - Completed ✅ -- Figma is available if review team ask/ request for access.
C: Protocol design & Math finalised and tested ✅
D: >12K lines of code, finished the V1 smart contract ✅
E. UI MVP ready ✅
Deliverable 1: Soroban Escrow Smart Contract (v1)
Description:
Develop, implement and deploy the core Soroban-based escrow contract that locks USDC, enforces conditional releases, and integrates with on-chain yield protocols and also tracks recipient hashes and manages yield accrual. The contract will store escrow state, yield source reference, and emit indexed events for analytics and other key escrow operations.
Technical Specifications
Deterministic Escrow: Implements secure USDC locking using Keccak-256 identity-bound commitments to preserve recipient privacy.
Yield Orchestration: Integration with DeFindex and Blend Capital to route "idle" float into optimal yield-bearing strategy pools.
State Machine: Core implementation of claim(), cancel(), and expire() entrypoints with strict reentrancy protection and "Fail-Soft" principal invariants.
On-Chain Auditability: Persistent on-ledger metadata storage and structured, indexed events optimized for Soroban RPC indexing and off-chain reconciliation.
Completion Metrics (How to Measure Completion):
Contract will be available on GitHub.
Fully deployed and verified on Soroban localnet with ≥95% unit and integration test coverage, validating escrow logic, event emissions, and contract determinism.
Static analysis and code linting (Soroban CLI, cargo fmt, clippy) with zero critical warnings.
Technical documentation covering ABI schema, event logs, and state structure published.
Budget: $15,000 in XLM
Allocation:
Expert Engineering Resources & Smart Contract Security Implementation
1 Lead Smart Contract Engineer - 120 hours x $75/hour = $9,000
1 Senior Backend / SDK Engineer - 70 hours x $65/hour = $5200
1 QA Engineer - 40 hours x $50/hour = $2,0000
Contract linting and review = $150
Deliverable 2: Backend API & Email Service
Description:
Development of a high-performance bridge (Rust + TypeScript) connecting user identity to on-chain execution.
* Concurrent Nonce Management: A robust system to handle overlapping transaction signings without sequence collisions on Soroban.
* Secure Identity Mapping: Backend logic for email-based Keccak-256 hash generation and unique "Blink Link" creation.
* Relayer Logic: A secure, automated signing service that abstracts gas fees and transaction complexity from the end-user.
Completion Metrics:
* Deployed test API + working email notifications for claims/cancellations
* Fully integrated transactional email service for automated claim/cancellation alerts with >99% deliverability.
* REST API endpoints live; escrow operations trigger confirmed Soroban txs; verified end-to-end claim/cancel demo.
Duration: 3.5 weeks
Budget: $16,865 in XLM
Allocation:
1 Lead Blockchain/Backend Engineer (Rust Specialist) - 105 hours x 75/hour = $7,875
1 Full-Stack / API Engineer (TypeScript) - 103 hours x $50hour = $5,150
1 DevOps / Infrastructure Engineer - 52 hours x $40/hour = $2,080
Transactional Email API ( SendGrid), Security & API Hardening, Monitoring & Logging = $1,790
Deliverable 3: Web App (User dashboard and Claim Portal)
Description:
Develop and build a production-ready web application that serves as the primary user interface for interacting with Blink’s Soroban-powered escrow and remittance infrastructure (Built using Next.js + Stellar SDK) , the dApp will deliver a secure, intuitive, and responsive experience for both senders and recipients, allowing: (i) sender to input amount + recipient email and send USDC, (ii) backend returns claim link, (iii) recipient opens link, verifies email, and claims. Includes wallet connect (Freighter).
Completion Metrics:
* Users can create transfers, claim funds, and view transaction state.
* End-to-end user flow operational — sender → escrow creation → claim → payout / settlement.
* Accurate UI reflections of real-time onchain state updates and events.
* Fully deployed MVP build with CI/CD setup and documentation ready for testnet migration.
Duration: 3 weeks
Budget: $17,625 in XLM
Allocation:
1 Lead Frontend Engineer (Senior) - 105 hours x $85/hr = $8,500
1 Product/UI-UX Developer - 75 hours x $65/hour = $4,875
1 Frontend / Web3 Engineer - 85 hours x $50/hour = $4,250
Deliverable 4: Embedded Non-Custodial Wallet (Stellar Wallet SDK)
Description: Implement a fully embedded non-custodial wallet flow using the Stellar Wallet SDK. Implement SEP-10 for authentication and SEP-30 (Recovery) logic to ensure that if a user loses their device, they can regain access via social recovery or recovery signers, maintaining a 100% non-custodial status.
* Multi-signature admin controls: 2-of-3 multisig for contract upgrades
* CAP-0033 sponsored reserves : This enables first-time Stellar users to receive funds without holding XLM.
Completion Metrics
* ≥20 sponsored accounts created on Stellar Testnet
* 50+ claim/cancel scenarios
* Verified non-custodial signing flows
Duration: 3 weeks | Budget: $15,325
Allocation:
1 Senior Blockchain / Wallet Integration Engineer - 100 hours x $70 / hour = $7,000
1 Senior Backend / Authentication Engineer - 85 hours x $65 / hour = $5,525
1 Senior Security & Protocol Engineer - 70 hours x $40 / hour = $2,800
Total Tranche 1 : $64,815 in XLM
Budget covers Engineering: and Infrastructure/Ops (CI, RPC, staging, monitoring bootstrap)
Goal: This tranche expands on the MVP, deploy the system on Stellar Testnet, implement yield distribution, dashboard analytics, and begin limited pilot tests with early partners. Publicly live on Stellar Testnet with audited contracts, verified yield flow, and user-ready dashboard.
Deliverable 1. Soroban Escrow v2 (Yield & Timelock Extensions)
Description:
Extend contract with accrueYield(), claimableAfter(), and deadline() functions. Integrate on-chain yield from Defindex, Stellar AMMs, or future money-market contracts. Optimize WASM bytecode for gas efficiency.
Completion Metrics:
Contract verified on Testnet; yield accrues in sandbox pool; gas usage <5% variance under load tests.
Fully functioning Testnet version of contract.
Duration: 2 weeks
Budget: $5,000 in XLM
Deliverable 2. Yield Aggregator Engine (Strategy Router)
Description:
Create vault manager (which oversees strategies and the assets within vaults), Rebalance manager (which allocates funds across strategies), Emergency manager (which handles rescues and pauses risky strategies), Fee receiver (collects and manages performance fees), and assign vault roles.
Create a yield aggregator that periodically routes idle escrows into low-risk yield pools (via Soroban calls) and credits yield back to escrow vault on claim.
Implement a yield router, integrating with on-chain DeFi strategies (powered by Definex, connected to Blend capital or wrapped USDC pools).
Completion Metrics:
Duration: 2 weeks
Budget: $5,000 in XLM
Deliverable 3. Admin & User Dashboard (Analytics + Controls)
Description: Develop and Implement full admin dashboard for viewing sent payments, pending settlements, active escrows, yields, fees, and performance metrics. User dashboard shows payment and claim status, yield earned, and overall history.
Completion Metrics:
Integration of backend and frontend with smart contract
User can view active escrows, user transactions, and fee summaries Metrics refresh in real time; users can simulate cancel/claim.
Duration: 3.5 weeks
Budget: $15,000 in XLM
Total Tranche 2: $25,000 in XLM
Budget covers Engineering and Infrastructure/Ops (testnets, log/metrics pipelines, CI scale-up)
Goal: Launch on Stellar Mainnet, ensure production-grade performance, security, and first-user adoption. Fully operational mainnet system with verifiable contracts, working yield accrual, settlement and early transaction volume.
**
Deliverable 1. Mainnet Contract Deployment & Verification**
Description:
Deploy the audited escrow contracts to Stellar Mainnet; verify with on-chain transaction hashes and block explorers.
**
Completion Metrics:**
Mainnet smart contract deployment
Verified contract address, mainnet transactions confirmed.
Duration: 2 weeks
Budget: $10,000 in XLM
**
Deliverable 2. Compliance & Fee Logic Module**
Description:
Implement dynamic fee logic for payouts and cancellations, configurable in contract metadata. Add off-chain KYC hooks.
**
Completion Metrics:**
Fee events logged on-chain; compliance module passes integration tests. Admin can adjust parameters via multisig transaction.
Duration: 2 weeks | Budget: $3,000 in XLM
Deliverable 3. Production Infrastructure & Monitoring Stack
Description: Set up containerized production infra (Docker + AWS Fargate or Fly.io), monitoring via Prometheus/Grafana, on-chain event watcher, and 99.5% uptime SLA.
Completion Metrics:
Load-tested. Health dashboards live; automatic alerting via Discord + PagerDuty.
Duration: 2 week | Budget: $5,000 in XLM
Deliverable 4. Soroban Contract Indexer & Analytics Subgraph
Description: Develop a lightweight event indexer that listens to Soroban escrow events and structures data for analysis and dashboards. This would be developed using Horizon + RPC that parses escrow events (EscrowCreated, EscrowClaimed, etc.) into a structured analytics feed (Postgres + API). Enables transparency and debugging for mainnet users.
Completion Metrics:
Indexer deployed; analytics dashboard shows live EscrowCreated / Claimed / Cancelled / Reverted events in near real time.
Duration: 2 weeks
Budget: $5,000 in XLM
**
Deliverable 5: On-Ramp and Off-Ramp Infrastructure Set-Up and Maintenance**
Description:
This phase focuses on the deployment and continuous maintenance of the backend infrastructure enabling fiat-to-USDC (on-ramp) and USDC-to-fiat (off-ramp) operations. The infrastructure will be powered by Bingtellar’s proprietary on/off-ramp system, providing seamless integration between fiat payment rails and Stellar USDC settlements.
Through this setup, users will be able to:
Top up their Blink accounts with fiat via local payment channels (bank transfer or mobile money).
Redeem/claim USDC directly to their local bank or mobile money accounts with real-time conversion and settlement.
Bingtellar’s deep local payment coverage across Africa ensures instant liquidity and frictionless movement between fiat and digital assets.
The supported local payment rails include: (1). MPesa in Kenya. (2). MTN MoMo, AirtelTigo, Vodafone cash in Ghana. (3). Airtel Money, MTN MoMo, in Uganda. (4). Local bank transfer in Nigeria.
This deliverable includes system integration, API configuration, access provisioning, and compliance alignment to ensure seamless Stellar USDC settlements across all supported markets.
Completion Metrics:
Successful API connection and configuration with all local payment providers listed
≥ 98% success rate of successfully processed on/off-ramp transactions across all supported countries
≤ 5 minutes per transaction - Average time from transaction initiation to fiat or USDC settlement confirmation
Minimum 200-500 transactions in pilot phase - Number of unique on/off-ramp transactions processed post-deployment
Budget: $0 - This is Managed by Bingtellar
Total Tranche 3: $23,000 in XLM
Budget covers Engineering and Infrastructure/Ops (prod RPC, alerting, indexers, dashboards, SRE runbooks)
We're a strong, high-performing and fast-moving team of engineers, designers & growth experts building the future of financial services for consumers and businesses in Africa.
(a). Name: Joshua Tebepina
Position: Co-founder & CEO
Bio: Joshua Tebepina is a serial technical founder with over a decade of software engineering experience, five years in Web3, and a proven track record building products at the intersection of finance, payments, and blockchain infrastructure (formally tagged the master of cross-border payments in Africa). Previously co-founded a software development agency that has built and scaled over 12 products to hundreds of thousands of users across different continents and he has worked at a number of startups outside of founding his own.
Deeply passionate about financial inclusion, Joshua has contributed to Ethereum, Celo and several other cryptocurrency projects communities and technology adoption in Africa has been instrumental in advancing Web3 adoption across Africa, both through hands-on development and community leadership. His contributions have earned him recognition as one of Africa’s Top 100 Web3 Leaders by Nodo, spotlighting his work in shaping the continent’s next-gen financial infrastructure.
Skills: Software Engineer (Python, React and react native, Blockchain) BD & Partnership, Product design
LinkedIn - Joshua Tebepina | Joshua Headshot | Twitter - @jcbrizzy Github: https://github.com/jcdirect
(b). Name: Arepade Peremi
Position: Co-founder & CTO
Bio: Peremi is a serial founder with over 7+ years in Software Engineering. Ex Vatebra and has a very good experience and solid technical background in software development, payments, machine learning, and blockchain development and data analytics. He brings his wealth of experience to scale and grow the Bingtellar ecosystem to millions of users.
Skills: Software and System Engineer - Python and Django, Go, blockchain, Machine learning, systems design
Expertise in building payment systems and managing transactions onchain and over 15+ other blockchain protocols.
LinkedIn - Arepade Peremi | Peremi Headshot | Discord: Arepadeperemi#8092
Arepade Peremi
Joshua Tebepina
By Bingtellar
Blink (By Bingtellar) - Payments + Yield
By Bingtellar
Bingtellar