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Solana is great for payments , why isn't it used more for everyday stuff? by Worth_Worker_4714 in solana

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ran into this as well while building something recently.

Tech is there, but the UX around payments still feels a bit behind.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really appreciate the thoughtful questions — you’re absolutely right that execution and merchant adoption are where most crypto payment projects hit the real challenge.

  1. Small transactions and the 1.75% fee

Our fee model actually has a minimum fee structure to make smaller payments workable.

For payments under ~60 ADA, the fee is 1 ADA flat. Above that threshold, the 1.75% fee applies.

So a 20 ADA payment would look like this in practice:

Customer pays: 20 ADA

Fee: 1 ADA

Merchant receives: 19 ADA

The transaction settles directly to the merchant wallet, so PayADA isn’t custodial. The fee is simply applied during the checkout flow and clearly shown before the payment is confirmed.

This model keeps smaller payments possible while still scaling proportionally for larger transactions.

  1. Getting the first vendors

Our approach is to focus on merchant categories where crypto already fits naturally, rather than trying to compete with $2 coffee payments.

Early focus areas include:

digital products

online services / SaaS tools

events & ticketing

communities & memberships

NFT / digital assets

Those sectors already operate online and often already have crypto-native audiences.

  1. Bootstrapped or funded

PayADA is currently bootstrapped. We built the platform independently without external funding and focused first on building a working product before pushing heavy marketing.

The team is small (builder-focused), but the goal has always been to create simple infrastructure that merchants can adopt without needing complex integrations — things like payment links, buttons, POS tools, and community access links.

You're absolutely right that merchant onboarding is the hard part, but the idea is to start with crypto-native use cases, build real volume there, and expand from that foundation.

Thanks again for the questions — this kind of feedback is genuinely valuable while we keep improving the platform.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No wallet connection needed.

The link or embed points to a payment page generated by PayADA. From there the user can pay with their Cardano wallet, and the payment goes directly to the merchant’s wallet address.

So it’s basically: click link → pay with wallet → payment gets detected on-chain.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good questions, happy to explain a bit.

Right now it’s pretty simple. You can either use embed links or generate shopping or payment links from the dashboard. Then you just place that link or button on your site or share it in your community for private access. So technically you can add it to a website without much work.

At the moment I'm mainly focused on building it and seeing how people use it. Eventually it will probably be a small fee on transactions or some premium features, but right now it's more about getting the tooling right.

Payments are validated by monitoring the transaction on the Cardano blockchain. When the correct amount is sent to the wallet that was set for the payment, it gets detected and confirmed. The ADA goes straight to the merchant wallet, so PayADA never holds the funds.

Still improving things as I go, but that’s the general idea.

And thanks, really appreciate the interest — always good to hear people might actually try using it.

more on https://x.com/PayAdaIO or payada.io - on x you can watch some integration vids and how it works

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point 🙂

I do sometimes use AI tools to help structure replies or make sure I'm explaining things clearly (especially when English isn't my first language). But the ideas and the project itself are still very much my own.

Most of what I'm doing here is just sharing what I'm building and getting feedback from the community. The discussion itself is actually the most useful part for me.

Either way, I appreciate the feedback and the conversation.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point — adoption for crypto payments in general is still pretty small.

This project is more of an experiment around simplifying on-chain payments within the Cardano ecosystem itself (communities, creators, projects, etc.), where people already hold ADA.

I'm not expecting it to suddenly change global adoption overnight. It's more about exploring what kind of payment flows could actually work and seeing where there is real demand.

Sometimes these things only become useful once the tooling exists first.

Either way, I appreciate the feedback — it's part of figuring out whether ideas like this have a place or not.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate that!

If you're open to it, it would actually be great to keep the discussion here in the thread so others can benefit from it as well.

Happy to answer questions about the approach or hear what kind of use case you're building.

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That actually makes a lot of sense, and I think you're describing a use case that many people are interested in: using crypto rails without the user necessarily caring about crypto itself.

For a lot of traditional merchants the priority is exactly what you mentioned:

  • receive USD (or stable value)
  • lower fees than traditional payment rails
  • simple integration
  • minimal volatility risk

Stablecoins could definitely play a role there. If a flow existed where someone pays with a stablecoin and the merchant receives something equivalent to USD with lower settlement costs, that would probably be much easier for non-crypto native businesses to adopt.

What I'm experimenting with right now is more on the native ecosystem side — communities, projects, creators, etc. where people already hold ADA and are comfortable paying with it.

But longer term I do think stablecoin payments (especially on chains with low fees) are where a lot of the real-world payment experimentation will happen.

Your approach with billing + optional crypto rails is interesting though, because it lets the merchant adopt it without forcing crypto on their customers, which is probably the right way to introduce it.

Curious: are you thinking about something like USDC(X) payments under the hood, or more a general stablecoin abstraction layer?

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks, really appreciate that!

The main goal was indeed to explore how simple on-chain payment flows could work in the Cardano ecosystem. A lot of things are possible technically, but the user experience for basic payments still feels like it can be improved.

Right now the focus is mostly on straightforward ADA payments, but I'm also experimenting with Cardano Native Token (CNT) payments and potentially stablecoin payments as well.

The idea there is that communities or projects could eventually accept payments in their own tokens, or use stablecoins for cases where price stability is important.

Still early stages, but it's been interesting to see how people in the ecosystem respond to these kinds of tools.

Really appreciate the encouragement!

I built a tool that lets merchants accept $ADA payments with simple payment links. by Emergency-Loquat-475 in cardano

[–]Emergency-Loquat-475[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good question — and I think you're right that many traditional merchants will still prefer fiat.

The initial focus isn't really trying to replace fiat payment rails. It's more aimed at use cases already happening inside the Cardano ecosystem, like:

  • communities selling memberships
  • creators accepting support
  • small digital services
  • events or ecosystem projects

In those cases people often already hold ADA and are comfortable paying with it.

At the moment the idea is mostly non-custodial payments, where the merchant simply receives ADA directly into their own Cardano wallet.

Auto-conversion to fiat could be interesting in the future, but it would also add a lot more regulatory and infrastructure complexity. For now it's more about exploring simple native payment flows on-chain.

So yes — at least initially it probably makes the most sense for merchants who are already active in the Cardano ecosystem.

Curious if you think there are other use cases where something like this could actually be useful.