“The fastest path between money and value — powered by AI and microservices.”
The global payment infrastructure — especially crypto-to-fiat and cross-border flows — is fundamentally broken.
- Each provider (PSP, OTC, exchange) operates in isolation.
- Users manually compare rates → inefficiency and poor pricing.
- No unified global liquidity layer.
- Most payment aggregators are custodial.
- Users must trust middlemen (FTX, Celsius — ring a bell?).
- No transparent on-chain audit or escrow logic.
- Round-robin or static routing logic dominates the space.
- Provider downtime leads to failed transactions and poor UX.
- No AI scoring, no dynamic selection.
- Monolithic systems choke under volume.
- Queues, locks, and race conditions everywhere.
- Throughput doesn’t scale linearly — it collapses exponentially under load.
- Limited support for Africa, LATAM, and SEA.
- Local rails (M-Pesa, Opay, Flutterwave, wallets) are ignored.
- Billions remain excluded or underserved.
Paynode is an AI-native, non-custodial, microservice-based payment aggregator built to make global settlements fast, intelligent, and trustless.
Mission: Build the TCP/IP layer for global money — composable, autonomous, and infinitely scalable.
- Aggregates thousands of PSPs, OTC desks, and local agents globally.
- Single API access for global liquidity discovery.
- Currency-based sharding (e.g.,
NGN,KES,USD) ensures local optimization.
- Funds locked in smart contract escrow — never held by Paynode.
- Transparent, trustless, and verifiable settlement.
- Zero counterparty risk.
- AI analyzes 30+ provider metrics (success rate, speed, cost, uptime, balance ratio).
- Scores providers dynamically and routes to the best possible match.
- Learns from every transaction — self-optimizing routing engine.
- Each currency/region is an independent shard (Rust microservice).
- Uses NATS for async message passing and Redis Sorted Sets for O(log n) routing lookups.
- Scales linearly — more shards = more capacity.
- Handles 100,000+ concurrent users and 10,000+ TPS.
- Tracks provider success rates, latency, and availability live.
- AI model retrains continuously for predictive routing.
- Proactively avoids underperforming providers — minimizing failed orders.
Paycrest.xyz is a solid aggregator but built on static routing logic and monolithic architecture — not scalable for the next billion users.
| Category | Paycrest.xyz | Paynode Advantage |
|---|---|---|
| Routing | Round-robin / first-fit (O(n)) | AI Scored Routing (O(log n) + learning) |
| Scalability | Centralized server bottlenecks | Fully distributed microservices |
| State Management | Shared Redis queues | Decoupled event-driven (NATS) |
| Adaptability | Static configs | Real-time self-learning |
| AI Layer | None | Built-in inference layer |
| Failure Handling | Retry → Cancel | Predictive routing + auto-failover |
- A single queue + monolith = performance cliff.
- “First-fit” logic overloads certain providers while others idle.
- Race conditions cause dropped or duplicated orders.
Paynode, by contrast, scales horizontally and intelligently:
- AI-based routing balances load dynamically.
- Microservices isolate failure domains.
- Predictive selection ensures uptime under unpredictable conditions.
flowchart LR
A["👤 Client
Application"] --> B["🚪 API Gateway
Request Validation"]
B --> C["🔒 Smart Contract
Escrow"]
C --> D["📋 Order Service
State Management"]
D --> E["📨 Message Broker
NATS Events"]
E --> F["🤖 AI Router
Provider Scoring"]
F -->|Provider
Metrics| G["📊 Provider
Registry"]
G -->|Optimal
Provider| H["💳 Payment
Provider Service"]
H --> I["🏦 Payment
Gateway"]
I --> J["⚙️ Settlement
Service"]
J --> K["⛓️ Blockchain
Settlement"]
K --> L["📈 Analytics
Engine"]
L -.->|Model
Training| F
subgraph MS["🏗️ MICROSERVICES ARCHITECTURE"] D F G H J end
classDef primary fill:#0F172A,stroke:#0EA5E9,color:#E0F2FE,stroke-width:3px; classDef secondary fill:#1E293B,stroke:#64748B,color:#CBD5E1,stroke-width:2px; classDef highlight fill:#0C4A6E,stroke:#0284C7,color:#BAE6FD,stroke-width:3px; classDef group fill:#1E1B4B,stroke:#6366F1,color:#E0E7FF,stroke-width:3px;
class A,B,C,E primary; class D,F,G,H,J highlight; class I,K,L secondary; class MS group;
Flow Summary
Order Creation: User creates a payment → Escrow locks funds.
Event Dispatch: Blockchain event triggers NATS broadcast.
AI Routing: Paynode AI ranks providers and selects the best fit.
Execution: Provider fulfills payment via bank/PSP API.
Settlement: Escrow releases funds upon success.
Feedback Loop: AI updates provider performance scores.
Latency: <200ms routing | Settlement: 1–2 minutes | Success Rate: >90%
🚀 What Other Aggregators Lack
| Feature | Traditional Aggregators | Paynode |
|---|---|---|
| Routing Logic | Static / Round-robin | AI Scoring + Probabilistic Routing |
| Architecture | Monolithic | Rust Microservices |
| Learning | None | Continuous ML Feedback |
| Custody | Custodial | Smart Contract Escrow |
| Latency | Seconds–Minutes | <100ms Routing Decisions |
| Coverage | Limited | 50+ Currencies, 100+ Countries |
| Resilience | Centralized | Distributed + Fault-tolerant |
🧱 Tech Stack
Language: Rust 🦀
Messaging Layer: NATS
Cache: Redis Sorted Sets
Routing Engine: Gemini / LLM-based Scoring
Infra: Kubernetes + Docker
DB: PostgreSQL
Blockchain: Base for escrow & settlement
Environment Variables
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
REDIS_URL |
Redis connection string |
NATS_URL |
NATS message bus endpoint |
DATABASE_URL |
Postgres connection string |
AI_ROUTER_URL |
Internal AI scoring endpoint |
CHAIN_RPC_URL |
Blockchain RPC endpoint |
📈 Roadmap
Node.js & Rust SDKs
Provider Reputation Dashboard
AI Routing API (public)
Decentralized Governance Layer
Multi-chain Escrow Expansion
🪙 License
MIT License © Olujimi Adebakin
🌐 Learn More
Docs: paynode.dev/docs (coming soon)
Follow the Vision: @olujimi_the_dev
Built for the builders who believe money should move as fast as data.