Author: Top.one
Article Reference: Huma Finance PayFi Ecosystem Map
I. PayFi Concept Emerges
In April 2024, Solana Foundation Chairman Lily Liu first proposed the "PayFi" concept at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. This new term, though novel, precisely hit a key pain point in blockchain finance:
After DeFi and RWA (Real World Assets), the on-chain world still lacks a core component to achieve "daily financial tools" - Payment Financing.
The core of PayFi is not payment itself, but the deep integration of payment and financial functions: reconstructing underlying financial logic such as credit, cash flow, and settlement through on-chain technology, packaging stablecoins, contracts, identity, compliance, custody, and payment systems into an efficient, programmable financial network.
This narrative not only addresses the insufficient application scenarios of DeFi but also opens up the most realistic "fund circulation path" in the real world.
II. Huma Finance's Six-Layer PayFi Ecosystem Structure: Reconstructing the On-Chain Financial Engine
The recently released "PayFi Ecosystem Map" by Huma Finance points out that the PayFi Stack contains six core modules, forming a complete on-chain financial operating system from underlying protocols to application scenarios:
1) Financing Layer: Turning Income Streams into Assets
Core Projects: Huma, Pyth, Chainlink, Credora, S&P Global
Functional Highlights:
Huma uses future cash flows as collateral to create an on-chain "Huabei"
Credora builds an on-chain credit rating system
Chainlink provides asset authenticity verification
Pyth and S&P establish a bridge between on-chain and traditional markets
2) Compliance Layer: On-Chain "Financial Firewall"
Core Projects: Chainalysis, TRMLabs, Polyflow
Functional Highlights:
TRMLabs and Chainalysis provide on-chain risk control and anti-money laundering services
Emerging projects like Polyflow explore the new paradigm of "compliance as code"
3) Custody Layer: Balancing Fund Safety and Flexibility
Core Projects: Fireblocks, Ledger, Phantom, Cobo, Squads
Functional Highlights:
Fireblocks and Ledger provide institutional-level custody solutions
Phantom and Squads focus on user-end non-custodial wallet experience
4) Currency Layer: Stablecoins as the Axis of Payment Ecosystem
Stablecoin Issuers: PayPal, Circle, Agora, Tether, Mountain, RD
Stablecoin Infrastructure Projects: Bridge, Paxos, Portal, Perena
5) Transaction Layer: High-Performance Chains Supporting Real-Time Payments
Core Infrastructure: High-throughput chains like Solana, Stellar
Application Scenarios: Micropayments, cross-border large-amount real-time settlement, etc.
6) Application Layer: From Payment Cards to DePIN Blossoming
Covering sub-domains and representative projects include:
Cross-Border Payments: Arf, Felix, Mural, Opera Mini, XOOM, Bitso, Coins.ph
Crypto Payment Cards: Rain, RedotPay, Reap, Visa, Kulipa, DCS
DePIN Network: Arkreen, DeCharge, DePHY, Roam
Payment Infrastructure: Request Network, Coinflow Labs, Helio, Stripe, Mansa
Trade Finance: Jia, Trad.fi, ZOTH, Isle Finance, On.fund, BSOS
Foreign Exchange FX: SureFX, Shifts Markets
OTC Trading: Yellow Card, BANXA, Fonbnk, Hashkey, etc.
III. PayFi is Not Just "On-Chain Payment", Its Potential Goes Far Beyond
1) Liquidity Engine for RWA
RWA achieves asset on-chain, while PayFi makes these assets "alive".
For example, invoice assets issued based on accounts receivable can be directly pledged for loans, undergo secondary trading, or set up stream payments in the PayFi system, significantly accelerating fund circulation.
2) Accelerator for On-Chain Credit System
PayFi projects generally combine on-chain identity and payment behavior data to establish credit scoring models. In the future, an enterprise's payment cycle, salary stream, customer receivables, etc., can all be used as credit data input to provide customized financing services.
3) Key Entry Point for Financial Embedding in Everything
From ride-hailing and food delivery to logistics nodes, PayFi can achieve embedded financial services of "payment as credit", becoming the underlying financial infrastructure in ecosystems like DePIN and AI Agent.
IV. Future Outlook: Will PayFi Become the Next "Mainstream Narrative"?
Compared to DeFi's high barriers and RWA's institutional attributes, PayFi has truly user-facing application scenarios:
Salary loans and payroll cards
Cross-border settlement and API collection
Payment incentives in DePIN networks
Long-tail financial needs of small and micro entrepreneurs and developing countries
Moreover, PayFi naturally aligns with the current compliance trend:
By establishing an on-chain payment financial system that is auditable and controllable, it allows regulators to clearly see fund flows, credit evolution, and compliance data, providing a landing path for "compliant on-chain finance".
It can be said that PayFi is gradually moving towards a new narrative hub combining Stablecoin + RWA + Compliance.
V. Conclusion: From PayFi, Seeing the Real Landing Path of On-Chain Economy
We are in the process of a structural "decentralized reorganization", and PayFi is one of the most fundamental and critical pieces of this reorganization:
It marks the evolution of on-chain finance from "capital markets" to "daily finance";
It is the key inflection point for Web3 to move from "coin speculation" to "real-life scenarios";
It is the most crucial financial foundation layer for building an on-chain economic body.
Mastering PayFi is understanding the core direction of Web3 financial ecology in the next decade.
