During the Singapore 2049 Summit, the "PayFi Summit" co-hosted by Huma Finance, Solana and StellarOrg was successfully held. This summit brought together top projects in the blockchain payment field, showcasing 12 innovative projects covering cross-border payments, RWA tokenization, Web3 financial infrastructure and other areas.
Among them, one of the organizers, the RWA tokenization platform Huma Finance, completed a $38 million financing round in September, led by Distributed Global, with participation from HashKey Capital, Folius Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation and TIBAS Ventures. Huma Finance's financial payment platform aims to use blockchain technology to solve the liquidity needs of trade finance, to achieve faster settlement.
Arf: Cryptocurrency Global Cross-Border Payment and Settlement Platform
Arf is a global cross-border payment and settlement platform using USDC stablecoin, specifically providing licensed currency service enterprises (such as payment institutions, remittance companies) and financial institutions with cryptocurrency-based working capital and settlement services. It aims to solve the capital occupation problem of traditional cross-border payments by optimizing the payment process.
Arf completed a $13 million seed round financing in October 2022, with investors including Circle Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, Hard Yaka, NGC Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund and 500 Emerging Europe. This round of financing is used to provide global fund management and working capital credit lines for financial institutions and licensed currency service enterprises in the cross-border payment industry.
BackedFi: RWA Asset Tokenization Platform
BackedFi is an EU-regulated RWA asset tokenization platform. It provides various RWA tokenization services, including ERC-20 compatible traditional exchange-traded fund (ETF) token versions and tokenized stocks.
The company has launched tokenized Tesla (bTSLA), Microsoft (bMSFT), Google (bGOOGL) and GameStop (bGME) stocks, S&P 500 index ETF (bCSPX), as well as tokenized Apple (bAAPL) and iShares government bonds (bIB01) in collaboration with cryptocurrency company INX.
These assets are established under EU securities law and are marked on the Polygon Proof-of-Stake network, backed 1:1 by their underlying stocks. The newly listed tokenized securities allow traders to enjoy 24/7 service, fractional ownership and blockchain security. Eligible investors can trade these traditional securities outside of standard stock market hours and fund their accounts using cryptocurrencies.
Bridge: Stablecoin-Based Cross-Border Payment Platform
Bridge aims to build an efficient, low-cost payment platform through stablecoins, enabling enterprises to bypass the traditional banking system and achieve fast settlement, reduced fees and lower exchange rate volatility risks in cross-border fund management, especially for B2B payments. Bridge has partnered with Latin American cryptocurrency exchange Bitso.
Bridge completed a $58 million financing round in August this year, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Index and Haun Ventures.
BSOSTech: Supply Chain Finance Web3 Solution
BSOSTech aims to develop more efficient and transparent Web3 solutions for traditional supply chain finance processes through its SUPLEX digitalization platform. Collaborations with ConsenSys and Tether further enhance BSOSTech's capabilities in blockchain and international finance, providing compliant and secure cross-border payment and financing services for suppliers and enterprises. These services can reduce the capital pressure of enterprises and drive the digital transformation of global supply chain finance.
Easy Labs: Programmable Payment Solutions
Easy Labs provides solutions that allow enterprises and developers to manage payment and financial processes more efficiently and flexibly. Through SDKs and no-code platforms, users can design automated financial logic based on specific needs, achieving full automation of payment processes, thereby reducing manual costs, improving efficiency, and reducing the risk of errors.
Helio Pay: Crypto Payment Gateway Supporting Shopify
Helio Pay is a crypto payment solution that provides convenience for e-commerce, pre-sales and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) markets. By integrating Solana Pay technology, merchants can accept various stablecoins (such as USDC, USDT, PYUSD) for payment and enjoy the benefits of low fees, instant settlement and global accessibility.
Additionally, NFT holders can also receive discounts, cNFT airdrops and Discord membership benefits. Helio Pay also supports automatically converting cryptocurrency earnings to fiat, helping merchants reduce the risk of price volatility.
PolyFlow: Web3 Supply Chain Finance Platform
PolyFlow is a multi-chain PayFi protocol that supports users registering payment IDs (PIDs) across multiple blockchain networks, managing funds and generating yields through self-custodial wallets, and is compatible with DeFi services. Users can apply for PolyFlow payment cards to deposit cryptocurrency assets and spend globally.
PolyFlow also collaborates with Roam and Huma Finance to participate in the DePIN hardware lending program, providing on-chain supply chain finance support for IoT projects to accelerate the deployment of hardware facilities.
Portal: Cryptocurrency Payment Gateway
Portal builds embedded cryptocurrency wallets for mobile devices and Web3, featuring MPC API and account abstraction. It provides wallet solutions for banks, exchanges, and credit card issuers.
Pay With Ripe: Crypto Payment Gateway Focused on Southeast Asia
Pay With Ripe focuses on providing crypto payment services for Southeast Asian merchants. It provides QR code payment functionality for cryptocurrency wallets like Phantom.
Sphere Labs: Cryptocurrency Payment Gateway
Sphere Labs provides crypto payment infrastructure, supporting merchants with payment gateways, subscription services, payment links and invoice modules, and processing transactions across multiple blockchain networks (such as Solana, Polygon, Avalanche).
It has also launched a Telegram extension kit feature for bank-to-wallet functionality, allowing users to convert and transfer fiat to crypto within Telegram, and plans to officially launch later this year, supporting association with USD or EUR accounts, with early users enjoying a 0.1% transaction fee rate.
TLay: PayFi Integrated with DePIN
TLay is the digital trust layer of DePIN, using blockchain technology to register and manage physical assets on-chain, realizing the connection between the physical and digital worlds. It has collaborated with Huma Finance to develop the PayFi system, which provides instant financing and automated underwriting services based on on-chain cash flows, and ensures data transparency and device trustworthiness through innovative risk management tools, promoting the security and sustainable development of the DePIN ecosystem.
Zoth: RWA Fixed Income Market
Zoth is a decentralized finance company focused on tokenizing RWAs, its product ZTLN (Tokenized Liquid Note) is backed by low-risk assets (such as US Treasuries and top-tier corporate bonds) with a total value of $100 million. ZTLN provides institutional and qualified investors with a transparent, audited, and highly liquid blockchain-based fixed income option, bridging the gap between CeFi and DeFi.
In August this year, Zoth completed a $4 million financing round, with investors including Taisu Ventures, G20, Fat Cat Ventures, as well as Coinbase and Hedera, and the XRPL Foundation of Ripple also supports the project. This round of financing will be used to expand the market reach of its Tokenized Liquid Note product, strengthen its team, and accelerate market penetration.
