Payment Channels for Streaming Delivery
Pay as data arrives — chunk by chunk — with cryptographic fair exchange. First proof: pay-per-megabyte file sharing on Solana.
Why SeedPay?
Direct economic incentives for seeding, built on open standards.
Micropayments
Pay as low as $0.0001/MB. Streaming payment checks minimize trust requirements — seeders get paid per chunk of data served.
Payment Channels
Only 2 on-chain transactions per session (open + close). All intermediate payments happen off-chain via signed checks.
Privacy (ECDH)
Ephemeral session keys ensure blockchain observers cannot link wallet addresses to download activity or peer IDs.
Backward Compatible
Extends BEP 10 (Extension Protocol). Non-SeedPay clients continue to work without modification. Payments are opt-in.
Circular Economy
Earn USDC by seeding popular content, then spend it on downloads. No need to buy crypto upfront if you seed first.
Open Protocol
No centralized infrastructure. No proprietary tokens. Built on open standards (Curve25519, HKDF, SHA-256) and public blockchains.
This Primitive Generalizes
x402 assumes delivery is instant and atomic. SeedPay assumes delivery takes time and can fail partway.
Any streaming delivery problem where you need cryptographic fair exchange.
P2P File Sharing
Pay seeders per MB. Piece hash = delivery proof.
Proving this todayDecentralized AI Inference
Pay GPU nodes per token batch. Output hash = delivery proof. Node drops at minute 3 — recover funds.
Next frontierDecentralized CDN
Pay edge nodes per chunk. Merkle proof = delivery proof. 2 on-chain txns vs ~2,000 with atomic payments.
Future applicationWhy BitTorrent First
The ideal proving ground for streaming payment channels.
Delivery verification is built in
Every piece has a SHA-1 hash (BEP 3). No new proof system needed — the protocol already verifies data integrity.
Initial users are crypto-native
Blockchain node operators need 70GB+ Solana snapshots. Currently shared via Discord links. Zero wallet friction.
Real pain point, real market
38% of torrents die within the first month. Economic incentive to seed means content stays alive.
How It Works
Four phases from connection to settlement.
Handshake
Peers exchange BEP 10 extended handshakes to advertise SeedPay support, wallet address, and pricing.
Channel Setup
ECDH key exchange derives an ephemeral Session UUID. Leecher deposits USDC into an on-chain escrow.
Verification
Seeder independently verifies the payment channel on-chain — checking deposit, session binding, and freshness.
Data Transfer
Standard BitTorrent piece exchange. Leecher streams signed payment checks. Seeder claims funds on channel close.
Learning from Past Attempts
Others have tackled this problem. SeedPay builds on their lessons by extending the existing protocol instead of replacing it.
| Feature | SeedPay | Tit-for-tat | Private Trackers | BTT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decentralized | ||||
| Micropayments | ||||
| Post-download incentive | ||||
| Privacy-preserving | ||||
| Backward compatible | ||||
| Open standard | ||||
| No proprietary token |
Circular Economy
Earn by seeding. Spend on downloads. No proprietary tokens — just USDC.
Download a 1 GB file for ~$0.10
Open channel + close channel. Everything else is off-chain.
No volatile tokens. Earn and spend real value.
Example: The Seeder Economy
Who Pays for Faster Downloads?
Beachhead: blockchain node operators. Crypto-native by definition, zero wallet friction.
Blockchain Node Operators
Crypto-native50-100GB+ files — Fast sync, Discord links today
AI/ML Engineers
Growing10-100GB+ files — Time = money, HuggingFace is slow
Crypto-Native Creators & DAOs
Crypto-nativeVariable files — Censorship resistance
Open Source Distributors
Growing1-10GB files — Launch day bandwidth spikes
Solana Implementation
A working proof-of-concept on Solana with payment channels, ECDH privacy, and off-chain micropayments.
Read the Protocol
SeedPay is an open RFC. Explore the full specification, security model, and implementation guide.