SeedPay Documentation
Payment channel protocol for streaming delivery — first proof on BitTorrent with Solana.
Pre-Alpha / RFC
This specification is v0.3 draft — research software, not for production use.
SeedPay is a payment channel protocol for streaming delivery — when you're paying as data arrives, chunk by chunk, and you need cryptographic proof it was actually delivered. The first application is BitTorrent: seeders earn USDC for sharing files, leechers pay fractions of a cent per megabyte. But the primitive is general — it applies to any scenario where delivery takes time and can fail partway (decentralized AI inference, CDN, etc).
Quick Links
Protocol at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Version | v0.3 (Pre-Alpha) |
| Primitive | Unidirectional payment channels with fair exchange |
| First Application | Pay-per-megabyte BitTorrent file sharing |
| Payment | USDC via streaming off-chain checks |
| Pricing | $0.0001-$0.001 per MB |
| Privacy | ECDH ephemeral session keys (unlinkable sessions) |
| Chain | Solana (initial), extensible to EVM chains |
| On-chain cost | 2 transactions per session (~$0.003 total) |
| Trust model | Neither party can cheat — cryptographic fair exchange |
How It Works
- Handshake — Peers advertise SeedPay support via BEP 10 extended handshake
- Channel Setup — ECDH key exchange derives ephemeral Session UUID, Leecher deposits USDC into on-chain escrow
- Verification — Seeder independently verifies the payment channel on-chain before serving data
- Data Transfer — Standard BitTorrent piece exchange with streaming signed payment checks
- Settlement — Seeder submits the highest check to collect; remainder refunded to Leecher