We are more connected than ever. In the age of AI, geography doesn’t matter much. We can buy code from India, design from Indonesia, and coffee from a farmer in Ethiopia, all while sitting in your apartment in Dubai. The Internet made communication global. Now blockchains and stablecoins are making value move just as freely. And soon, it won’t just be on Earth. We’ll be trading from Mars too.

In the past, trade was direct. You gave me something, I gave you something back. But it was messy. Without a shared unit of value, every exchange had to be negotiated. Was a sack of grain worth two chickens? It depended. Money changed that. It gave us a standard way to measure and compare value. It made trade simpler and more scalable.

Stablecoins are doing the same for the blockchain world. They bring familiarity, something people already understand. You know what a dollar is. You can price things in it. You don’t have to explain volatility or guess how much something is worth.

That’s why stablecoins work. Not just because they’re stable, but because they make things easier to think about. And when things are easier to think about, they get used. That’s why stablecoins are seeing real usage. Billions in daily volume. Not just speculation – actual movement, actual purpose. And this is despite Bitcoin and Ethereum already being around, which were meant to be permissionless, open, and global money. But volatility makes them hard to use for everyday things.

Stablecoins bridge that gap. They take the best parts of crypto openness, portability, and control, and wrap them in a unit that people already trust. But familiarity isn’t enough. Not on its own. What turns a familiar tool into a movement is simplicity.

Design matters. UX matters. If we build clean, beautiful systems around stablecoins, ones that work without explaining or onboarding, then we unlock something powerful. That’s when permissionless money becomes usable. That’s when it becomes real.

We Built More and made it Harder to use

We’ve come a long way from Bitcoin’s original vision of permissionless money for everyone. Blockchains have scaled. Transactions are faster. Fees are lower. We’ve built rollups, bridges, smart wallets, and stablecoins. The tech is powerful now. Some chains are so fast they sit half-empty, waiting for someone to do something.

And people are doing weird and wonderful things. Hatching eggs on-chain. Saving every street hop on-chain so that the block doesn't go empty. It’s funny. And kind of magical. This much freedom breeds creativity, sometimes desperation.

We’ve built yield protocols, DEXes, perp exchanges, all running openly. Sometimes, I feel proud to be here. Other times, I wonder if we’ve turned this place into a casino. But that’s just perspective. Chaos isn’t always bad. Sometimes it’s a sign of something growing.

And that’s what this feels like. A system is trying to find its shape. It's just a feedback loop. We’ve been building for a decade now, and somehow, we’re back where it all started: payments.

There are always different ways to solve the same problem. Stablecoin-specific chains, stablecoin movement-specific platforms like bridge.xyz, and Perena. Then there are cross-chain protocols that help develop chain-agnostic apps. And crypto cards, which let you pay by converting crypto to fiat at the POS, adding another middleman and fees, and each transaction is exchange.

All of them are asking the same question: How do we make crypto truly usable?

That’s where our thinking starts too. But at Cray, we’re not building another chain, or a faster bridge, a yield layer, or crypto card.

We’re building the final step. The actual payment.

You Pay. They Receive. That’s How It Should Be

Most crypto payments still feel like doing your own plumbing. Want to pay someone? You first need to ask:
Which chain is it on?
Do you have the right token?
Do you need to bridge?
Do you have gas?

By the time you're ready, the moment's gone. The user is gone. That’s not how money should work. When someone decides to pay, whether it’s in a game, at a mall, on a dapp, or to a friend back home, the action should just happen.No more half measures. No more patchwork.
Users shouldn’t need to know what chain they’re on. They shouldn’t worry about which token the receiver accepts.They just approve the number. Done.And on the other side, the receiver, whether it’s a person, a business, or a smart contract, gets what they want, in the format they want, where they want it. That’s the kind of system we’re building.

Cray is a universal settlement layer(not a chain) for stablecoin payments.

It connects what the user has with what the receiver needs across chains, across tokens for any payment action. It’s not just cross-chain. It’s action-based.The user doesn’t care what’s under the hood; they can pay into a storefront, a smart contract, an in-game wallet, or a friend’s account. All in one clean step.

And the developers and businesses don’t have to chase users across every new chain. They integrate Cray once and receive stablecoins from users everywhere.

But we’re not just losing users. We’re losing builders too.

Instead of building their core product, teams are busy patching chains, rewriting infra, and figuring out bridge logic just to give users a smooth experience.

That’s backwards.

No wonder we have more infra than apps. Everyone’s rebuilding the same plumbing. Cray clears that clutter so users can just pay, and builders can actually build.

What is Cray?

Cray is a stablecoin-native payment gateway built to make crypto payments feel simple, seamless, and invisible.

For users, Cray removes the usual complexity: no more worrying about what chain their money is on, which token to use, or how much gas to keep. They just approve the payment. Cray handles the rest, bridging, swapping, routing, and delivers exactly what the receiver wants.

For businesses and apps, Cray is the last-mile layer. Instead of building custom logic for every chain and token, they integrate Cray once and instantly start accepting stablecoin payments from users on any chain, in any token. Whether the destination is a wallet, a smart contract, an NFT mint, or an in-game item, Cray routes it in a single interaction.

It’s a clean abstraction over the messy backend of Web3 chains, tokens, approvals, and fees, all hidden behind a simple, unified flow.

Think of Cray as the invisible link between users, tokens, chains, and actions. It gives users freedom with the simplicity they’re used to. It gives builders flexibility without infrastructure debt. Instead of spending months patching chains, rewriting bridge logic and supporting new wallets, builders can finally focus on what matters: their product.

Use Cases

Cray is building the unified stablecoin payment experience, the way it should be. Apps, businesses, and users benefit from simpler, invisible payments.

Imagine you are a yield protocol. You integrate Cray and suddenly users from every chain- Base, Optimism, Polygon, you name it, can deposit stablecoins into your contracts without touching a bridge. No approvals, no fund fragmentation, no multiple steps. You focus on growing your product, not patching infra to chase liquidity.

Imagine you are a supermarket accepting stablecoin payments. You don't have to say, “We only support these tokens on these chains.” Accept stablecoins from any chain. Cray handles the routing, and you get paid how you want. Compared to credit card fees, the cost savings are significant.

Imagine you are a user grabbing coffee. The cafe accepts payments on one chain. Your funds are on another. Bridging, swapping, or gas for a cup of coffee? Cray eliminates all that. You just approve the payment. The café gets paid. That’s it. Invisible UX.

Or say you're building a game, marketplace, or a wallet.

You want to enable users to pay, mint, stake, or subscribe using stablecoins from any blockchain. Cray makes that a one-step flow. No wallet juggling, no cross-chain wait.

Cray makes all this work without asking users to think about what’s underneath.

Just pay. Just receive. Just build.

That’s how stablecoins and blockchain should feel.

Built for Developers

Cray is designed to handle the crypto chaos, so you can ship what matters.

1 API call and you start accepting stablecoin payments from any chain.

TypeScript SDK, one function call (7-8 lines of code), allowing you to start accepting stablecoin payments from anywhere, without needing to handle tokens, chains, or gas.

ReactPay widget, drop it into your React app. No wallet integration, no chain config, no friction. In a recent test, it took just 3 minutes to integrate.

That’s how simple payments should be.

Why We Built This

This is the system I wished existed when I started building in Crypto back in 2018. I was building the first multi-chain app, the Matic Wallet app, which was supposed to work on Ethereum and Matic Chain. Then, I went through a mountain of work.

Fast forward six years.

About a year ago, I wondered: Why isn’t there a stablecoin payment app that just works everywhere?

So I started building one and very quickly realised the infra gap is still there. Tooling has improved, sure, but the same chaos hasn’t gone away. If anything, it's much messier and more fragmented.

That's why I built Cray.

So developers and users don’t have to suffer through the same mess I did. No more hopping chains. No more endless integrations. Just one quick integration.

Cray speaks the language users already understand: Stablecoins. It doesn’t ask them to come to you. Instead, it helps you meet them where they are, without the headaches of chain integrations. Because payments should be simple, and crypto should just work.

Let’s Build the Future of Payments

We’ve just launched Cray. It’s live. It works. And now, it’s time to grow.

If you’re building for the real world, if you wonder why we don't have users, if you think blockchain intricacies are too much, not just for users but also for developers. Let’s talk, let's try, let's break it down, and let's build with it.

We’re raising our seed round to fuel growth and innovation. We’re passionate about Cray, and we’d love to connect with investors who share our vision. If you’re interested in joining us to shape the future, we’re open to all inquiries. DM us on X @craydotpro, or drop us a line at ptsayli@gmail.com.

We are Cray, and we are just getting started. Let’s make payments work for the world.

Originally published on Substack. Follow along there for future updates and thoughts.

https://ptsayli.substack.com/p/introducing-cray-payment-gateway