Every payment you can create on ClearGateway today runs on Base Sepolia — a test network. The USDC involved has no monetary value, and nothing you do on the platform right now moves real money.
Why start here
Payment infrastructure is exactly the kind of software where "mostly working" isn't good enough. Money math has to be exact, confirmations have to be handled correctly under network reorganizations, and refund and review workflows need to hold up under real use before they're trusted with real funds. Testnet gives us a place to exercise all of that — real transactions, real confirmations, real webhook delivery — without the cost of a mistake being someone's actual money.
What's already built and tested
- The smart contracts (splitter and deposit factory) and their test suite
- The full payment lifecycle: create, pay by wallet or exchange transfer, confirm, webhook
- A merchant dashboard with team roles and two-factor-protected staff accounts
- Refund requests and staff review
- A generated API reference and integration docs
What's still ahead before this is live
- Deploying the contracts to Base mainnet, and the operational key management that requires
- A card-to-crypto on-ramp partner, so a customer doesn't need to already own crypto
- Broader compliance review appropriate to real-money operation
We'd rather be plain about exactly where that line sits than blur "the code works" with "this is ready for real transactions." Those are different claims, and only one of them is true today.