Litepaper · v1.0
Claddar is a self-custody smart wallet on Stellar that lets you earn 8% on your dollars, cash out to M-Pesa in under 60 seconds, and spend anywhere in the world — no seed phrase, no bank account required.
Aisha is a Nairobi-based freelance designer. She gets paid in USDC from her clients in New York and London. To convert that to KES — to pay rent, buy groceries, pay for a Bolt ride — she loses 3–5% at a crypto exchange, then another 1–2% to move to M-Pesa. Her dollar savings earn zero while she holds them. She needs a card for Figma, AWS, and Notion but can't get one without a US bank account.
The financial infrastructure to solve every one of these problems has existed on Stellar since 2021. Paychant connects USDC directly to M-Pesa. Ultra Stellar pays 8% yield. Soroban enables smart wallets. But nobody has packaged it into a product that Aisha can actually use.
"The gap isn't infrastructure — it's the product layer. Claddar is that layer."
Claddar packages Stellar's most powerful infrastructure into four experiences that fit naturally into how East Africans already manage money.
No seed phrase — ever. Your wallet is secured by Face ID, backed by a Soroban smart contract on Stellar mainnet. Recover on any Apple device via iCloud. Built on the same architecture that powers Meridian Pay.
Toggle on once. Your USDC earns up to 8.2% APY through Ultra Stellar's on-chain yield protocol. Daily accrual, visible on the home screen. No DeFi knowledge required. No lock-up period.
Withdraw USDC to your M-Pesa number and receive KES in under 60 seconds via Paychant's SEP-24 anchor. Rate shown before confirmation. 1% fee — vs 6–12% elsewhere. Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria at launch.
A virtual Mastercard funded directly from your USDC balance. Spend anywhere Mastercard is accepted — online, in-store, internationally. Apple Pay compatible. Funds stay self-custodied until point of purchase.
Every competitor covers at most two of the four pillars that define Claddar.
| Feature | Claddar | LOBSTR | Chipper Cash | Fuse (Solana) | Ready (Argent) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No seed phrase | ✓ Passkey | ✗ Seed phrase | ✓ Custodial | ✓ Multisig | ✓ Social |
| Self-custody | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| USDC yield | ✓ 8% | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Solana | ✓ Starknet |
| M-Pesa off-ramp | ✓ <60s | ✗ | ✓ Manual | ✗ | ✗ |
| Debit card | ✓ Mastercard | ✗ | Limited | ✓ US only | ✓ UK/EEA only |
| Built for Africa | ✓ Kenya-first | Generic | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Claddar builds on the Cheesecake Labs Soroban passkey PoC — the same architecture that powers Meridian Pay, SDF's production smart wallet demonstrated at Meridian 2025 in Rio. The hardest technical problem is already solved.
Every revenue stream either saves the user money compared to alternatives, or unlocks additional value. There are no hidden fees.
Conservative per-active-user revenue assuming modest monthly activity.
Three focused phases. Each phase proves a hypothesis before expanding scope.
Claddar is pre-launch with an active waitlist at claddar.app. Zero paid acquisition — all signups driven organically by sharing within Nairobi's freelancer and tech communities.
The product architecture, UI design system, technical foundation, and Stellar integration have been fully scoped and validated. Core development risk has been de-risked by building on the Cheesecake Labs Soroban passkey PoC that powers Meridian Pay.
We are applying for SDF funding at pre-launch deliberately — the grant bridges the gap between demonstrated demand and shipped product.
"14 waitlist signups with zero paid acquisition — all from the exact demographic Stellar's financial inclusion mission targets."