Everything you need to know
ShieldPay pays your team in USDC and keeps the amounts private, provably. Confidential payroll for DAOs and Web3 teams. No crypto knowledge required.
How ShieldPay works
When you pay a contributor, ShieldPay does four things automatically. Together they form a chain of evidence that holds up to any audit, while keeping the amount private.
- 1
Identity anchor
The contributor’s identity is linked to their payment address on-chain, so a payment can be tied to a real recipient | useful for compliance and audits.
- 2
Confidential settlement
A real, recipient-visible transaction is posted on Stellar with a structured, timestamped memo | without the exact amount in the clear.
- 3
Zero-knowledge proof
A mathematical proof that the amount was within the agreed range is generated and verified inside a Stellar smart contract.
- 4
Verifiable receipt
A plain-language PDF bundles everything, with a QR code anyone can use to re-verify it | and a viewing key can disclose the exact amount to an authorized auditor.
The key idea: the proof confirms the payment was within the agreed contractual range, without revealing the exact amount. The salary stays private; the fact that you paid correctly is public and verifiable.
Step-by-step guides
- 1. Sign in and set up your organization (name and type).
- 2. Invite contributors; they accept and a wallet is created for them.
- 3. Open “Run payroll”, add your team, confirm, each amount stays private.
- 4. Share a read-only or a viewing-key audit link.
- 1. Sign in with email, Google, or a passkey, no seed phrase.
- 2. See each payment you received, marked “verified”.
- 3. Open the recipient-visible settlement, or download the receipt PDF.
- 1. Open the link the company shared with you (read-only, or viewing-key).
- 2. Review the period’s payments and verified proofs.
- 3. With a viewing-key link, see exact amounts re-verified against the chain.
Understanding your receipt
Each payment generates a one-page PDF, the “Payment Proof”. It is written in plain language a non-technical reader (an auditor, an accountant) can understand, and it contains:
- • Who paid and who was paid (company and contractor).
- • The proven contractual range (not the exact amount).
- • The on-chain proof id and the Stellar transaction that verified it.
- • A QR code that opens the public blockchain explorer to re-verify it instantly.
Anyone can scan the QR or open the explorer link to confirm the proof independently, they don’t have to trust ShieldPay or the company.
Glossary (in plain terms)
- USDC
- A digital dollar (stablecoin). 1 USDC ≈ 1 US dollar. It’s what gets paid to the contractor.
- Stellar
- A fast, low-cost public payment network. Transfers settle in seconds for fractions of a cent.
- On-chain
- Recorded on the public blockchain, permanent, timestamped, and verifiable by anyone.
- Zero-knowledge proof
- A way to prove a statement is true (e.g. “the amount is within range”) without revealing the underlying data (the exact amount).
- Range proof
- The specific proof ShieldPay uses: it shows the payment was between the agreed minimum and maximum, keeping the figure private.
- Identity anchor
- A record linking a contributor’s identity to their payment address on-chain, useful for compliance and audits.
- Viewing key
- A secret the company holds. It lets an authorized auditor reveal and re-verify exact amounts against the on-chain commitments, without making them public.
- Smart contract (Soroban)
- A small program on Stellar that checks the proof and records the result, no company can fake it.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a crypto wallet or seed phrase?
No. You sign in with email, Google, or a passkey. A secure account is created for you behind the scenes.
Is the exact salary public?
No. Only the agreed range is public. The exact amount never leaves the server and is not stored, that’s the whole point of the zero-knowledge proof.
How does an auditor verify a receipt?
They scan the QR code or open the explorer link in the PDF. The Stellar network confirms the proof independently, no need to trust the company. With a viewing-key link, they can also reveal and re-verify the exact amounts.
Can someone reveal the exact amount?
Only with the company’s viewing key. The company can issue a viewing-key audit link that reveals exact amounts to an authorized auditor and re-derives the same commitment the chain verified, so the figure is provably the real one, without ever being public.
What happens if ShieldPay goes away?
The proofs and settlements live on the public Stellar blockchain, independently of ShieldPay. They remain verifiable.