Valut

The problem it solves

Millions of Indians hold crypto assets, but using them for everyday transactions remains painfully difficult. Existing solutions require multiple steps—off-ramping to INR, waiting for bank settlements, and manually paying via UPI. This process can take hours or even days, is error-prone, and often comes with high fees or compliance risks.

Valut solves this by letting users pay with stablecoins (like USDC) directly at any UPI-enabled merchant. With one simple flow—Scan, Select, Pay—users scan a merchant’s existing UPI QR code, select a stablecoin, and the merchant receives INR instantly via UPI. Merchants don’t need to know or interact with crypto at all.

Unlike competitors who require merchants to adopt new systems or apps, Valut is plug-and-play for end users, instantly compatible with 200M+ existing UPI endpoints in India. This improves usability, shortens transaction time to seconds, and brings real-world utility to crypto in India for the first time.

How it works:

• The user scans any UPI QR code using the Valut app or browser extension.
• Valut decodes the UPI payment info and generates an INR quote in USDC or other supported stablecoins.
• The user confirms the transaction and pays via their crypto wallet.
• Valut's backend swaps the stablecoin into INR through a compliant partner, then instantly pushes the INR to the merchant via UPI.
• The merchant sees a standard UPI payment—no additional steps or crypto knowledge needed.

Valut makes crypto spending as seamless as using a bank card, while maintaining compliance and real-time settlement.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was gaining access to PSP (Payment Service Provider) APIs for programmatic INR payouts. Most Indian PSPs don’t allow crypto-related platforms to use their payout APIs, which blocked us from automating UPI transfers initially.

To work around this, we manually initiated UPI payouts for a small set of users through internal tools to validate the flow and gather early feedback.

While building toward automation, we also had to design a transaction tracking system. we architected a hybrid solution using Etherscan APIs and The Graph to monitor wallet activity and token transfers. This helped us accurately track pending, successful, and failed transactions across both on-chain and fiat layers, ensuring transparency and reliability in the settlement process.