Core concepts

Atum infrastructure

A two-minute orientation on how Atum's payment infrastructure differs from traditional rails — no blockchain background needed.

Payment request

What a payment request is, what you sign, and what happens after you submit it.

Settlement vault: where funds wait and how they leave

The contract that holds a payer's funds while a payment is in progress: how funds go in, the only two ways they come out, and what Atum can do.

Fees: what a payment costs and who pays

What a payer pays, what the recipient receives, and how Atum's fee is taken from the settlement operator's payout. A refunded payment pays no fee.

Deadlines

The two deadlines on every payment request, what they cover, and what to do when one causes a failure.

Finality

When a transaction can no longer be reversed on each chain, and how that sets a payment's speed, when it is completed, refund timing and the deadline to pick.

Idempotency

How Atum deduplicates retries so a payment or quote request is never created twice.

Policy enforcement

Two ways to constrain who may fulfill a payment.

Network participants

The roles in an Atum payment: your app, the source account, the recipient, the Payment Gateway and settlement operators.

Corridors and assets

Which rail and token pairs are supported, how assets are identified, and how amounts work.

Token approvals

One-time setup that lets Atum move tokens from your source account before a payment.