Remittances that build futures, with proof. People abroad send over 650 billion dollars home every year, and much of it is meant for fees, rent and small businesses. DIRECT pays the school, the landlord or the supplier straight away, returns a receipt that AI has checked, and costs less than any transfer service.
2. Why people can't resist it
Proof replaces worry. Seeing the university's stamped receipt minutes after paying ends the "did the money arrive, was it used for fees?" conversation for good.
Goals pull you forward. A progress bar toward "Semester 2 fees" is more motivating than a monthly transfer. People top up to close the gap.
Family shares the win. Relatives can see and add to a goal, and the photo updates (the restocked shelf, the first day of class) are the emotional payoff that gets shared.
3. How it works for real
Login: email or phone. A passkey smart wallet (Coinbase Smart Wallet, Privy or Dynamic) is created silently on Base. A paymaster sponsors gas so nobody sees it.
Fund: a licensed on-ramp converts AED, EUR or USD from card or bank to USDC on Base. The sender only ever sees their own currency and the provider's currency.
Provider verification (KYB): schools, landlords and suppliers are checked against business registries and their bank or mobile-money account name, through a compliance partner. Individuals like landlords pass ID plus a signed tenancy document. A fast model (Gemini Flash or DeepSeek via OpenRouter) pre-screens documents; humans approve edge cases.
Pay the provider: USDC moves on Base to a licensed payout partner in the destination country, which pays out in KES, PKR or USD to the provider's bank account or M-Pesa till. The payout reference is linked to the goal.
Receipt back: the provider (or the family) uploads the receipt. A vision model (Gemini 2.5 Flash or GPT-4o mini) extracts payee, student or account ID, amount, date and stamp, and checks them against the payment. Mismatches go to a human.
Family updates: a frontier LLM like Claude writes the short monthly impact summary and translates family notes (Swahili, Spanish, Urdu). Photos are optional and private to the family circle.
Integrations: x402 lets school fee portals and supplier apps request payment per invoice directly from a goal.
4. Cost per use
Receipt check: about $0.01. Provider document pre-screen: about $0.02. Monthly impact summary: about $0.01. Gas on Base: under $0.01, sponsored. Payout partner cost: about 0.3 to 0.6% depending on corridor.
Free: up to 2 goals, standard payout (same day), AI receipt checks. Fee: a flat 0.5% plus partner cost, shown before you pay. Paid (DIRECT Family, $3.99 per month): unlimited goals, instant payouts, shared family circle with contributions, scheduled fees, and an optional 15 second "term in review" video for the family (still panels on free; a cheap video model like Wan at about $0.10 per second on paid, so about $1.50).
5. Growth loop
Every goal has a family circle: an uncle in Toronto or a cousin in Doha joins to chip in, and becomes a sender with their own goals. Schools and suppliers that receive DIRECT payments get a "Pay us with DIRECT" link to share with every other parent or customer abroad. Share cards with the stamped receipt travel through WhatsApp groups of diaspora workers.
6. Risks and guardrails
Compliance: licensed on-ramp and payout partners in each corridor, sender KYC, provider KYB, sanctions screening, and transaction limits per corridor.
Fake providers: payouts only to verified accounts whose registered name matches; a new provider waits 24 hours before the first payout.
Wrong receipts: the AI only flags. Amount or name mismatches are reviewed by a person, and payments are never released based on a receipt alone.
Privacy and dignity: family photos and notes are visible only to the circle; receipts are stored encrypted and can be deleted. Nothing is posted publicly without consent.
FX shown honestly: the rate and every fee are shown before paying; the comparison numbers are labelled as examples.
7. MVP build order
Email login with a smart wallet on Base Sepolia, a goals board with one goal type (school fees).
Provider directory with manual verification for 10 schools in one corridor (UAE to Kenya).
Fund with test USDC, mock payout partner, on-chain receipt card.
Receipt upload and vision-model check against the payment.
Family circle invite link with "add to this goal".