You know the thread. Someone is owed for dinner, tickets, a deposit. “Can you send your wallet?” A screenshot. A 42-character string. A “wait that’s the old one.” Someone copies the explorer URL. You send. You hope.
That’s not a money app. That’s ops. Humans already know how to pay people: by name, with a pause before it leaves.
Addresses are for machines
Settlement needs an address. Your Saturday night does not. Neither does a $2,000 collaborator deposit. Hex belongs under the hood the way a routing number belongs under a transfer you started with a name and an amount.
The cost of getting this wrong isn’t theoretical. Crypto sends are easy to fire and hard to undo. One copied line from the wrong message and you’re not “waiting on chain.” You’re writing a postmortem in a client channel.
Pay people by name. Confirm once. Everything credits one balance.
Paste-risk checklist
If any of these is true, don’t send yet.
- The string came from a group chat with more than one wallet in the history
- You’re not looking at the @name on a confirmation screen
- You needed a gas token to attempt the send
- The “invoice” is still “pay me something”
- You’re about to type an address from memory
What Pay is (and isn’t)
Pay is P2P. Send to @username. Add friends. Request a locked amount when you’re owed. Collect is how you get paid for work. Wallet is the number that holds it. Don’t put send inside Wallet and call it a day.
Three moments this was built for
- A client pays a locked request—no Slack scavenger hunt
- You pay @kemi for dinner; she pays @tunde for tickets
- You invite a collaborator once, then send the deposit to a name
- Find @them.
- Enter the amount. Optional memo.
- Confirm who and how much.
- Send. They see a credit, not a puzzle.
Claim @you. Share a pay link or a request. The next time someone asks for your wallet, send a name.
