Private payments

By default a Solana payment is public: anyone can look up a wallet and see who it paid and who paid it. Soca private payments change that. When you mark a payment private, Soca routes the USDC through a privacy partner instead of sending it straight to the recipient, so the two wallets are not linked on the public chain. It is opt-in and off by default, so normal payments stay normal and you choose privacy per payment.

How it works

A normal transfer goes from your wallet directly to the recipient, which leaves a public, permanent link between the two addresses. A private payment breaks that link in three steps:

1. 1

   You fund a one-time deposit

   Instead of paying the recipient directly, you send the USDC to a fresh deposit address the privacy partner creates for this single payment. Gas is sponsored, so you never need SOL.

2. 2

   The partner pays the recipient

   The privacy partner pays the recipient from its OWN wallet, not yours. On-chain, the recipient received funds from the partner, never from you.

3. 3

   The link is severed

   Your wallet paid the partner and the partner paid the recipient, so there is no direct on-chain connection between your wallet and theirs. Anyone reading the chain sees two unrelated transfers.

The partner is a non-custodial routing service (Houdini). It is not a mixer or tumbler; it is a compliant routing provider that moves funds through independent hops to break the link. Soca never holds your money in this flow, and you always sign the transfer out of your own wallet.

What it hides, and what it does not

This is stated plainly so there is no confusion. A private payment hides the link between the two wallets on the public Solana chain: the recipient cannot see the funds came from your wallet, and an observer cannot tie your wallet to theirs through this payment.

It does not:

• Make you anonymous. It protects the on-chain visibility of a single transfer, not your identity, and Soca never calls it "anonymous" or "untraceable".
• Hide your balance or your whole account. It applies only to the specific payment you mark private, not to your account as a whole.
• Erase records everywhere. Regulated services (exchanges, on/off-ramps, the routing partner) may still keep their own records as required by law.

Cost and timing

A private payment costs a routing fee charged by the privacy partner (typically around 1.5 to 2% of the amount) on top of Soca’s normal small fee, and it takes a few minutes to arrive rather than being instant, because the funds route through the partner. A standard (non-private) payment stays free to you and instant. Before you confirm, Soca always shows the exact routing fee, what the recipient receives, the total you pay, and the estimated arrival time.

The three ways to use it

Private payments are one mechanism behind three features. They all break the wallet-to-wallet link the same way; they differ only in who starts the payment.

1. Private send

When you send money, choose Private instead of Standard. You enter the recipient and amount as usual; Soca prices the private route (recipient receives, routing fee, you pay, arrival time) and, on confirm, funds the deposit. The recipient gets the exact amount you chose, paid from the partner’s wallet.

2. Private receive links

A private payment link lets anyone pay you without ever seeing your wallet. You create a link (a fixed amount, or open so the payer chooses), share it, and whoever opens it pays through the private route, from a Soca account or an external Solana wallet like Phantom. Your payout wallet stays server-side and is never shown to the payer; the funds reach you from the partner’s wallet. Create and manage your links under Private payment link in your account.

3. Private payouts (and payroll)

For businesses, Payouts pays many recipients in one batch, and each recipient can be routed privately. Add a list of recipients and amounts, turn on Private, and each one is paid through the private route so none of the payments trace back to your wallet. The same engine powers payroll, contractor pay, revenue splits, affiliate payouts, airdrops, and bulk refunds; "payroll" is just the most common label. Larger batches are signed as a few transactions, and delivery is tracked per recipient.

Turning it on

Privacy is always your choice. It is off by default, and you enable it per payment, per link, or per payout with a single toggle; there is nothing technical to configure. Standard payments are unchanged and always available alongside it.