Huma Finance is a blockchain-powered payment financing (“PayFi”) protocol designed to deliver rapid, on-chain liquidity for global payments. It aims to remove the bottlenecks of traditional finance such as costly pre-funding and slow remittances by tokenizing receivables and settling transactions in stablecoins. As the first purpose-built PayFi network, Huma facilitates instant settlement financing and structured credit lines for areas like cross-border transfers, corporate cards, and trade finance, all supported by high-speed blockchain infrastructure. Using stablecoins (primarily USDC) and audited smart contracts, lenders earn sustainable double-digit yields from transaction fees rather than speculative rewards. Huma’s vision is to “speed up the movement of money” by linking lenders and borrowers on-chain, creating decentralized, income-based DeFi tools accessible to both businesses and individuals.
Founding Team and Leadership
Huma was co-founded by Richard Liu and Erbil Karaman, both serving as co-CEOs. Liu, an engineer and ex-Google Engineering Director, previously served as CTO of EarnIn, founded Leap.ai (later acquired by Facebook), and worked as a Venture Partner at Foothill Ventures. Karaman’s background is in product and growth, having led teams at Lyft, EarnIn, and Meta, as well as founding a micro-VC fund in Turkey. In February 2025, Patrick Campos, former CSO at Securrency, joined as Chief Business Officer, having previously advised Huma and Arf on liquidity and capital markets. Collectively, the leadership blends deep experience in fintech, blockchain, and payment infrastructure.
Technology and Architecture
Huma’s “PayFi stack” comprises six layers: transaction, currency, custody, compliance, financing, and applications. The transaction layer operates primarily on Solana and Stellar for high-speed, low-cost settlements, with additional EVM-chain support (Polygon, Celo, Scroll). Currently, 12 active lending pools span Solana, Polygon, Celo, Stellar, and Scroll. The currency layer uses stablecoins mainly USDC for price stability, while custody is managed via institutional-grade providers (Fireblocks, Cobo). Compliance measures adhere to frameworks such as the EU’s MiCA and Singapore’s MAS. Financing logic supports flexible repayment, risk tranching, and custom fee models. This allows on-chain lenders to back tokenized receivables, while borrowers access structured credit directly from Huma’s smart contracts.
Key Use Cases
Huma targets payment flows requiring immediate liquidity. In cross-border payments, instead of pre-funding foreign accounts, payment providers draw USDC from Huma pools to settle transactions in real time. Other use cases include corporate card financing, receivables lending, supply chain finance, inventory funding, and SME loan programs. Institutional lenders can fund specific pools through “Huma Institutional,” while retail users can deposit USDC in “Huma 2.0” vaults for double-digit APY. Retail depositors receive $PST (PayFi Strategy Token), a liquid LP token tradable on Jupiter DEX, usable as collateral on Kamino, and deployable in leveraged yield strategies on RateX.
Tokenomics
HUMA, the network’s native token (10B max supply), functions as both a utility and governance asset. It rewards liquidity providers, partners, and community members, and can be staked for additional yield or governance participation. Initial circulation at TGE was 17.33% (1.733B tokens), with the rest allocated across LP incentives (31%), investors (20.6%), team/advisors (19.3%), treasury (11.1%), listings/marketing (7%), airdrops (5%), market making (4%), and pre-sales (2%). Multi-year lock-ups for team and investor allocations aim to align long-term incentives.
Partnerships and Ecosystem
Core partnerships include Circle (USDC) and the Stellar Development Foundation, the latter investing $10M and supporting Stellar’s integration into Huma. On Solana, $PST integrates with DeFi tools like Jupiter, Kamino, and RateX. The April 2024 merger with Turkish fintech Arf created on-chain pools for remittances. Other partners include Rain (corporate cards) and BSOS (supply chain finance). Huma also collaborates with Aave, Pendle, and various asset managers to expand its liquidity ecosystem.
Funding and Backers
Since launch, Huma has raised over $46M. A $8.3M seed round in Feb. 2023 included Distributed Global, Race Capital, ParaFi Capital, Circle Ventures, and Folius Ventures. A $38M Series A in Sept. 2024 was led by Distributed Global, with participation from HashKey Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, and TIBAS Ventures. Part of these funds supports Arf’s RWA loan pools.
Compliance and Regulation
Institutional lending is permissioned, with full KYC/KYB checks via third parties. The compliance framework follows major regulatory guidelines (MiCA, MAS), uses regulated stablecoins, and leverages institutional custody. Services are restricted in the U.S. and other limited jurisdictions.
Roadmap
Plans include launching new financing pools, adding institutional partners, and achieving T+0 cross-border settlement by 2030 (targeting T+1 by 2025). The team aims for $10B in transaction volume by end-2025, increased decentralization via governance token voting, and expanded ecosystem integrations.
Market Positioning
Huma stands out as the first dedicated PayFi network, targeting real-world receivable-backed credit rather than crypto-collateralized loans. It competes partly with RWA platforms (Centrifuge, Maple) but focuses narrowly on payment finance. Its main rivals are legacy banking systems and fintechs, but its speed, transparency, and stable yield appeal to both institutions and retail. While adoption remains a challenge, strong funding and strategic partnerships position Huma to redefine global payment financing.
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