Trust Pay

TrustPay enables secure milestone-based payments on Solana, allowing clients to lock funds and freelancers get guaranteed payouts when work is completed.

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What Inspired me to build Trust Pay

I was working with an NFT project where I designed both the artwork and the NFT minting program. The agreement was simple: they would pay 40% upfront and the remaining 60% once the project was completed and minted. They also wanted me to stay available during the mint in case any issues came up.

The problem started when the mint had a poor turnout. It didn’t sell out—not because of anything technical, but because the team didn’t do enough marketing. Still, instead of owning their part, they refused to pay the remaining 60%.

That experience made one thing clear: as a builder, you can deliver perfect work and still get cheated simply because payments rely on trust, not guarantees. That’s what inspired me to build Trust Pay, a system where both sides are protected and no one has to rely on blind trust ever again.

What is Trust Pay?

Trust Pay is a non-custodial, milestone-based/one-time payment escrow system on Solana that makes sure freelancers and clients can collaborate safely and securely.

  • Clients lock funds upfront in escrow
  • Funds are released automatically as milestones are completed
  • Disputes can be handled with programmable logic
  • No central party holds the funds
  • Payments are fast, transparent, and on-chain It ensures you get paid for the work you do and only pay for work that is delivered.

The Building Blocks

Trust Pay is built entirely on Solana using:

  • Anchor for the on-chain program
  • Solana Web3 + React for the frontend
  • PDAs to securely manage escrow accounts
  • Program-derived authority to enforce milestone logic
  • Cross-account validations to prevent tampering
  • State transitions that reflect each stage of a contract: created → funded → milestones completed → released or refunded

Every interaction—from funding to releasing milestone payments—flows through deterministic on-chain rules so neither party can cheat the other.

Challenges we ran into

Here are some of the challenges i ran into while building Trust Pay

  • Designing a flexible but secure milestone system that works for different types of projects and payment type (be it a milestone payment or a one-time payment)
  • Handling multiple escrow states while keeping the program clean and safe
  • Ensuring no single party can take control or bypass programmed rules
  • Building an intuitive UI that makes complex escrow logic easy to use
  • Debugging Anchor cross-account checks and PDAs
  • Managing time constraints between frontend, backend, and program logic

Accomplishments that we're proud of

These are the few thing i am proud of

  • Built a fully functioning, non-custodial, milestone-based/one-time payment escrow system
  • Clean and secure Anchor program architecture
  • Smooth end-to-end UX from contract creation to final payout
  • Clear documentation and a demo good enough for real freelancers and clients
  • Solved a real problem I personally experienced

Lessons learnt

Here are some interesting things i learnt while working on this project

  • How to design safer financial flows using programmed escrow
  • Advanced Anchor concepts like multi-PDA authority, CPI security, and state transitions
  • Building user-friendly flows for complex blockchain logic
  • The importance of protecting freelancers and creators with automated systems
  • How painful real-world trust failures can be—and how smart contracts fix them

What's next for Trust Pay?

  • Moving for a Centralised Admin dispute resolution to a DAO voting inorder to resolve disputes
  • Enable multi-milestone editing and conditional releases
  • Adding support for more tokens
  • Add notifications and off-chain adapters for a smoother UX
  • Integrate Trust Pay directly into service marketplaces
  • Turn this into a full platform for crypto-native freelancing

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