Cowrie Research

moonpay-commerce-primary-sources-2026-05-01

6 min read

MoonPay Commerce (formerly Helio) primary-source snapshot

Fetched: 2026-05-01 UTC

1) Official homepage

Source: https://www.hel.io/

Selected excerpts from the official site:

Grow your sales with seamless crypto checkout & deposit solutions, and get paid instantly in stablecoins.

We support thousands of cryptos across all major blockchains, wallets and exchanges giving your customers true freedom to pay.

Choose how you get paid. In USDC, any stablecoin or digital asset, or settle automatically to dollars, euros and more.

Additional signals from the homepage:

  • The public branding now says “MoonPay Commerce” while the operating domain remains hel.io, which is useful evidence of a product rebrand rather than a brand-new stack
  • The homepage framing is merchant-first and settlement-first, not consumer-wallet-first
  • The copy suggests the product sits inside a broader MoonPay rails surface, including stablecoin settlement and optional fiat-style settlement outcomes

2) Docs index (llms.txt)

Source: https://docs.hel.io/llms.txt

Selected excerpts from the official docs index:

MoonPay Commerce (formerly Helio) is a crypto payment infrastructure API that lets developers accept payments, deposits, and subscriptions on Solana, EVM chains (Ethereum, Polygon, Base), and Bitcoin.

Create Pay Links, embed checkout widgets, run headless payment flows, and manage transactions programmatically.

Authentication: Pass your public API key as a publicKey query parameter and your secret API key as a Authorization: Bearer <secret> header.

Webhook verification: All webhook payloads include an X-Signature header containing an HMAC-SHA256 hex digest of the request body, signed with your webhook’s sharedToken.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The AI-facing index is unusually high-signal because it maps the whole product surface in one place: pay links, charges, deposits, subscriptions, headless flows, widgets, webhooks, and platform account APIs
  • The continued @heliofi/* package namespace and hel.io docs/domain preserve the product lineage after the MoonPay Commerce rebrand
  • The supported-network list already makes the product look broader than a Solana checkout startup

3) Developer guide

Source: https://docs.hel.io/docs/for-developers.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Developers can initiate payments using two primary methods: Pay Links (via paylinkId) for structured checkouts, or Deposits (via depositId) for flexible, wallet-to-wallet transfers in any crypto.

Deposits … create unique depositCustomers and associated deposit addresses across SVM, EVM, and BTC networks.

This method is optimized for letting users fund your app with any crypto, ideal for gaming deposits, embedded wallets & trading apps.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The Pay Link versus Deposit split is one of the clearest categorization clues: MoonPay Commerce is structuring payment primitives rather than only selling a single hosted widget
  • The docs explicitly name embedded wallets and trading apps as target use cases, which pushes the product toward infrastructure/control-plane categorization
  • The transaction export and platform-API references show ongoing merchant operations matter as much as initial checkout UX

4) Deposits guide

Source: https://docs.hel.io/docs/deposits.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Let users fund your app with any crypto, ideal for gaming deposits, embedded wallets & trading apps.

Generate a Deposit Customer via the API and their associated deposit addresses across SVM, EVM, and BTC networks.

The Add Money option (card, Apple Pay, etc.) requires MoonPay Ramps to be enabled.

Additional signals from the source:

  • The reusable depositCustomerToken model is an important trust/integration clue because it suggests persistent deposit-routing infrastructure rather than one-shot invoice collection
  • The docs expose both headless address serving and hosted widget embedding, showing the product can operate as backend infrastructure or embedded UI
  • The optional MoonPay Ramps handoff shows how MoonPay Commerce plugs into the parent company’s fiat/onramp machinery without collapsing entirely into it

5) Subscriptions guide

Source: https://docs.hel.io/docs/subscriptions.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Set up and manage subscription payments using renewal reminders & charges (single-use checkout sessions), ideal for SaaS apps, Discord memberships, digital services, and more.

Each month, customers receive email reminders directing them to a Charge page to renew with a single tap of their wallet.

We will send the following webhook events to your system: SUBSCRIPTION_STARTED, SUBSCRIPTION_PENDING_PAYMENT and SUBSCRIPTION_ENDED.

Additional signals from the source:

  • This is not just checkout; the product is packaging recurring billing logic and downstream membership automation
  • The webhook-first anonymous subscription mode is a strong sign that MoonPay Commerce expects sophisticated operators to build their own renewal UX around the underlying payment primitives
  • Discord membership references hint at creator/SaaS/community monetization use cases beyond standard ecommerce

6) Headless payments guide

Source: https://docs.hel.io/docs/headless-payments.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Run complete payment flows via API - no UI required

This feature is currently supported only on the Solana network.

MoonPay Commerce provides the transaction payload … needed for signing.

Additional signals from the source:

  • Headless flow support is a major clue that the real product is an API-first payment layer, not only hosted checkout pages
  • The Solana-only limitation is worth preserving because it shows breadth is not uniform across the whole product surface
  • The prepare/sign/submit lifecycle makes the system look closer to app-integrated payment orchestration than to generic hosted billing pages

7) Webhooks guide

Source: https://docs.hel.io/docs/webhooks.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

MoonPay Commerce Webhooks allow your backend to listen for real-time payment events and programmatically verify transactions.

Retry Logic: We automatically attempt redelivery up to 12 times.

Every webhook request sent by MoonPay Commerce includes two layers of authentication … Bearer Token … HMAC Signature.

Additional signals from the source:

  • Automatic retries, manual replay, and scoped resources are classic control-plane traits
  • The bearer-plus-HMAC verification design is an explicit operational trust-model detail worth preserving
  • Dashboard event logs reinforce that MoonPay Commerce is shipping payment operations tooling, not just a front-end widget

8) Merchant account / platform API

Source: https://docs.hel.io/reference/platform/overview.md

Selected excerpts from the official docs:

Programmatically Create a Merchant Account on MoonPay Commerce

This is ideal for B2B platforms embedding crypto payments, enabling seamless user onboarding.

This feature is not publicly available … express your interest in a partnership.

Additional signals from the source:

  • Even though the feature is gated, the docs confirm MoonPay Commerce has platform-of-platform ambitions
  • Partnership gating suggests MoonPay is using Commerce as infrastructure for larger embedded distribution, not only direct merchant self-serve

Notes

  • MoonPay Commerce appears best cataloged as crypto payments infrastructure / checkout and deposit control plane / subscription billing / wallet-to-wallet and fiat-assisted settlement.
  • The strongest categorization clue is the way the docs formalize reusable payment objects (paylinkId, depositId, depositCustomerToken), webhook operations, and merchant/platform lifecycle management.
  • No canonical MoonPay Commerce or Helio whitepaper/litepaper surfaced in this pass.

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