Astra

Astra is a PayFi payment protocol based on the Lightning Network that wraps Bitcoin's instant settlement into receive-and-pay interfaces callable by applications. It routes payments across channels using Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLC) and combines a liquidity-making component to give merchants fiat-denominated, on-chain-settled receipt experience. The pain point it addresses is that Bitcoin mainnet is unsuited to small high-frequency payments while existing solutions fragment the user experience, making it hard for ordinary merchants to accept directly.

Astra's positioning is a PayFi layer connecting Bitcoin with everyday payments. By abstracting channel management, routing, and conversion into simple interfaces, it lets applications offer Bitcoin payments without running their own nodes. Recently it has optimized channel routing and liquidity-rebalancing strategy to improve the success rate and cost efficiency of small payments, and refined merchant-side reconciliation and refund flows so on-chain settlement is more usable in traditional commerce.