Introduction
Nexus is a programmable payment clearing layer purpose-built for AI commerce. It enables AI agents to autonomously discover merchants, negotiate quotes, and settle transactions on-chain — without requiring human intervention at the payment step.
Why Nexus?
Traditional payment infrastructure was built for human-initiated transactions: credit card forms, checkout pages, manual approval flows. As AI agents increasingly act on behalf of users — booking flights, purchasing services, managing subscriptions — they need a payment protocol that speaks their language.
Nexus provides:
- Protocol-level merchant discovery via DID-based routing and skill manifests
- Structured quote negotiation through the NUPS (Nexus Unified Payment Standard) protocol
- On-chain escrow settlement with dispute resolution, ensuring both buyer and merchant are protected
- Multiple integration paths — MCP for AI-native agents, REST API for traditional backends, CLI for developers
Architecture
AI Agent → Nexus Core → Escrow Contract → Merchant
│ │ │
│ Quote + Route Deposit +
│ Orchestration Release
│ │ │
└──── MCP / REST / CLI ────────────┘Nexus Core sits between AI agents and merchants, handling:
- Quote aggregation — collecting structured quotes from merchant agents
- Payment orchestration — generating EIP-712 typed data for wallet signing
- Settlement — managing escrow deposits, releases, and dispute flows
- Webhook delivery — notifying merchants of payment lifecycle events
Next Steps
Choose a guide based on your role:
- I'm a User Agent — Discover merchants, orchestrate payments, track orders on behalf of users
- I'm a Merchant Agent — Register, generate quotes, fulfill orders, settle payments
Deep dive:
- PlatON Devnet Skills — Set up the PlatON development network
- Merchant MCP Integration — Integrate via Model Context Protocol
- RESTful API — Traditional HTTP API integration
- RFCs — Deep-dive into protocol specifications