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On-Ramp And Off-Ramp

On-ramp and Off-ramp are first-class compound operation families. They model end-to-end cross-rail flows: bringing fiat-originated value into a crypto-denominated operating outcome (on-ramp), or taking crypto-denominated operating value into a fiat-side payout (off-ramp).

Why Ramps Are Their Own Family

Ramps are not synonyms for any single primitive on the platform. The canonical model keeps them distinct from related concepts:

  • Not a pure Conversion. A conversion may be embedded as one leg inside a ramp, but a ramp also covers payment/payout method selection, settlement on the fiat side, and (optionally) a hosted initiation step. Collapsing a ramp into a conversion loses that cross-rail context.
  • Not just a deposit or a withdrawal. A direct fiat deposit or crypto withdrawal is a single-rail operation. A ramp explicitly spans both rails as one business action.
  • Not a provider checkout or session. Hosted/embedded UX surfaces (widgets, checkout URLs, session tokens) are optional delivery artifacts. The operation, not the session, is the canonical audit and status resource.

Canonical Layers

Ramps will be modeled as several distinct layers, each with its own surface:

  • Reference availability — supported corridors: fiat currencies, crypto assets, payment methods, payout methods, countries.
  • Quote — a bounded executable offer with explicit economics and an expiry. Quote does not move money on its own.
  • Operation — the canonical customer-visible business action (OnRamp or OffRamp), resolved to a master or client account scope. Stable audit and status resource.
  • Settlement and outcome — what actually happened on the fiat/crypto side and what the platform recognized in the ledger. Settlement records are inputs to the operation, not its identity.

Hosted-session resources, when used, sit alongside the operation as optional initiation context — never as a substitute for it.

Composite Fees

Ramp economics are composite by nature: a single ramp can carry a payment-method fee, a payout fee, a network fee where relevant, and a conversion spread. The model keeps these breakdowns explicit so an integrator can show the end customer where each component comes from, without flattening everything into a single opaque charge.