Fintech · Circo

Payments, wallets, gifting and payouts

A payment service that keeps money, virtual gifts, subscriptions and payouts apart, and wires payment straight into who may watch.

Architect · Engineering lead

The problem

A creator economy moves several kinds of value at once: real money in, virtual gifts between fans and creators, subscriptions, one-off purchases and creator payouts. Mixing them in one balance makes refunds, audits and payouts fragile.

My role

I designed the ledger separation and the payment-to-entitlement flow and built the service with my team.

How it works

Separate concerns. Credits, wallets, subscriptions, gifting, payouts and pricing are distinct modules, with an audit transaction log and distributed locking around balance changes.
Two ledgers. A wallet ledger pays for content and subscriptions. A separate virtual-gift ledger drives gifting thresholds. Wallet credit is spent on the platform, not withdrawn by fans; creators settle out through payouts.
Payment becomes access. Payments notify the rights service of active subscriptions, and that is what the DRM licence callback consults. Pay, entitlement, protected access and settlement form one chain.

System

Multi-DRM protection and entitlement-gated playback

Encrypt once, license per viewer: paid creator video protected across every major DRM system, where the licence decision is a business rule about who has paid. Live in production.

DRMEntitlementHLS

System

Circo Sparks: one event model for engagement

Views, likes, shares, comments and recircos turned into a single event stream, where every action carries value for both the fan and the creator.

EventsAnalyticsRewards

Payments, wallets, gifting and payouts

The problem

My role

How it works

Related systems

Multi-DRM protection and entitlement-gated playback

Circo Sparks: one event model for engagement

The problem

My role

How it works