The problem
When several parties owe each other — a DAO and its contributors, suppliers in a chain, friends after a trip — the obligations loop. A owes B, B owes C, C owes A. Paid one by one, that is a flurry of transfers for almost no change in anyone's real position. Today the only tools that fix it are a bank's internal ledger or a trusted spreadsheet, and someone always has to go first.
The solution
Cinch is a multilateral clearinghouse. It gathers every obligation in a group, cancels the debts that loop, and reduces the rest to the fewest transfers anyone has to make — then settles that entire cleared circle as a single atomic transaction on Tempo. No one goes first. No one is left short. Here is how it works.
Make a room and add the parties. Drop in each obligation — who owes whom, how much, and what it is for. Share the link so everyone can add theirs.
Cinch computes everyone's net position and the minimal set of transfers that discharges every debt. A balanced loop collapses to nothing; an unbalanced one shrinks to a handful of payments.
The whole cleared circle goes out as one Tempo transaction. Every leg settles or none does — so no party ever pays into a settlement that leaves someone else short.
What makes it hold
The entire cleared circle is a single Tempo batch. Nobody goes first, nobody is left exposed: the transaction either clears every leg together or does nothing at all. This is the thing a normal payment app cannot do without risky escrow.
If a party cannot fund their net position on-chain, Cinch does not just fail. It finds the largest sub-circle that everyone present can actually cover and settles that — so one short wallet never blocks the room.
Keep a circle open. A DAO, a market, or a fleet can accumulate obligations across a week or a month, and Cinch nets and settles on a cadence instead of in a monthly scramble.
Obligations in different stablecoins net through Tempo's enshrined stablecoin exchange, so a pathUSD debt and an AlphaUSD debt can clear in the same round.
Every settled leg carries the invoice references it discharges in its on-chain memo, so each party's books reconcile straight from Tempo — no separate ledger to keep in sync.
Flag an obligation and Cinch holds it out of the round. One disagreement freezes a single edge, never the whole circle — the rest still clears today.
Every clearing is kept in the circle's history with the terms and the on-chain proof, and exports as a printable certificate — so a settlement is also a record you can file.
Give an obligation a due date and an early-pay discount, and the discount applies automatically when a standing circle clears inside the window. Overdue items are flagged; the terms travel into the settlement.
Compile a Splitwise-style shared expense or a one-to-many payroll run straight into a circle. A payroll run settles as a single sponsored atomic transaction, so recipients are paid together and touch zero gas.
The same netting engine answers programs at POST /api/clear: submit obligations and get back the minimal settlement, so backends and automated systems can net and settle without a browser.
Where it clears
Netting is a treasury primitive banks have run for decades as clearing. Cinch brings it on-chain and atomic — so it works for a group chat and a back office alike.
Grants, bounties, and reimbursements loop between a treasury and its contributors all month. A standing circle nets them into one clearing instead of a hundred separate transfers.
Platform fees run one way, seller payouts the other. Cinch nets them so money moves once at its true net, not gross in both directions.
Businesses that both buy from and sell to each other carry offsetting invoices. Clear the net balance in a single settlement rather than paying every invoice gross.
A one-to-many run compiles straight into a circle and settles as a single sponsored atomic transaction — everyone paid together, touching zero gas.
Inter-entity obligations net on a cadence and settle with an on-chain certificate attached, so the books reconcile straight from Tempo.
The shared-expense case, finally finished: one netted settlement instead of a chain of IOUs and someone fronting the difference.
FAQ
No one. Cinch never takes custody. It computes the settlement and your self-custodial Cinch account signs a single transaction; the money moves party-to-party on Tempo, or not at all.
It rarely does. Cinch nets to the minimum: the parties who end up net debtors pay only their net position, and net creditors receive only theirs. A loop that nets to zero needs no transfer at all.
Atomicity. Every leg of the cleared circle is in one Tempo transaction. The chain executes all of them or none — there is no state where some legs land and others don't.
Liquidity-aware clearing reads each party's on-chain balance and settles the largest sub-circle everyone can actually fund, holding the rest for a later round rather than failing the whole thing.
No. A circle lives in your browser and is shared by link, and your account is a self-custodial key you recover from a phrase — never held on a server. The only durable record of a settlement is the Tempo chain itself: public, verifiable, and nobody's to lose.
Cinch defaults to the Moderato testnet so nothing real moves while you explore. It targets Tempo mainnet by changing one setting.