After months of building, testing, and refining - The Signal Engine is officially accepting real payments. This isn't just flipping a switch from test mode to live. We spent the past few days overhauling our entire payment and security infrastructure.
Here's what changed.
Payment Processing: Stripe Live
We're now running on Stripe through Daisy Web Studio Co., Ltd., our registered Thai company. This means:
- Real card payments processed securely through Stripe
- Proper invoicing and tax compliance
- Subscription management with easy cancellation
- Protected by Stripe's fraud detection
The checkout flow remains the same - select your plan, enter your email, pay with card or crypto. But now it's real money, real subscriptions, real business.
Affiliate Payouts: USDC on Solana
Our affiliate program now pays out in USDC on Solana. No more PayPal fees or bank transfer delays. When you hit the $50 minimum threshold, we send USDC directly to your Solana wallet.
Stablecoins make sense for a crypto-focused service. Fast transfers, minimal fees, and you can swap to whatever you want. We considered SOL payouts, but price volatility between payout calculation and actual transfer created accounting headaches. USDC keeps it clean.
Affiliates automatically get a Solana wallet field in their profile. Payouts are processed manually for now - we verify each one before sending. Automated payouts might come later, but we prefer the human checkpoint for financial transactions.
Security Hardening
Going live meant taking security seriously. We ran a comprehensive audit and fixed every issue found:
| Issue | Status |
|---|---|
| Write endpoints missing authentication | ✓ Fixed |
| CORS allowing all origins | ✓ Restricted |
| No rate limiting on sensitive endpoints | ✓ Added |
| Health endpoint exposing internal info | ✓ Minimized |
| API key format resembling Stripe keys | ✓ Changed prefix |
We also added IP restrictions on our Stripe secret key - it only works from our server's IP. Even if someone somehow got the key, they couldn't use it.
UX Improvements
Small details matter. During this process we also improved the checkout experience:
- Terms validation - Payment buttons stay disabled until you accept terms
- Visual feedback - Buttons flash when enabled, clear messaging when disabled
- Discord optional - You only need an email address now
- Better error messages - Clear feedback when something goes wrong
What's Next
With the infrastructure solid, we're focusing on what matters: signal quality and user experience. The mobile apps are progressing (see our January update on mobile apps), and we're continuously tuning our signal algorithms.
Thanks to everyone who's been following along. If you've been waiting to subscribe until we went live - now's the time.
- Thomas, The Signal Engine