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Cryptocurrency payments

Orbit accepts cryptocurrency top-ups alongside credit/debit cards. Crypto payments settle to your Orbit wallet in USD-equivalent credits, the same as Stripe top-ups. There are no separate “crypto credits” — once a payment confirms, the funds are indistinguishable from any other top-up and can be spent on messaging, voice, and AI as usual. Crypto payments are powered by NOWPayments and use their hosted invoice flow. You never share wallet keys with Orbit; the only information we record is what NOWPayments reports on the IPN callback.

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What is crypto top-up?

Crypto top-up is an alternative to credit/debit card payment. You choose an amount in USD, click “Pay with crypto”, and NOWPayments mints a hosted invoice showing the exact crypto amount to send to a one-time receiving address. Once the network confirms the transfer, your Orbit wallet is credited automatically. The flow is one-shot per top-up. Crypto auto top-up is intentionally not supported — auto top-up remains card-only (USD via Stripe) because crypto prices are volatile and there is no on-file credential we can charge.

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Supported coins

Orbit does not fetch or filter the coin list itself. You pick the coin you want to pay with directly on NOWPayments’ hosted payment page, which shows the full live roster when you proceed to checkout. At launch the coins you’ll typically see there include:
  • Bitcoin (BTC) — Bitcoin mainnet
  • Tether (USDT) — Tron (TRC-20) and Ethereum (ERC-20)
  • USD Coin (USDC) — Ethereum (ERC-20) and Solana (SPL)
  • Ethereum (ETH) — Ethereum mainnet
  • BNB Smart Chain (BNB) — BSC mainnet
  • Solana (SOL)
  • Tron (TRX)
  • Polygon (MATIC)
The hosted invoice surface from NOWPayments shows the full live list when you proceed to checkout. If a coin you want is not visible, contact support — the operator may have it disabled.

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Payment flow

  1. In Dashboard → Billing, choose Cryptocurrency in the payment method selector above the amount preset ladder.
  2. Pick an amount (preset or custom). The “Pay with crypto” button opens a NOWPayments hosted invoice in a new browser tab.
  3. On the hosted invoice, pick the coin you want to pay with. NOWPayments shows the exact crypto amount + the one-time receiving address.
  4. Send EXACTLY the requested amount from your wallet to the displayed address. Underpayments and wrong-amount sends are flagged for manual review.
  5. The Orbit dashboard shows a pending-payment card with live status while the network confirms. Once finished, your balance updates immediately.

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Status meanings

The pending-payment card surfaces the status states reported by NOWPayments, plus one Orbit-side state (cancelled). The most common transitions in practice are waiting → confirming → confirmed → sending → finished.

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Cancelling a pending top-up

If you opened an invoice but no longer want to complete it, you can cancel it from the dashboard instead of waiting for it to expire. The pending-payment card shows a Cancel pending payment button while the invoice is still awaiting funds. Cancelling is only possible while the invoice is in an early state:
  • Cancellable: waiting (no payment seen yet) and confirming (a transfer has been detected on-chain but is not yet confirmed).
  • Not cancellable: once the payment is confirmed, sending, finished, refunded, failed, or already expired. Pressing Cancel in any of these states returns 409 PAYMENT_IN_FLIGHT and the pending card refreshes to show the real, current status.
Cancelling does not contact NOWPayments — there is no invoice-cancel API on their side, so the receiving address technically stays open. Orbit simply marks the top-up cancelled on our side so it stops showing as pending.
Cancel-then-pay safety: if you cancel and then funds DO land at the invoice address afterwards, you do not lose them. When NOWPayments reports the payment as finished, Orbit overrides the cancelled state and credits your wallet automatically. The credit is idempotent — you are credited exactly once for the amount received. Because of this, only cancel an invoice you are sure you have not sent (and will not send) funds to; if you have already broadcast a transfer, let it settle rather than cancelling.

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Important warnings

Crypto payments are FINAL and NON-REFUNDABLE without operator action. Once the network confirms a transfer, Orbit cannot reverse it from the dashboard. If you need a refund, open a support ticket and a human operator will process it manually (see Refund process below).
Wrong-chain transfers CANNOT be recovered. If the invoice asks for USDT-TRC20 and you send USDT-ERC20 (or vice versa), the funds land at an address that exists on a different network. Neither NOWPayments nor Orbit can recover them. Double-check the network displayed on the invoice before you send.
Send EXACTLY the requested amount. Underpayments are flagged for manual review and may delay your top-up by hours. Overpayments are credited at the USD-equivalent we observe at the time of confirmation — not at the rate displayed on the invoice.

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How long does it take?

Confirmation time is set by the blockchain, not by Orbit or NOWPayments. Typical observed times:
  • Bitcoin (BTC) — 10 to 60 minutes (1-6 confirmations)
  • Ethereum (ETH) and ERC-20 (USDT, USDC) — 2 to 10 minutes
  • Tron (TRX) and TRC-20 (USDT) — 1 to 3 minutes
  • BNB Smart Chain — 1 to 3 minutes
  • Solana (SOL, USDC) — under 1 minute
Some coins require more confirmations than others; the hosted invoice shows the required count + the live counter as blocks roll in.

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Receipts and tax

Crypto top-ups produce the same kind of receipt as card top-ups, available under Dashboard → Billing → Invoices. The receipt records:
  • Payment method: Cryptocurrency
  • Network and coin (e.g. USDT-TRC20)
  • USD-equivalent at the time of confirmation
  • Absorbed NOWPayments fee — the fee Orbit covers on your behalf, recorded internally for accounting. This is non-zero only for top-ups of 50orless(whereOrbitabsorbsthefee);fortop−upsabove50 or less (where Orbit absorbs the fee); for top-ups above 50 the fee is added on top of the amount you send and no Orbit-side fee is recorded against the credit. See the fee policy below.
  • Transaction hash (when NOWPayments reports it; not all coins surface this on the IPN payload)
The fiat-equivalent USD figure is recorded at confirmation time and is the value used for tax/accounting purposes. Subsequent price moves of the underlying crypto do NOT change the recorded USD amount.

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Fee policy

For top-ups of 50orless,OrbitabsorbstheNOWPaymentsnetworkfee—youpayexactlytherequestedamount.Fortop−upsabove50 or less, Orbit absorbs the NOWPayments network fee — you pay exactly the requested amount. For top-ups above 50, the network fee is shown as a “Network fee” line item on the pre-checkout summary and is added to the amount you send. Either way the USD credited to your wallet is the amount you requested.

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Refund process

Crypto refunds are not self-service. To request a refund:
  1. Open a support ticket from the dashboard. Reference the original transaction id (visible under Dashboard → Billing → Invoices).
  2. Provide the destination wallet address. This must be a wallet you control on the same chain as the original payment — wrong-chain refunds are irrecoverable and we will not initiate them.
  3. The operator reviews the ticket and, when approved, submits a payout via NOWPayments. You receive a confirmation when the on-chain payout is broadcast and again when it confirms.
Refund processing time depends on the chain (same ranges as for top-ups). The operator’s response time is up to 24 hours during business days.

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Auto top-up

Auto top-up is not available for crypto. The auto-replenish setting on Dashboard → Billing remains card-only (USD via Stripe). This is by design:
  • Crypto prices are volatile, so an auto-charge would have to re-quote on every trigger — non-deterministic from a budgeting standpoint.
  • There is no on-file crypto credential we could charge against; every send has to be initiated manually from a wallet you control.
If you have auto top-up enabled and want to switch to crypto for a manual top-up, the auto setting is unaffected — you can do both.

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Troubleshooting

The pending card shows partially_paid. You sent less than the invoice asked. Contact support and reference the transaction id. The operator will either credit the partial amount manually or refund the partial transfer (your choice). The hosted invoice expired. NOWPayments marks an invoice expired if no payment is detected within 24 hours of issuing it. Click “Try again” in the dashboard — a fresh invoice is issued. My balance didn’t update after finished. Refresh the dashboard. The pending card normally invalidates the balance query automatically; if it doesn’t, the next page load will pick up the new balance. If the balance still doesn’t reflect a finished top-up after 5 minutes, contact support with the transaction id. I sent on the wrong chain. Unfortunately, neither Orbit nor NOWPayments can recover wrong-chain transfers. The funds remain at an address on the chain you sent on; whether they’re spendable depends on whether you control a wallet at that derivation path on the other chain. This is a hard limitation of how cross-chain transfers work, not an Orbit policy.