A charge you never approved
cannot happen on Acquis.

Safer in three specific ways. First, chargebacks cannot happen. Card network transactions are reversible for up to 120 days — any customer can dispute a charge and the merchant bears the burden of proof. Acquis transactions settle on the XRP Ledger as final and irrevocable. There is no chargeback mechanism because there is no card network to process one. A settled transaction cannot be reversed by anyone. Second, fraud is stopped before it happens. The HSuite SmartNode validates every transaction against your compiled rule set before any funds move. Spending limits, category restrictions, and customer consent parameters are enforced at the infrastructure level — not in software. A transaction that fails validation is never sent to XRPL for settlement at all. Compare this to card networks where fraudulent transactions are processed first and disputed weeks later. Third, your audit trail is permanent and tamper-evident. Every validation decision and consent record is written to the Hedera Consensus Service with a cryptographic hash, timestamp, and immutable transaction ID that no one — not Acquis, not the merchant, not the customer — can alter after the fact. That is a stronger record than any traditional processor provides. The one thing to understand: the Acquis Card uses a custodial balance model, not a direct bank account. Customer funds are protected in a reserve account at the sponsor bank. This is the same structure every prepaid card program uses and is well-established under US financial regulation.

No. Zero. They tap a card that has your business name on it — exactly like a gift card or store card. The blockchain infrastructure is invisible. Here's the actual gap in the market: the Federal Reserve's own survey found 10% of US adults now own or use crypto — but only 2% used it to actually buy something in 2025. Ownership is climbing. Spending isn't. That gap is exactly where Acquis lives. Settlement runs on real crypto-native rails — the XRP Ledger — for the speed and cost advantage. But your customer never touches any of that. They fund their card from a normal bank account, just like a debit card, and tap to pay like they always have. You get the infrastructure of a crypto-native network without waiting for a crypto-native customer base that, for most businesses, still doesn't exist.

It's a reservation fee that secures your founding member status — and it is fully credited toward your first months of platform access. You're not paying for something and also paying again later. The $299 counts as payment toward your subscription. You also permanently lock in the founding rate and the 4× early adopter reward multiplier for your customers.

Yes, full refund. If Acquis does not reach launch within 12 months of your reservation, you receive a complete refund of your $299. No questions asked. We're committed to this — and we already have a 26-claim patent filed, a working prototype live on both the Hedera and XRP Ledger testnets, and FinCEN MSB registration in place.

Any business that accepts customer payments — restaurants and QSR, retail, outdoor and home services (landscaping, HVAC, pool care), healthcare and wellness, professional services, property management. If you currently use Stripe, Square, or a card terminal and pay 2.5% per transaction, Acquis replaces that infrastructure and keeps 90%+ of what you're currently paying card networks in your pocket.

Stripe and Square process payments on card network rails — which means 2.5% fees and 1–3 day settlement are baked in, regardless of how slick the software is. Acquis doesn't use card networks at all. Payments settle directly on the XRP Ledger for a fraction of a cent per transaction, while Hedera validates the rules and writes the permanent record behind it. The savings aren't a discount — they're structural. The card network fee is simply gone.

We're targeting Q3 2026 for first merchant go-live with physical card issuance and full mainnet settlement on the XRP Ledger, with Hedera enforcement and record-keeping live alongside it. The testnet prototype is running now on both networks. Founding members get priority onboarding and are first in line when we flip to production.

Your money goes into your Acquis merchant account balance — held at a licensed, FDIC-insured US sponsor bank — and you withdraw it to your business bank account on your own schedule. Here is the full picture: when a customer loads their Acquis Card, they fund it via ACH from their bank account or a push payment through their own banking app. That balance sits in a custodial reserve account at the sponsor bank. When they tap the card at your business, the payment settles on the XRP Ledger — the value moves from their sub-account to yours in 3–5 seconds, instant and irrevocable. At the same moment, Hedera writes a separate, permanent record of the rule check and the consent behind the transaction — a tamper-evident audit trail no one can alter after the fact. The underlying dollars move through the standard US banking system; XRPL is the settlement rail that makes the transfer instant and final, and Hedera is the record that makes it provable. You are never holding XRP, HBAR, or any cryptocurrency. Your settlement shows in your Acquis dashboard and withdraws to your business bank account via ACH, typically same-day or next-day. It is the same custodial model used by every major prepaid card program in the US — Starbucks, Amazon, and thousands of others — regulated under FinCEN prepaid access rules, with Acquis registered as a Money Services Business.