What Clear is
CLEAR is a money app and a financial co-op, built to help renters become owners. You save in it, spend from it, pay your rent through it, and every month of doing that on time moves you toward a home of your own. Underneath it is the Clear Protocol: the contracts on the Base network that hold the savings and keep the records.
On this page
You don't need to know what a blockchain is. Words in bold that you have not met before are in the glossary.
Who it is for
- Renters who want to save, build a record of paying on time, and work toward owning a home. This is who Clear is built around. The member app is for them: Members.
- Shops that want to take payments from members, and from everyone else, at the counter or online: Merchants.
- Financial contributors who put money behind the co-op's lending: Investors.
- People building on Clear, or working on its source code: Developers.
Three layers
The app. What a member sees: savings, a card, sending money, paying rent and bills, credit, and progress toward a home. There are five apps in all — member, merchant, Pay with Clear, rewards and the Command Center — and one server they all talk to.
The co-op. Clear is run as a co-operative. How it makes decisions, and who holds which keys, is written down in one place: Governance.
The Clear Protocol. The contracts that hold savings, keep the credit ledger, pay shops and hold the reserve. They are open source. If you want the detail, start with Protocol.
The products
Savings and send run on Base, the public network. Credit lines, split plans, the card and payouts to shops run only on the test network for now, where nothing is real money. See Status, security and licensing.
Savings
You deposit USDC, a digital dollar, and receive the same amount of CLRUSD, one for one. Your CLRUSD balance is your savings. It is yours, it is liquid, and you can turn it back into USDC whenever you want.
Savings earn no interest. CLRUSD pays nothing to the people who hold it. What saving does earn you is equity credits, below.
Your savings sit in the Equity Savings Account (ESA). The contract behind it is
ESADepositVault; how it works is in Savings and send.
Equity credits
Equity credits are a separate count from your savings. They are not money and they can never be withdrawn or cashed out. They only ever go toward your Clear Deed.
You earn them two ways:
- Matched savings. Each dollar you deposit is matched with an equity credit, up to a monthly limit. A match settles after 30 days; take that deposit out sooner and its match is cancelled.
- Paying on time through Clear Pay. Rent paid on time earns credits, and so do other bills.
Your membership plan changes how fast the bill and rent credits add up. The exact rules are in Parameters and who sets them.
Equity credits are kept by Clear's server, not by a contract. No contract on the chain holds them.
Clear Deed
The Clear Deed is the finish line: a home title, free of debt, earned by being consistent. It is
not a mortgage. On the chain, a home is recorded as a T-Deed, a token issued by the DeedNFT
contract in the Deed track of the protocol. Recording a member's home as a T-Deed: Not available
yet. More in Deeds and real-world assets.
Clear Assurance
Protections from the co-op for the moments that go wrong — for example, rent paid for you if you lose your job. Protections unlock as your equity credits grow, not by which plan you are on. A claim is read by a person at the co-op.
Credit lines and split plans
Members can spend on credit, in two separate ways:
- A credit line that backs the Clear card and spending at partner shops. How much it allows depends on what backs it — your savings, or other things you have pledged.
- Split plans, for paying a purchase back in 1, 2, 4, 6 or 12 instalments. These draw on a separate limit that starts small and grows as you pay on time.
Credit has a cost, called carry. If you pledge savings behind your credit line, the part covering what you have drawn can be held until you repay it; the rest stays free. More in How the money works.
The Clear card
A card for spending anywhere cards are taken. A swipe at a shop outside the Clear network is paid from the co-op's float, and recorded against your credit line once the payment clears.
Send
Send money to another wallet, or to an email address or phone number. Someone without an account can receive by a link; the money waits in escrow until they claim it, and comes back to you if they never do.
Pay with Clear
Shops can take Clear online through payment links and a checkout, and the Clear member approves the payment in their app.
Rewards
Each shop can have its own branded loyalty app — points, offers and rewards — and there is one hub for all of them. Separately, the co-op can give each new member a one-time offer to spend; an offer left unspent expires.
For shops
The merchant app is a full point of sale. It takes Clear, cards (through Stripe Terminal) and cash, splits a bill across payments, and sends payment links. Staff charge at the counter; owners manage payouts, staff and refunds. See Merchants.
Membership
Membership comes in two plans, Standard and Accelerated. The plan sets how fast you earn equity credits on rent and bills, and nothing else: it does not decide which protections you get. Standard is billed yearly; Accelerated is a single payment.
Next
- How the money works — where each dollar sits, in plain words
- Status and security — what is live, on which network, and what has not been audited