Facilitator Introduction
The Tesseract facilitator is a facilitator according to the z402 protocol hosted by Tesseract, focused on cutting-edge features and privacy. Let's understand what it can do for you and how it works.
Why z402 and not x402
x402 is a protocol that enables payments in HTTP requests, the protocol relies on the blockchain and inherits its speed and scalability, while z402 works similarly to x402, its speed and scalability are not constrained by the blockchain that it uses. Transactions made with z402 have zero impact to execution and are almost infinitely scalable, in short, transactions are instant and cheaper than x402. z402 is an extension of x402, meaning it has all its features and you can use z402 software and don't experience problems while using the x402 ecosystem.
z402 doesn't aim to replace x402, but rather to improve it and extend its functionalities. One day the two protocols might merge, stay tuned! In the meantime, you can enjoy z402's cutting edge features with Tesseract.
You can discover the why z402 is awesome and its technical details in the dedicated docs.
Why the facilitator
The z402 is a payment protocol that connects two users: the buyer and the seller. In order to follow the protocol the users must use a z402 client.
A facilitator is not a client but a software that handles much of the blockchain and protocol specific complexity, so that clients are easier and faster to develop.
It's possible to build a full client using a facilitator and a client SDK, or building it from scratch handling the entire protocol. Moreover a facilitator can be self-hosted or cloud-hosted, the Tesseract facilitator is a cloud-hosted facilitator managed by Tesseract with care to reliability and privacy. Since our code is completely open source, you can host it yourself if you wish.
Here is an overview of the available implementation options for developing a z402 client.
| Client Implementation | Degree of control | Price | Maintenance cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| From scratch | Full control | Free | Highest (you own all updates and fixes) |
| Self-hosted facilitator + SDK | Higher control | Free | Medium (server upkeep, monitoring) |
| Tesseract facilitator + SDK | High control | < 0.01$ per transaction | Lowest (Tesseract handles operations) |
How it works
A z402 facilitator is a x402 facilitator with some extra features, see the x402 docs to understand how a x402 facilitator works.
A z402 facilitator has two operative modes:
- x-mode: it uses the exact specification of x402, ensuring compatibility.
- z-mode: it adds the ability to execute zero seconds delay transactions.
Check the z402 protocol description to know more about these modes.
Supported networks
At the moment we support the following networks:
- Ethereum: there is no x402 facilitator supporting Ethereum, since Ethereum block time is long (12 seconds) this makes sense only with z402.
- XRP: there is no x402 facilitator supporting XRP, enjoy 0 delay transactions with XRP!
- Solana: Coming soon!
- TON: Coming soon!
- Polkadot: Coming soon!