Invoice Rate Lock

Overview

Meaning in plain language

Invoice rate lock is the temporary fixing of an exchange rate used to convert an invoice amount into a different payment or settlement currency. It protects the payer from quote changes during a defined window and assigns market-movement risk to the merchant, provider, or hedging process.

How it works

A USD invoice paid in ETH can lock the ETH amount for several minutes. The original invoice remains USD-denominated while the payment attempt uses the locked rate.

The provider can hedge the exposure, include a spread, or restrict supported amounts and assets. A rate lock is not a guarantee that network fees or transfer-tax deductions will be covered.

If the payer sends after expiry, the merchant should not silently use either the old or current rate. The late-payment policy should determine acceptance, repricing, or refund.

For Invoice Rate Lock, exports and reports should reproduce the historical document without using today’s customer profile, tax rule, exchange rate , or merchant settings.

Implementations should link Invoice Rate Lock to Invoice Price Lock and Invoice Exchange Rate through auditable references. Although the records can share a customer or transaction, Invoice Rate Lock retains its own authority, lifecycle, and recovery rules.

For Invoice Rate Lock, the invoice and the payment used to settle it should remain separate records. When Invoice Rate Lock interacts with Invoice Price Lock, the invoice defines the commercial obligation, parties, amount, denomination, tax, due date, and revision history; payment records hold quotes, addresses, transaction identifiers, confirmations, fees, refunds, and settlement. In the relationship between Invoice Rate Lock and Invoice Exchange Rate, keeping these layers separate prevents a late payment, repricing event, or refund from silently changing the document originally issued to the customer.

Where people get it wrong

Rate locks describe a commercial price agreement; they do not prevent Bitcoin price changes on an exchange. Document which timestamp starts the lock and whether a late broadcast or late confirmation qualifies.

Related concepts

Invoice Fulfillment Rule, Invoice Payment Attempt, Crypto Invoice.