Cointime

Download App
iOS & Android

Crypto IRL: Crypto Remittance Sent via WhatsApp

Validated Individual Expert

Our Crypto IRL series showcases individuals who are leading the charge in the crypto revolution by using cryptocurrency in real life to drive financial inclusivity, enterprise, and innovation.

We’re excited to share a recent conversation we had with Bernardo Garcia, Co-Founder of Félix Pago, the world’s first chat-bot on WhatsApp that allows Latino immigrants in the US to send remittances abroad.

Félix Pago leverages blockchain and AI to make remittances as simple and fast as sending a message.

Hey Bernardo! Tell us a bit about Félix Pago

Félix Pago serves hard working foreign born Latino immigrants that live in the US and provide support to their family members that stayed in their home country. We leverage blockchain and AI to make remittances as simple and fast as sending a WhatsApp message.

Félix was built to meet Latino’s where they are, on WhatsApp, and to help them save time and money when they take care of their loved ones.

Awesome. And how does Félix Pago use crypto as part of their operations?

Félix leverages stable coins to get the customer’s funds from the US to Mexico.

First, the customer sees a guaranteed exchange rate of USD/MXN in the Félix chat. Once they pay, Félix takes the funds, converts them into stable coins, and then executes the necessary trades in crypto to get the Mexican pesos in the hands of the customer’s beneficiary in real time.

What have the benefits been to the business since introducing crypto?

The main benefits of using crypto are the speed of the transactions and the low costs.

Doing a cross-border transaction via traditional rails, like swift, takes days and is very expensive, which makes it inefficient.

Finally, what do you think the future of crypto holds — in 2023 and beyond!

We believe that the future of crypto is when it powers our day to day lives and we don’t even notice it! That’s what Félix is all about.

In the end, what matters to us and our customers is that the funds get from A to B in real time at the lowest possible cost.

Do you have an example to share of how cryptocurrency is being used IRL? Tweet us! @blockchain

Comments

All Comments

Recommended for you

  • A whale sold 224 WBTC worth $14.4 million in the past three hours

    According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, address 0x486...1505e sold 224 WBTC tokens worth $14.4 million through Cowswap in the past three hours, making a profit of $830,000 (selling at an average price of $64,203). The seller had bought 371 WBTC tokens at an average price of $60,504 between November 2023 and April 2024, and still holds 280 WBTC tokens.

  • CryptoQuant CEO: BTC needs to remain above $80,000 for miners to remain profitable after halving

    Bitcoin mining revenue significantly decreased in May due to the impact of the fourth Bitcoin halving event. On May 1st, the total revenue from block rewards and transaction fees reached a new low of only $26.3 million.CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju calculated that, based on current conditions, Bitcoin needs to stay above $80,000 for miners to remain profitable after the halving. However, most miners have taken proactive measures to upgrade their mining equipment to lower long-term operating costs and remain competitive.

  • BTC returns to above 65,000 USDT, up 2.08% in 24 hours

    OKX market shows that BTC has returned to above 65000 USDT, now reporting 65102 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 2.08%.

  • Hundre Finance attackers have withdrawn 162.2 ETH worth of crypto assets from Curve

    According to PeckShield monitoring, the attacker of Hundre Finance withdrew 784,000 3Crv from Curve and exchanged it for 273 ETH. In addition, they also exchanged 305.6 WOO, 39 PAXG, 200,000 FRAX, and 100,000 DAI, totaling 162.2 ETH. The attacker then bridged 1,034 ETH (2.17 million USD), 842.8K DAI, 1.11 million USDT, 1.27 million USDC, and 457.3 FRAX from Optimism to Ethereum. They also exchanged a total of 480,000 USDC for 142.6 WETH, 306 WOO, and 39 PAXG. They also exchanged 1.11 million USDT for 500.3 thousand USD worth of DAI and 613.8 thousand USD worth of FRAX. Additionally, on April 15, 2023, approximately 786,000 USD worth of USDC was added to Curve3Pool.

  • LayerZero co-founder: "Self-reporting of witch activities" is not aimed at individuals, but at industrial witch studios

    Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder and CEO of LayerZero, stated on social media that the "Self-Report Sybil Activity" is not targeting individual users, but rather large industrial witch farms (studios).Earlier, LayerZero Labs launched the "Self-Report Sybil Activity" plan, which allows witch addresses to self-report related addresses on a designated page and receive an expected allocation of 15%, without answering any questions. The deadline is May 17th, 19:59:59.

  • Argentina’s House of Representatives Passes Bill to Regularize Cryptocurrency Taxation

    The Argentine Chamber of Deputies has passed a cryptocurrency tax normalization bill aimed at advancing a series of important government reforms. The bill introduces the possibility of regularizing previously undeclared cryptocurrency assets, up to a maximum of $100,000, without paying government collection fees. However, if the value of cryptocurrency assets exceeds this limit, the government will apply preferential tax rates based on the taxpayer's declaration date.

  • GNUS on Fantom was attacked, with a loss of about $1.27 million

    According to Beosin's monitoring, GNUS on Fantom was attacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $1.27 million. GNUS stated on the X platform that due to recent vulnerabilities, hackers were able to mint fake GNUS tokens on Fantom, transfer them to Ethereum and Polygon through the Axelar Bridge, and sell them to existing liquidity pools. We will take a snapshot of the blocks before the exploit. To ensure fairness, please do not purchase GNUS tokens after the exploit, as we will issue new tokens.

  • Pandu Financial Group received the first round of strategic equity investment of tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, led by Longling Capital

    Pando Financial Group announced it has received tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in strategic equity investment led by Longling Investment. Pando Financial Group stated that it plans to use the newly injected funds for key growth areas, including market expansion, innovative product development, key talent recruitment, and technology upgrades, aiming to accelerate the layout of opportunities in the era of virtual assets through these strategic initiatives. Currently, the group's asset management scale has reached $500 million. Pando Asset, a subsidiary of Pando Financial Group, established its headquarters in Zurich in 2022 and issued the Pando 6 spot virtual asset fund (Bitcoin/Ethereum spot ETPs) on the Swiss Exchange. Another subsidiary of Pando Financial Group, Pando Limited, obtained licenses from the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong, including Type 1 (securities trading), Type 4 (advising on securities), and Type 9 (asset management), as well as public fund qualifications, and was approved to manage investment portfolios with more than 10% invested in virtual assets and issued several excellent performance actively managed ETF products.

  • Hong Kong Monetary Authority launches industry consultation on “renaming virtual banks as licensed digital banks”

    Hong Kong virtual banks released their annual reports for 2023 last week. The eight virtual banks collectively lost about 2.99 billion yuan last year, a decrease of about 12% compared to the total loss of about 3.4 billion yuan in 2022. In response to the occasional feeling of "unreality" brought about by the term "virtual" in recent years, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has initiated a consultation on renaming with the eight virtual banks, the Hong Kong Bankers Association, the Hong Kong Restricted Licensed Banks and Deposit-taking Companies Association, with the aim of renaming virtual banks as licensed digital banks, for a period of one month. It is reported that in the Asian region, similar banks have different names in different places. South Korea and Singapore issue licenses under the name of "digital bank", with Singapore further dividing them into digital full banks (DFB) and digital wholesale banks (DWB).

  • Bitcoin opens $63K futures gap as thin liquidity threatens BTC price

    Bitcoin market participants are doubting the staying power of the ongoing BTC price relief bounce.