Firm Identify: Yopaki
Founders: Francisco Chavarria (CEO) and Carlos Chida (CTO)
Date Based: March 2023
Location of Headquarters: Austin, TX
Variety of Workers: 4 full time; one half time
Web site: https://www.yopaki.com/
Public or Non-public? Non-public
In 2021, Francisco Chavarria stood within the viewers at Bitcoin 2021 and watched as Strike CEO Jack Mallers passionately delivered his now well-known keynote speech throughout which he revealed that El Salvador deliberate to make bitcoin authorized tender.
That second sparked one thing inside Chavarria.
“It was not like something I’d skilled in my skilled profession,” Chavarria advised Bitcoin Journal.
“I knew I needed to do one thing within the Bitcoin house after that. It was the seed,” he added.
First-forward forward two years, and Chavarria discovered himself placing his profession as a Software program as a Service (SaaS) advisor on maintain to attract up the blueprints for Yopaki, a neobank and funding app with a Bitcoin-focus, aimed toward serving the folks of his residence nation, Mexico. (Customers outdoors of Mexico also can use Yopaki’s non-custodial Lighting pockets.)
Since then, he and his co-founder, Carlos Chida, have been arduous at work bringing Yopaki to life, together with participating in Wolf’s Bitcoin Accelerator program in efforts to make Yopaki as cutting-edge and dynamic as attainable.
However earlier than attending to that a part of the story, let’s begin with the cultural origin of the platform’s title.
What’s In A Identify?
“The title Yopaki comes from the traditional language Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs,” defined Chavarria.
“The Aztecs lived within the middle area of what immediately is Mexico, they usually’re those accountable for among the largest pyramids in all of Latin America. The middle of this historic place is named Teotihuacán, ‘the place of the gods,’” he added.
“The title itself, if I have been to translate it into English, most carefully means “the pursuit of happiness.’”
Judging by the title alone, it’s clear that Chavarria views Yopaki as extra than simply one other enterprise endeavor — he desires it to have a profound affect on those that use it.
And he’ll want the app to have such an affect if he and his group are to achieve their mission: to show each Mexican right into a Bitcoiner.
2025 Dream Predictions for Bitcoin in Mexico 🇲🇽😶🌫️ 1. Bitcoin adoption in Mexico surges.2. Mexican Bitcoin startups entice international traders. With El Salvador’s affect, Mexico turns into the Latin American chief for Bitcoin innovation.3. Peso-Bitcoin integration deepens.…
— Francisco Chavarria (@FranciscoBTC) December 31, 2024
Bitcoin In The Mexican Context
When Bitcoin is introduced up within the context of Latin America and different growing areas, it’s usually referenced as a software to “financial institution the unbanked.”
Nonetheless, Mexico’s banking system is “fairly superior,” in accordance with Chavarria.
“The infrastructure has been constructed for folks to have entry to banking,” he defined.
“It might not be the identical banking that we’ve within the U.S. (the place Chavarria presently resides), however, for instance, in Mexico, there are shops like 7/11s known as OXXOs, they usually’re in every single place. Any individual can stroll into an OXXO with an ID, and inside 20 minutes, they will stroll out with a Visa card and an app,” he added.
“It’s not precisely a financial institution, but it surely offers entry to cost rails,” he added.
Chavarria went on to share that these Visa playing cards cost excessive charges, although.
“They’re very predatory in that sense,” he mentioned.
So, Yopaki offers its Mexican customers with entry to 3 completely different financial accounts: a Mexican peso account, a U.S. greenback account and a (non-custodial) bitcoin Lightning pockets. Every of those accounts lets their customers transact at decrease charges than mentioned Visa playing cards. (In 2025, Yopaki will even allow its Mexican customers to purchase shares, ETFs and different securities, as nicely.)
By providing a bitcoin pockets alongside accounts for conventional currencies, Chavarria hopes to legitimize bitcoin within the eyes of its customers. Nonetheless, he additionally feels that Yopaki has some work to do so far as serving to Mexicans to get snug utilizing bitcoin, which is why he and his group are doing what they will to make the method fulfilling.
Making Bitcoin Enjoyable With Lotería
Lotería is a favourite pastime of the Mexican folks. It’s corresponding to Bingo however with pictures as an alternative of numbers.
Chavarria and the Yopaki group included it into the app with a Bitcoin slant — ideas and characters just like the Lightning Community and Max Keiser seem within the Yopaki model of the sport.
“In the case of Mexico, folks assume tequila, tacos, mariachi, and Lotería,” mentioned Chavarria.
“There’s no detrimental connotation to the sport. Due to this, the suggestions we have acquired over the past couple of months has been, ‘Man, I did not understand that Bitcoin was enjoyable,’” he added.
Customers earn sats as they play Lotería inside the app. Once they’ve earned 1,000 sats or extra, they will be taught by way of the app how one can switch these sats from Yopaki’s custody into their very own, all inside the Yopaki app.
Yopaki teamed up with Breez to convey its customers a non-custodial Lightning pockets that doesn’t require its customers to to take care of the effort of Lightning channel administration.
Yopaki + Breez
“One of many predominant causes we determined to go along with Breez is that we knew about their implementation of the Nodeless SDK by way of Liquid earlier than it was public,” mentioned Chavarria.
“We all know channel administration is a basic roadblock for lots of people in utilizing an software like this. The second you introduce roadblocks the expertise turns into scary. It’s simply an excessive amount of,” he added.
“So, in providing a product wherein customers can do a right away transaction, that magic that we have all had as Bitcoiners could be dropped at the plenty.”
Chavarria went on to share that Yopaki’s Lightning pockets is very easy to make use of that even his mother-in-law is now utilizing (and having fun with) the product.
He’s excited to convey such a product to the Mexican market, as a result of, as he put it, Mexicans “have been rugged” by custodial options up to now.
“It’s necessary that we let customers know that we don’t maintain their funds,” mentioned Chavarria.
Prioritizing Bitcoin Schooling
Not solely does the Yopaki group encourage and prioritize self-sovereignty, but it surely additionally educates its customers about Bitcoin, because it doesn’t underestimate their curiosity and talent to be taught.
“We’ve curated content material together with classes on broad subjects like ‘What’s cash?’ — not simply Bitcoin, however cash,” defined Chavarria.
“They’re micro classes that take wherever from one to 2 minutes to finish. On the finish of the day, it is about making a curiosity that I really feel and I feel a variety of us really feel the legacy system has not likely cared about,” he added.
The academic element inside the app additionally units it aside from its rivals within the area.
“Bitso is the most important participant not simply in Mexico however all of Latin America, and we’ve a variety of respect for what they’ve carried out, however they’ve was a on line casino with tokens and NFTs and all of that,” shared Chavarria. “We imagine they’ve actually underestimated the curiosity of their customers and simply triggered the degenerate playing dependancy facet of issues as an alternative.”
Steerage From Wolf
Given how cool, calm and picked up Chavarria was once I spoke with him, I received the impression that the now fleshed out imaginative and prescient for Yopaki got here to him with relative ease, possibly even in a flash of sunshine.
However he advised me in any other case.
Apparently, he and Chida’s expertise at Wolf’s Bitcoin startup incubator pushed them out of their consolation zone and right into a mind-set that helped them to make Yopaki as distinctive as it’s.
“It was probably the most necessary and significant experiences we may have gone by way of,” mentioned Chavarria of his time at Wolf. “The kind of suggestions we acquired and the kind of technique periods we had have been, to say it properly, brutal in a great way.”
Chavarria defined how he and Chida did, in actual fact, enter the Wolf program considering they’d already crafted a stable imaginative and prescient for Yopaki, however that the steering they acquired in this system is what pushed them to create most of the options that differentiate the apps for others prefer it.
“Having folks like Kelly Brewster (Wolf’s CEO), who has years of expertise at Goldman Sachs, and Ross Stevens (Wolf’s founder) actually sit down and ask the robust questions and push you to the restrict was highly effective,” mentioned Chavarria. “They made us actually take into account ‘Do you perceive that what you are doing is troublesome?’ and made us articulate how we have been going to execute our plan.”
The 12 months Forward
As talked about, Yopaki will allow its Mexican customers to start investing in conventional belongings within the coming yr and, beginning subsequent month, it can supply customers a bitcoin alternate, as nicely.
What’s extra, it can concern its customers debit playing cards that they will use to spend their pesos, {dollars} or bitcoin. And Chavarria says it plans to supply sats again rewards when customers buy both conventional belongings or bitcoin by way of the app.
With a lot coming down the pike, Chavarria is in good spirits.
“I am simply grateful that we’re doing this,” he mentioned.
“It has been actually enjoyable to construct within the bear — now the great occasions are coming.”
