Company name: Yopaki
Founders: Francisco Chavarria (CEO) and Carlos Chida (CTO)
Establishment date: March 2023
Headquarters location: Austin, Texas
Number of employees: 4 full-time. Part time 1 time
Website: https://www.yopaki.com/
Public or private? private
In 2021, Francisco Chavarria stood in the Bitcoin 2021 audience and watched Strike CEO Jack Mallards deliver his now-famous keynote speech, in which El Salvador made Bitcoin legal. He revealed that he plans to turn it into a currency.
At that moment, something rose within Chavarria.
“It was unlike anything I had experienced in my professional career,” Chavarria told Bitcoin Magazine.
“Then I knew I had to do something in the Bitcoin space. That was the seed,” he added.
With his first job two years away, Chavarria is working on a SaaS (Software as a Service) I found myself putting my career as a consultant on hold. of his native Mexico. (Users outside of Mexico can also use Yopaki’s non-custodial Lighting wallet.)
Since then, he and his co-founder Carlos Chida have worked hard to bring Yopaki to life, including joining Wolf’s Bitcoin Accelerator program to make Yopaki as cutting-edge and dynamic as possible. I have been working hard on this.
But before we get into that part of the story, let’s start with the cultural origins of the platform’s name.
What’s in the name?
“The name Yopaki comes from Nahuatl, an ancient language spoken by the Aztecs,” Chavarria explained.
“The Aztecs lived in the central region of today’s Mexico and are responsible for some of the largest pyramids in all of Latin America. The center of this historic site was Teotihuacan, or “Place of the Gods.” ” he added.
“The name itself, when translated into English, is closest to meaning ‘the pursuit of happiness.’
Judging by the name alone, it’s clear that Chavarria sees Yopaki as more than just a business endeavor. He wants it to have a big impact on the people who use it.
And if he and his team are to succeed in their mission to turn every Mexican into a Bitcoiner, the app will need to make a big impact.
Bitcoin Dream Prediction in Mexico 2025 🇲🇽😶🌫️
1. Bitcoin adoption skyrockets in Mexico.
2. Mexican Bitcoin startups attract global investors. El Salvador’s influence makes Mexico a Latin American leader in Bitcoin innovation.
3. Deeper integration of the Peso and Bitcoin. …
— Francisco Chavarria (@FranciscoBTC) December 31, 2024
Bitcoin in the Mexican context
When Bitcoin is brought up in the context of Latin America and other developing regions, it is often referred to as a tool to “bring banking to the unbanked.”
But Chavarria said Mexico’s banking system is “pretty advanced.”
“The infrastructure is built so that people can access banking,” he explained.
“It may not be the same as banking in the United States[where Chavarria currently resides]but in Mexico, for example, there are 7-Eleven-like stores called OXXO, and they are everywhere. Anyone with an ID can go to OXXO. You can walk in and walk out within 20 minutes with your Visa card and app,” he added.
“It’s not exactly a bank, but it provides access to payment rails,” he added.
However, Chavarria shared that these Visa cards have high fees.
“They’re very predatory in that sense,” he said.
As such, Yopaki offers Mexican users access to three different currency accounts: a Mexican peso account, a US dollar account, and a (non-custodial) Bitcoin Lightning wallet. Each of these accounts allows users to make transactions at lower rates than the aforementioned Visa cards. (In 2025, Yopaki will also allow users in Mexico to buy stocks, ETFs, and other securities.)
By offering a Bitcoin wallet alongside traditional currency accounts, Chavarria hopes to make Bitcoin legitimate in the eyes of its users. But he also feels that Yopaki has some work to do in terms of helping Mexicans feel comfortable using Bitcoin, which is why he and his team are making this process fun. We are doing everything we can to help.
Make Bitcoin fun with Lotería
Lotería is a popular pastime among Mexicans. It’s similar to bingo, but images are used instead of numbers.
Chavarria and the Yopaki team built this into their app with Bitcoin in mind. Concepts and characters such as the Lightning Network and Max Kaiser appear in the Yopaki version of the game.
“When you think of Mexico, you think of tequila, tacos, mariachi and loteria,” Chavarria says.
“There’s no negative connotation to this game, which is why the feedback we’ve received over the past few months has been, ‘I didn’t know Bitcoin could be fun,'” he added.
Users can earn satellites by playing Lotteria within the app. Once you score 1,000 or more SATs, you can learn how to transfer those SATs from Yopaki’s control to your own, all within the Yopaki app.
Yopaki has partnered with Breez to provide users with a non-custodial Lightning wallet that doesn’t require them to deal with the hassle of Lightning channel management.
Yopaki + Breeze
“One of the main reasons we decided to go with Breez was because we knew before they went public that they implemented a Nodeless SDK through Liquid,” Chavarria said.
“We know that channel management is a fundamental obstacle for many people who use applications like this. The moment you introduce an obstacle, the experience becomes terrifying. It’s just too much,” he said. added.
“So by offering a product that allows users to perform instant transactions, we can bring that magic that we all had as Bitcoiners to the masses.”
Chavarria went on to say that Yopaki’s Lightning wallet is so easy to use that even his mother-in-law now uses (and enjoys) the product.
He is excited to bring a product like this to the Mexican market because, in his words, Mexicans have “been hit hard” by incarceration solutions in the past.
“It is important to let users know that we do not hold their funds,” Chavarria said.
Prioritize Bitcoin Education
Not only does the Yopaki team encourage and prioritize self-sovereignty, they also educate their users about Bitcoin, as they do not underestimate their curiosity and ability to learn.
“We have curated content that includes lessons on a wide range of topics, such as ‘What is money?’ — It’s not just Bitcoin, it’s money,” Chavarria explained.
“These are micro-lessons that take a minute or two to complete. At the end of the day, it’s about creating curiosity that I feel like many of us don’t really care about because of legacy systems. I think there are,” he added.
The in-app educational component also differentiates us from our competitors in the region.
“Bitso is the biggest player not just in Mexico but in all of Latin America and we have a lot of respect for what they’ve done, but they’ve turned into a casino with tokens and NFTs and everything.” Chavarria shared. “We believe they are really underestimating the curiosity of their users and are instead just causing the decadent gambling addiction side of things.”
Guidance from the Wolf
Given Chavarria’s calmness, coolness, and calmness when I spoke to him, the vision that has now materialized for Jopaki probably came to him relatively easily, even in the light of a moment. I was impressed.
But he told me different.
Apparently, his and Chida’s experience at Wolf’s Bitcoin startup incubator pushed them out of their comfort zone and into the state of mind that helped make Yopaki so unique.
“This was one of the most important and meaningful experiences we have had,” Chavarria said of his time at Wolf. “The type of feedback we received and the type of strategy sessions we had were brutal, at best, in a good way.”
Chavarria actually joined the Wolf program thinking how he and Chida had already created a solid vision for Yopaki, but the guidance he received in the program created many of the features that differentiate the app. He explained that it was the driving force. Because other people like it.
“People like Kelly Brewster (CEO of Wolf) and Ross Stevens (founder of Wolf), who have years of experience at Goldman Sachs, really sit down and ask tough questions and push themselves to the limit. It was powerful to push us,” Chavarria said. “It made us really think about, “Do we understand that what we’re doing is difficult?” and it made us clear on how we were going to execute our plan. ”
The coming year
As previously mentioned, Yopaki will allow users in Mexico to start investing in traditional assets within the next year, and will also offer users a Bitcoin exchange starting next month.
Additionally, it issues debit cards that users can use to spend pesos, dollars, or bitcoins. And Chavarria says it plans to offer satback rewards when users purchase traditional assets or Bitcoin through the app.
With so much going on, Chavarria is in good spirits.
“I’m just grateful that we’re doing this,” he said.
“It was really fun putting the bear together. Good times are ahead.”
