Firm Title: Azteco
Founders: Alexander Fernandez and Paul Ferguson
Date Based: 2014
Location of Headquarters: Santa Monica, CA
Quantity of Bitcoin in Treasury: Not disclosed
Variety of Workers: 12
Web site: https://azte.co/
Public or Personal? Personal
When Alexander “Akin” Fernandez first conceptualized Azteco over a decade in the past, he merely needed to make bitcoin simpler to acquire. He needed individuals to have the ability to buy bitcoin as seamlessly as they have been capable of purchase a present card, and so he developed a system during which individuals should purchase pay as you go bitcoin vouchers for as little as $10, redeemable in a minute.
Azteco vouchers at the moment are obtainable in over 190 international locations, purchasable on-line or with money with in-person distributors. The principle benefit to purchasing BTC by way of Azteco vouchers is the truth that you don’t need to disclose your identification to take action, to not point out the method of shopping for a voucher is fast and simple. Azteco gives each on-chain and Lightning capabilities, giving customers the selection to redeem their BTC on both the Bitcoin base chain or the Lightning Community, a Layer 2 funds community constructed on prime of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Based on an estimate from Fernandez, over a million individuals have already bought Azteco vouchers. However his aspirations are far past the already-impressive variety of vouchers thus bought: he has his sights set on Azteco servicing a buyer base of over 30 instances that, as Azteco does its half in “normalizing” Bitcoin.
A transcript of our dialog, edited for size and readability, follows beneath.
Frank Corva: The place did the inspiration for Azteco come from?
Akin Fernandez: It got here from my very own expertise of discovering out that getting bitcoin may be very tough. I noticed it does not need to be like this. We might use a well-known system like a top-up voucher, which billions of individuals use to prime up their cellphones, and apply that course of to getting bitcoin. All we’ve to do is construct a software program, put distribution in place, after which it ought to simply work. And lo and behold, it does.
Corva: Did you will have a specific buyer base in thoughts once you designed Azteco?
Fernandez: Sure, I had myself in thoughts. I needed to have the ability to get bitcoin with out having to make any sort of fuss or effort to do it. I needed to have the ability to go to the grocery store, purchase $20 value of bitcoin and put it straight onto my pockets. And I am not distinctive. I might assume that there have been different individuals who have been like me who might perceive the proposition and the benefit of use and who would take to it like a duck to water.
You discover that with innovations, many instances they arrive about as a result of individuals are fixing issues for themselves, not as a way to get wealthy or for any cause apart from to unravel their very own issues. And since individuals are related, they resolve different individuals’s issues, too.
Corva: Talking of your individual expertise. I’ve learn that you just have been unbanked for a time period. Is that this true and will you develop on it, in that case?
Fernandez: Properly, I grew to become unbanked for a cause that I, till today, do not know. I went all the way down to “my” financial institution to money a examine, they usually could not discover my account within the system. I had acquired no communication from them in writing or in any means. Abruptly, I had no checking account. So, for a few years after that I did not have entry to bank cards or something that different individuals within the West take without any consideration.
This taught me a really, very huge lesson about how tough it’s to do something within the twenty first century if you do not have entry to banking amenities. You’ll be able to neglect purchasing on-line. You’ll be able to neglect any sort of comfort of going right into a retailer and paying with a card. All of that goes away.
So, once I was engaged on Azteco, it was made clear to me how highly effective a software it was going to be, as a result of, with Bitcoin, you can’t be unbanked by any third celebration. You might have management over your artificial cash.
Corva: I’ve heard you employ this time period “artificial cash” earlier than, and also you’ve mentioned how we shouldn’t consult with bitcoin as precise cash. Why is it vital that we do that?
Fernandez: It is vital as a result of it is true. Bitcoin will not be cash — it is a database. Can or not it’s used as cash? In fact. It may be used as very, excellent cash. It is a good simulation of cash. But it surely does not need to be cash for it to be helpful.
Additionally, for those who name bitcoin cash, all of the rules that the state has imposed on precise cash could be superimposed or brushed over Bitcoin inappropriately, making it exhausting to make use of and slower to unfold. So, it is essential to inform the reality about Bitcoin. Bitcoin has taken so lengthy to get into each nook and cranny as a result of there’s been this misconstruing of it as cash.
WhatsApp reached a billion individuals in 4 and a half years. That is the sort of unfold into individuals’s telephones that we would anticipate if the rails to get onto Bitcoin have been frictionless, identical to they’re with WhatsApp.
The truth that Bitcoin has not reached that variety of individuals signifies that there is one thing unsuitable in the best way individuals are excited about it, and so it is vital for us to consider it appropriately.
Corva: How many individuals is Azteco reaching? Put one other means, what number of vouchers did Azteco promote in Q3 or This autumn of 2023?
Fernandez: The precise numbers I haven’t got at hand being the CEO and never the CFO. However we had our largest ever month final month. I used to be instructed this yesterday. The variety of vouchers we’re promoting is growing, and it is a direct results of our growing our distribution and in addition the sentiment in the direction of Bitcoin altering on a worldwide scale.
We are the best method to get bitcoin. When individuals uncover us, they are saying two issues: “To start with, why is not all the pieces as straightforward as this?” and “How come I have never heard of this earlier than?”
Issues are synergizing and coming collectively to carry us to some extent the place we’re a worldwide power for good and for getting Bitcoin to the individuals who want it probably the most — the unbanked and the individuals who do not have entry to monetary rails or individuals who simply do not need to be the victims of the monetary rails.
The old fashioned crop of Bitcoin companies which were serving individuals over the past 10 years all imagine that Bitcoin is cash and make it very tough to get an account. Everyone’s so inured to the concept of getting a checking account or an account of any sort, whether or not it is by means of electronic mail or the rest. The belief instantly is, “Properly, in fact, I’ve to have an account with a view to use this service.”
With Bitcoin, that is not true, although. No accounts are vital. [Some] pockets corporations are doing this appropriately. One in every of them is Samourai Pockets and one other is Pockets of Satoshi the place you don’t have to open an account to make use of your individual cash.
They’re saying you shouldn’t be capable of use bitcoin with out having an account. That’s what they’re attempting to do within the EU.
Corva: We’re doing it right here within the US with the Digital Asset Anti-Cash Laundering Act (DAAMLA), too, the invoice that Elizabeth Warren drafted.
Fernandez: These individuals are oath breakers. They’ve sworn an oath to defend and uphold the Structure, which ensures the free speech of each single American. Bitcoin is speech. It is a database the place speech is written down and saved and transmitted from one particular person to a different.
And lest anybody assume that I am choosing on the Democrats and never the Republicans, Cynthia Lummis has written a fully appalling invoice that I took nice pleasure in tearing to items on my weblog.
They don’t perceive what their position is as a public servant. A servant will not be answerable for its masters. A servant is obedient to the voters. It’s not their enterprise to inform individuals it’s a must to KYC to make use of bitcoin.
Corva: On the subject of America and KYC-free bitcoin, do you see individuals utilizing Azteco as a result of they need KYC-free bitcoin?
Fernandez: To ensure that the American market to be cracked, the service must be defined. Folks need to be deprogrammed. They don’t perceive that bitcoin will not be a automobile to make you earn extra fiat.
Folks must be damaged out of those dangerous habits to be proven that really there are higher methods to get issues executed. The proper instance of that is WhatsApp.
Earlier than WhatsApp, individuals used to pay for SMS messages, whereas the concept of that is now unthinkable. The same course of has to occur with Bitcoin the place you possibly can ship cash to members of the family with out having to undergo a 3rd celebration or pay exorbitant charges or determine your self or something like that.
With Bitcoin, you [also] get different refined advantages. Hyperinflation is beginning to kick in and individuals are beginning to notice that there’s one thing unsuitable with the cash.
Folks discover it very tough to go to the basis reason for the costs going up at McDonalds. Let’s say they did discover out the trigger, what might they do about it? They might go and get bitcoin, but it surely’s a number of steps down earlier than these individuals are going to see bitcoin as the reply.
Corva: I agree.
Fernandez: Additionally, the present crop of companies — huge companies like Binance, Coinbase — are synonymous with bitcoin. Azteco must be synonymous with getting bitcoin. The overwhelming majority of individuals on earth are usually not wealthy. They do not have $100,000 to spend on bitcoin. They stay everyday.
Since these individuals are not buyers they usually do not have spare cash to maintain in bitcoin within the hopes that it will go up — which in fact it can — they should have bitcoin as every day cash for on a regular basis spending.
When you begin speaking about this stuff, the enterprise alternatives and fashions begin to simply fall out of the dialog. All of those Cynthia Lummises and Elizabeth Warrens forestall these enterprise fashions from rising as a result of they’re regulating one thing they haven’t any enterprise regulating.
Corva: Talking of different companies, I’ve heard you say good issues about Machankura, a protocol that makes it simpler for Africans to make use of bitcoin in a KYC method, and that it serves as a praise to Azteco. What different corporations within the Bitcoin area are a praise to Azteco?
Fernandez: Moral Bitcoin wallets are a great praise. By moral, I imply Samourai Pockets and Pockets of Satoshi. I do know that some individuals don’t like Pockets of Satoshi as a result of the structure on the backend is to not their liking, however these individuals don’t run companies — they don’t know the way tough it’s to do this stuff.
The most recent entrant to that is the Bitkey pockets. This Bitkey pockets is totally unbelievable. They’ve thought of this correctly. The consumer interface and consumer expertise — it will make everyone change their sport.
I have been saying for a very long time that any person like Apple, Microsoft or another firm goes to get into Bitcoin and convey all of that consumer expertise considering to the method of utilizing Bitcoin. The present crop of corporations haven’t thought of consumer expertise.
Jack Dorsey’s Bitkey has been a kick within the bottom to lots of people who notice that we will not simply keep it up doing what we need to do and anticipating individuals to simply settle for it — the concept that it’s a must to write down your mnemonic earlier than you obtain your first transaction. It’s fully loopy.
If Apple developed its personal Bitcoin pockets or clones one of many Bitcoin wallets on the market, Bitcoin goes to be uncovered to individuals in a means that is very straightforward to grasp, very straightforward to devour. There would be the new era of Bitcoin customers for whom Bitcoin is completely regular — not threatening, intimidating or scary.
Corva: The identical means that utilizing WhatsApp or Uber is regular now…
Fernandez: That is precisely proper. Bitcoin has to grow to be boring.
