🌎 The Numbers Behind Real Adoption

Real problems. Real solutions. Real data. This is Frontera.

Your weekly dose of data-driven crypto insights from the Latin American frontier. If you’re building, investing, or scaling in LatAm, this is where you start.

Reading this by email? Click Read Online in the top right corner to view the full edition. Or listen to the full episode here.

And don't miss this week's guest podcast with Manuel Godoy, CEO of Félix Pago, where he walks us through their $75M raise and their rise to billions.

This Edition is Presented by Bitso’s Stablecoin Conference

Frontera is an official media partner of Bitso’s Stablecoin Conference.

We’ll be on the ground in Mexico City this August 27–28, covering the builders, the breakthroughs, and ideas reshaping LatAm’s financial future.

Use the code FRONTERA10 for 10% off your ticket here.

🪢 Where Crypto Meets the Real World

What if crypto’s biggest success story in Latin America didn’t feel like crypto at all?

No apps. No tokens. No friction. Just a WhatsApp message and $200M a month flows from the U.S. to Latin America.

This is the story of Félix Pago. A fintech startup hiding stablecoins and blockchain-based infrastructure behind the world’s most used messaging app, moving billions worth of remittances in the process. Since 2022, Félix has facilitated over $2B in volume and just raised $75M to scale even faster.

In this report, we unpack the drivers behind Félix’s rapid growth, and share our proprietary financial model below that maps out just how big this could get.

If you want to double-check the numbers or explore the model yourself, send us a DM on X.

Because adoption doesn’t always look like speculation. Sometimes, it looks like texting your mom.

📱 What is Felix Pago?

Félix Pago is a Miami-based startup that lets U.S. customers send remittances in Latin America through a simple WhatsApp chatbot. 

Instead of making users download a new app or understand self-custody and L2s, Félix meets them where they already are, chatting on WhatsApp, and handles everything behind the scenes.

You just message “Félix” on WhatsApp like you would a friend to start a transfer. On the backend, Félix converts dollars into USDC, moves funds via crypto rails, and delivers local currency to the recipient.

The idea was born from the personal frustrations of founders Manuel Godoy and Bernardo Gracia, who faced the same hurdles as many immigrants navigating broken remittance and banking systems. They built Félix as a better alternative in the world’s largest remittance corridor: the U.S. to Mexico, which saw $64.7B in volume in 2024.

They noticed something simple yet powerful: migrants were already using WhatsApp to share remittance receipts and confirmation codes. So instead of adding another app, Félix turned the chat itself into the platform.

That sparked more than just product-market fit. In April 2025, Félix raised $75M in a Series B led by QED Investors. Today, it stands as one of the clearest success stories of how crypto can power financial services that feel like magic, and scale like software.

And they're just getting started.

🏎️ The Drivers of Felix’s Success

Félix’s success comes down to three core decisions: hide the crypto, humanize the product, and bet early on the tech.

Extreme Abstraction

Félix’s core advantage is radical abstraction. Users chat on WhatsApp, send money, and get great exchange rates, never knowing they're transacting with USDC over blockchain rails. Senders just experience an almost instant, low-fee transfer that feels like texting money, overcoming the trust barrier that has limited crypto’s mainstream use.

As a result, customers who might be wary of Bitcoin or unfamiliar with crypto are using it unknowingly, which is arguably the holy grail of fintech adoption. 

It's the perfect representation of the DeFi mullet.

Human-Centric Design

The flip side of hiding tech complexity is emphasizing a human, familiar touch. Félix runs entirely on WhatsApp, making the product feel like talking to a friend. Even their name is intentional. It feels personal, not corporate, in an industry where the importance of trust is hard to overstate.

Remittances are lifelines for families, and customers entrust large portions of their paychecks to the service. By behaving like a friendly companion rather than a fintech product, Félix achieved word-of-mouth virality and built deep credibility in migrant communities.

Contrarian Bet on Stablecoins

Félix’s success is also driven by a strategic bet on stablecoins at a time most steered clear of crypto.

This gave them instant settlement, near-interbank FX rates, and massive cost advantages. While others stuck with legacy rails, Félix tapped crypto liquidity pools and moved much, much faster.

By 2025, their timing looks prophetic. Stablecoins hit an ATH of $247B and have become core infrastructure for global payments. Félix now has a multi-year head start and a team built to keep pushing the edge.

📈 Growth Without Gimmicks

By focusing on a huge pain point (expensive remittances) with a delightful solution (abstraction and trust though design), Félix achieved remarkable growth.

They officially launched in mid-2022, and just two years and a half later, usage has exploded.

• $2B in total volume moved since launch

• $1B handled in 2024 alone

• $200M/month in remittances processed across 5 countries

• 4% share of the $64.7B U.S.-Mexico remittance market

• Double-digit MoM growth

This kind of traction is rare, even in fintech, and points to extraordinary product-market fit. It does raise a natural question however: 

Just how big can Félix get?

Let's run the numbers.