Company Name: Yopaki
Founders: Francisco Chavarria (CEO) and Carlos Chida (CTO)
Founding date: March 2023
Headquarters location: Austin, Texas
Number of employees: Four full-time; once part-time
Website: https://www.yopaki.com/
Public or private? Private
In 2021, Francisco Chavarria was in the audience at Bitcoin 2021 and watched Strike CEO Jack Mallers passionately deliver his now famous keynote speech during which he revealed that El Salvador intended to make bitcoin legal tender.
That moment sparked something in Chavarria.
“It was unlike anything I had experienced in my professional career,” Chavarria told Bitcoin Magazine.
“I knew I had to do something in the Bitcoin space next. It was the seed,” he added.
The first fast-forwarded two years, and Chavarria found himself putting his career as a Software as a Service (SaaS) consultant on hold to come up with plans for Yopaki, a neobank and investment app with a focus on Bitcoin , aimed at serving the people of its home country of 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 participating in Wolf’s Bitcoin Accelerator program, in an effort to make Yopaki as cutting-edge and dynamic as possible.
But before we get to this part of the story, let’s start with the cultural origin of the platform’s name.
What’s in a name?
“The name Yopaki comes from the ancient Nahuatl language, the language spoken by the Aztecs,” Chavarria explained.
“The Aztecs lived in the central region of what is now Mexico, and are responsible for some of the largest pyramids in all of Latin America. The center of this historic place is called Teotihuacán, ‘the place of the gods,’” he added.
“The name itself, if I were to translate it into English, more closely means “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 profound impact on those who use it.
And he will need the app to have such an impact if he and his team want to succeed in their mission: to turn every Mexican into a Bitcoiner.
Dream 2025 Forecast for Bitcoin in Mexico 🇲🇽😶🌫️
1. Bitcoin adoption in Mexico increases.
2. Mexican Bitcoin Startups Attract Global Investors. With El Salvador’s influence, Mexico becomes the Latin American leader for Bitcoin innovation.
3. Peso-Bitcoin integration deepens.…
— Francisco Chavarría (@FranciscoBTC) December 31, 2024
Bitcoin in the Mexican context
When Bitcoin is mentioned in the context of Latin America and other developing regions, it is often referred to as a tool to “bank those without access to a bank account.”
However, according to Chavarria, the Mexican banking system is “quite advanced.”
“The infrastructure was built for people to have access to banks,” he explained.
“It may not be the same bank we have in the United States (where Chavarria currently resides), but, for example, in Mexico, there are stores like 7/11 called OXXO, and they are everywhere. Anyone can walk into an OXXO with an ID and within 20 minutes can walk out with a Visa card and an app,” he added.
“It’s not exactly a bank, but it provides access to payment channels,” he added.
Chavarria went on to share that these Visa cards charge high fees.
“They are very predatory in that sense,” he said.
Therefore, Yopaki provides its Mexican users with access to three different monetary accounts: a Mexican peso account, a US dollar account, and a Lightning bitcoin wallet (non-custodial). Each of these accounts allows its users to make transactions at lower rates than said Visa cards. (In 2025, Yopaki will also allow its Mexican users to buy stocks, ETFs and other securities.)
By offering a bitcoin wallet alongside accounts for traditional currencies, Chavarria hopes to legitimize bitcoin in the eyes of its users. However, he also believes that Yopaki has some work to do when it comes to helping Mexicans feel comfortable using bitcoin, which is why he and his team are doing everything they can to make the process enjoyable.
Make Bitcoin fun with Lottery
Lottery it is one of the favorite pastimes of the Mexican people. It is comparable to Bingo but with images instead of numbers.
Chavarria and the Yopaki team included it in the app with a Bitcoin twist: concepts and characters like Lightning Network and Max Keizer appear in the Yopaki version of the game.
“When we talk about Mexico, people think of tequila, tacos, mariachis and Lottery,” Chavarria said.
“There is no negative connotation to the game. Because of this, the feedback we’ve received over the last couple of months has been, “Man, I didn’t realize Bitcoin was fun,” he added.
Users earn Sat by playing Lotería within the app. When they have earned 1,000 sats or more, they can learn through the app how to transfer those sats from the Yopaki case to their own, all within the Yopaki app.
Yopaki has partnered with Breez to offer its users a non-custodial Lightning wallet that doesn’t require users to deal with the hassle of managing the Lightning channel.
Yopaki+Breez
“One of the main reasons we decided to choose Breez is that we knew about their implementation of the Nodeless SDK via Liquid before it was public,” Chavarria said.
“We know that channel management is a key barrier for many people to use an application like this. The moment obstacles are introduced, the experience becomes frightening. It’s just too much,” he added.
“So by offering a product where users can make an instant transaction, that magic we all had as Bitcoiners can be brought 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 such a product to the Mexican market because, as he says, Mexicans “have been challenged” by custody solutions in the past.
“It’s important to let users know that we don’t hold their funds,” Chavarria said.
Prioritize Bitcoin education
Not only does the Yopaki team encourage and prioritize personal sovereignty, but it also educates its users about Bitcoin, as it does not underestimate their curiosity and ability to learn.
“We’ve curated content that includes lessons on broad topics like ‘What is money?’ – not just Bitcoin, but money,” Chavarria explained.
“They are micro lessons that take one to two minutes to complete. At the end of the day, it’s about creating a curiosity that I feel and I think a lot of us feel like the legacy system hasn’t really cared about,” he added.
The educational component within the app also sets it apart from its competitors in the region.
“Bitso is the biggest player not only 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 really underestimated the curiosity of their users and instead simply triggered the degenerate side of gambling addiction.”
Wolf guide
Considering how cool, calm and collected Chavarria was when I spoke with him, I got the impression that Yopaki’s now realized vision had come to him with relative ease, perhaps even in a flash of light.
But he told me the opposite.
Apparently, he and Chida’s experience at Wolf’s Bitcoin startup incubator pushed them out of their comfort zone and into a frame of mind that helped make Yopaki as unique as it is.
“It was one of the most important and meaningful experiences we could have had,” Chavarria said of his time at Wolf. “The kind of feedback we received and the kind of strategy sessions we had were, to put it nicely, brutal in a good way.”
Chavarria explained how he and Chida, in fact, entered the Wolf program thinking they had already realized a solid vision for Yopaki, but that the guidance they received in the program is what drove them to create many of the features that differentiate the app for others like it.
“Having people like Kelly Brewster (Wolf CEO), who has years of experience at Goldman Sachs, and Ross Stevens (Wolf founder) really sit down and ask tough questions and push you to the limit was powerful,” Chavarria said. “They really made us think: ‘Do you understand that what you’re doing is difficult?’ and had us explain how we would execute our plan.
The year to come
As mentioned, Yopaki will allow its Mexican users to start investing in traditional assets in the next year and, starting next month, will also offer users a bitcoin exchange.
Additionally, it will issue debit cards to its users that they can use to spend pesos, dollars or bitcoins. And Chavarria says it plans to offer satisfied rewards when users purchase traditional assets or bitcoin through the app.
With so much coming up, Chavarria is in good spirits.
“I’m just grateful that we’re doing this,” he said.
“It was really fun building the bear – now the good times are coming.”