Payments startup Ramp adds 40 national currencies that can be exchanged for crypto
Ramp, a Web3 payments startup that provides on-ramps and off-ramps between cryptocurrencies and fiat, has expanded its services to include 40 more global currencies.
The additions come after the company raised $70 million in November with a valuation just shy of $1 billion, according to CEO Szymon Sypniewicz.
Sypniewicz said adding the currencies allows customers to be more comfortable by using something with which they’re familiar, and it helps them avoid fees for exchanging foreign currencies. Some of the other currencies customers can now convert into crypto include the Indian rupee, Nigerian naira, and Danish krone. The company’s technology is now available in more than 150 countries.
Also among the newly available currencies are the Mexican peso and Brazilian real, which are used by the two largest economies in Latin America.
Sypniewicz told Fortune that the company is keen on expanding in South America, especially given Brazil’s friendly stance toward crypto. He said his company is working on accepting Pix, the Brazilian central bank’s instant payments service.
Last week, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a.k.a. Lula, signed legislation giving the power to regulate cryptocurrencies to the country’s central bank. Differing from the approach of U.S. regulators, like Chairman Gary Gensler’s Securities and Exchange Commission, the new law defines cryptocurrencies and virtual asset service providers, and allows for a licensing system.
“They aim to be a great, very pragmatic regulator for crypto companies, and we are actually going to engage directly with them, obviously, to be able to continue building out our offer, and to continue operating in Brazil,” Sypniewicz added.
Sypniewicz said that the strides made by South America’s leading economy have surprised several of his colleagues in the fintech space, who have said the central bank’s friendliness to crypto even trumps that of regulators in the U.K., which has increasingly courted crypto firms under prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Wyre, a crypto infrastructure company similar to Ramp, shut down on Friday after a $1.5 billion acquisition by Bolt Financial fell through several months ago. Although cross-border payments have often been touted as a killer use case for crypto, established players say that realizing these kinds of payments is often more difficult than expected.
Sypniewicz agreed that tackling cross-border payments is cost prohibitive, which means it’s harder for competitors to emerge. At any one time, Sypniewicz said, 30% to 50% of his engineers are working on navigating regulations instead of building out features.
Despite these challenges, Ramp intends to focus on competing with traditional players by having a smooth user experience, including a one-click onboarding process for anyone anywhere in the world, Sypniewicz said.
“We want every user to feel like they’re interacting with something familiar,” he added.