Company Name: Aztec
Founders: Alexander Fernandez and Paul Ferguson
Foundation date: 2014
Headquarters Location: Santa Monica, California, USA
Amount of bitcoin in Treasury: Not disclosed
Number of employees: 12
Website: https://azte.co/
Public or Private? Private
When Alexander “Akin” Fernández first conceptualized Aztec Over a decade ago, I simply wanted to make bitcoin easier to obtain. He wanted people to be able to buy bitcoins as easily as they could buy a gift card, so he developed a system where people can buy prepaid bitcoin vouchers for as little as $10, redeemable in a minute.
Azteco vouchers are now available in over 190 countries and can be purchased online or in cash from in-person vendors. The main advantage of purchasing btc through Azteco vouchers is the fact that you do not need to reveal your identity to do so, not to mention that the process of purchasing a voucher is quick and easy. Azteco offers both on-chain and Lightning capabilities, giving users the option to redeem their btc on the bitcoin base chain or the Lightning Network, a Layer 2 payments network built on top of the bitcoin blockchain.
According to Fernández's estimates, more than a million people have already purchased Azteco bonds. But his aspirations go far beyond the already impressive number of vouchers sold: he has his sights set on Azteco serving a customer base more than 30 times larger, while Azteco does its part in the “normalization” of bitcoin.
Below is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Frank Corva: Where did the inspiration for Azteco come from?
Akin Fernandez: It came from my own experience of discovering that getting bitcoins is very difficult. I realized that it doesn't have to be that way. We could use a familiar system like a recharge bonus, which billions of people use to recharge their mobile phones, and apply that process to obtain bitcoins. All we have to do is create a software, deploy the distribution and then it should work. And here it is.
Corva: Did you have a particular customer base in mind when you designed Azteco?
Fernandez: Yes, I had myself in mind. I wanted to be able to get bitcoins without having to go to any kind of fuss or effort to do so. I wanted to be able to go to the supermarket, buy $20 worth of bitcoins, and put them directly into my wallet. And I am not the only one. I would assume that there were other people like me who could understand the proposition and ease of use and would take to it like a duck to water.
You discover that, in the case of inventions, they often arise because people solve problems for themselves, not as a means to get rich or for any other reason than to solve their own problems. And because people are similar, they also solve other people's problems.
Corva: Speaking from your own experience. I read that he was unbanked for a period of time. Is this true? Could you expand on it if so?
Fernandez: Well, I became unbanked for a reason that, to this day, I don't know. I went to “my” bank to cash a check and they couldn't find my account in the system. I had not received any communication from them in writing or in any way. Suddenly I was left without a bank account. So for many years I didn't have access to credit cards or anything that other people in the West take for granted.
This taught me a very, very important lesson about how difficult it is to do anything in the 21st century if you don't have access to banking services. You can forget about shopping online. You can forget about any type of convenience that comes with entering a store and paying with a card. All that disappears.
So when I was working at Azteco, it became clear to me how powerful the tool would be because, with bitcoin, no third party can unseat it. You have control over your synthetic money.
Corva: I've heard you use this term “synthetic money” before and you've discussed how we shouldn't refer to bitcoin as real money. Why is it important that we do this?
Fernandez: It's important because it's true. bitcoin is not money, it is a database. Can it be used as money? Of course. It can be used as very, very good money. It's a good money simulation. But it doesn't have to be money to be useful.
Furthermore, if it is called bitcoin money, all the regulations that the state has imposed on real money may overlap or be inappropriately ignored, making it difficult to use and slower to spread. Therefore, it is very important to tell the truth about bitcoin. bitcoin has taken so long to reach every corner because it has been misunderstood as money.
WhatsApp reached a billion people in four and a half years. That's the kind of spread on people's phones we'd expect if the rails to bitcoin were smooth, like they are with WhatsApp.
The fact that bitcoin hasn't reached that number of people indicates that there is something wrong with the way people think about it, so it's important that we think about it correctly.
Corva: How many people is Azteco reaching? Put another way, how many bonds did Azteco sell in the third or fourth quarter of 2023?
Fernandez: The actual numbers I don't have on hand are the CEO and not the CFO. But last month we had the most important month in our history. They told me this yesterday. The number of coupons we sell is increasing, and this is a direct result of our distribution increasing and also the sentiment towards the bitcoin shift on a global scale.
We are the easiest way to get bitcoins. When people discover us, they say two things: “First of all, why isn't everything as easy as this?” and “How come I haven't heard of this before?”
Things are synergizing and coming together to get us to a point where we are a global force for good and to get bitcoin to the people who need it most: the unbanked and people who don't have access to financial avenues or people. . They simply do not want to be victims of the financial rails.
The old school bitcoin companies that have been serving people for the last 10 years believe that bitcoin is money and make it very difficult to get an account. Everyone is used to the idea of having a bank account or an account of any kind, whether it's email or anything else. The immediate assumption is, “Well, of course, I have to have an account to be able to use this service.”
However, with bitcoin that is not true. No beads needed. (Some) wallet companies are doing this correctly. One of them is Samourai Wallet and another is Wallet of Satoshi where you don't need to open an account to use your own money.
They say you shouldn't be able to use bitcoins without having an account. That's what they are trying to do in the EU.
Corva: We are doing it here in the US with the crypto%20AML%20One-Pager_7.26.23.pdf”>Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Law (DAAMLA)Also the bill that Elizabeth Warren wrote.
Fernandez: These people break oaths. They have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech for all Americans. bitcoin is speech. It is a database where the voice of one person to another is written, stored and transmitted.
And lest anyone think I'm picking on Democrats and not Republicans, Cynthia Lummis has written an absolutely appalling article. bill which gave me a lot of pleasure destroying my blog.
They do not understand what their role is as a public servant. A servant has no control over his master. A servant is obedient to the electorate. It's not your business to tell people that you have to do KYC to use bitcoin.
Corva: On the topic of the United States and bitcoin without KYC, do you see people using Azteco because they want bitcoin without KYC?
Fernandez: In order to penetrate the American market it is necessary to explain the service. You have to deprogram people. They don't understand that bitcoin is not a vehicle to make you earn more fiat money.
People need to break these bad habits to show them that there are actually better ways of doing things. The perfect example of this is WhatsApp.
Before WhatsApp, people paid for SMS messages, but this idea is now unthinkable. A similar process has to happen with bitcoin, where you can send money to your family members without having to go through a third party or pay exorbitant fees or identify yourself or anything like that.
With bitcoin, you (also) get other subtle benefits. Hyperinflation is starting to take effect and people are starting to realize that something is wrong with money.
People are finding it very difficult to get to the root of the price increase at McDonalds. Let's say they discovered the cause, what could they do about it? They could go and get bitcoins, but there are several steps left before these people see bitcoin as the answer.
Corva: I agree.
Fernandez: Furthermore, the current crop of companies (big companies like Binance, Coinbase) are synonymous with bitcoin. Azteco must be synonymous with getting bitcoin. The vast majority of people on the planet are not rich. They don't have $100,000 to spend on bitcoins. They live day to day.
Since these people are not investors and do not have extra money to keep in bitcoins in the hope that it will go up (which of course it will), they need to have bitcoins as daily money for their everyday expenses.
Once you start talking about these things, opportunities and business models start to disappear from the conversation. All these Cynthia Lummises and Elizabeth Warrens are preventing these business models from emerging because they are regulating something they have no business regulating.
Corva: Speaking of other businesses, I heard you say good things about Machankura, a protocol that makes it easier for Africans to use bitcoin in a KYC manner, and that serves as a compliment to Azteco. What other companies in the bitcoin space complement Azteco?
Fernandez: Ethical bitcoin wallets are a good complement. By ethical I mean Samourai Wallet and Wallet of Satoshi. I know some people don't like Wallet of Satoshi because the backend architecture is not to their liking, but these people don't run businesses; They don't know how hard it is to do these things.
The most recent participant in this is the Bitkey wallet. This Bitkey wallet is absolutely amazing. They have thought this through correctly. The UI and user experience will make everyone change their game.
I've been saying for a long time that someone like Apple, Microsoft or some other company will come into bitcoin and bring that whole user experience to the process of using bitcoin. The current generation of companies has not thought about user experience.
Jack Dorsey's Bitkey has been a kick in the butt for a lot of people who realize that we can't just keep doing what we want and expect people to just accept it – the idea that you have to write your mnemonic first. you receive your first transaction. He is completely crazy.
If Apple developed its own bitcoin wallet or clones one of the bitcoin wallets that are out there, bitcoin will be exposed to people in a way that is very easy to understand, very easy to consume. There will be a new generation of bitcoin users for whom bitcoin is totally normal: it is not threatening, intimidating or scary.
Corva: In the same way that using WhatsApp or Uber is normal now…
Fernandez: That's exactly right. bitcoin has to get boring.
