Bando: On-Chain Spending for the Real World

TLDR

Bando is an on-chain spending protocol built by a team of former Bitso payment builders, designed to let crypto holders spend their tokens on more than 30,000 digital goods and services across 110+ countries without converting to fiat. The protocol routes user spend requests through smart contracts to a network of verified fulfillers who complete purchases through established service providers, enabling near-instant delivery of gift cards, mobile top-ups, bill payments, gaming credits, and more. Founded in Mexico City in 2023, Bando has expanded from Celo to 20+ chains including Solana, where it focuses on off-ramp infrastructure and real-world spending utility for Latin American users.

The Problem Bando Solves

Crypto wallets hold enormous amounts of digital assets, but spending them on everyday goods remains unnecessarily complicated. Traditional routes require multiple conversions from crypto to fiat to payment instrument, with fees, delays, and KYC friction at each step. For users in emerging markets like Latin America, where dollar-denominated stablecoins represent both a meaningful store of value and a hedge against local currency volatility, this gap between holding crypto and using it is especially pronounced. Bando's answer is direct: spend from your wallet, no conversion required.

How the Protocol Works

At the center of Bando is the Bando Fulfillment Protocol (BFP), a smart contract system that connects spenders with a network of registered fulfillers. When a user selects a product and initiates a transaction, BandoRouterV1, the user-facing contract, accepts their deposit in native tokens or ERC-20 assets and routes the payment to the correct service and payer relationship. BandoFulfillmentManagerV1 tracks registered services and fulfillers, while BandoFulfillableV1 handles the execution logic, callable only by the router or manager contract.

Fulfillers are off-chain entities that receive the routed payment and execute the purchase through established service providers. They are accountable to the on-chain registry, creating a layer of verifiable trust without requiring the entire fulfillment supply chain to live on-chain. The escrow logic holds funds until fulfillment is confirmed, then releases them to the fulfiller. The design achieves near-instant delivery for digital goods while keeping the on-chain surface area lean, a practical tradeoff for a protocol targeting high-frequency, everyday transactions.

Products and Geographic Reach

Bando connects users to more than 30,000 products across 110+ countries. The catalog spans gift cards from major retailers including Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Spotify, Uber Eats, Guess, Cost Plus World Market, Big Basket, and ELearn Gift; mobile airtime and data top-ups including MTN and other regional carriers; bill payments for utilities and services; gaming credits and in-game purchases; eSIM cards for travel connectivity; and on/off-ramp services including USDC-to-Mexican Peso (MXN) conversions directly on Solana.

Latin America is the team's primary focus, though the service geography spans far beyond the region. Bolivia has its own dedicated Bando country page, reflecting the protocol's attention to markets underserved by traditional payment infrastructure. The explicit goal is making crypto as easy to spend as swiping a card for users who may have no practical path to a traditional bank card but do hold USDC in a Web3 wallet.

Supported Chains and Tokens

Bando launched on Celo, which migrated from a standalone Layer-1 to an Ethereum Layer-2 using Optimism Rollup technology in March 2025. From that foundation, the protocol has expanded to more than 20 chains, including Solana, Arbitrum, Base, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon. Across those networks, Bando accepts USDC, USDT, and over 2,000 tokens, with competitive exchange rates and low transaction fees.

On Solana specifically, Bando has launched USDC on-ramp and off-ramp services, enabling users to move between Solana USDC and Mexican Pesos with minimal friction. Extending the full Bando Fulfillment Protocol to Solana enabling direct on-chain spending from Solana wallets is a stated roadmap priority. The team has described Solana as a key strategic focus following the Solana APEX conference in Latin America, with direct collaboration from the Solana Foundation on adoption initiatives.

Developer Integration

Bando is designed as infrastructure that wallets and dApps can embed. Two integration paths are available.

The Widget is a customizable, white-label embeddable widget deployable in minutes, giving any application a drop-in spending interface. Developers can configure the widget and add real-world spending functionality to their product without building fulfillment infrastructure from scratch.

The Fulfiller API and Spending API are REST APIs for deeper backend integrations that require custom user experiences. The Fulfiller API handles service registration and fulfillment routing; the Spending API exposes the front-end spending primitives. This path suits wallets or dApps that want complete control over the user experience while leveraging Bando's fulfiller network under the hood.

The team has also flagged AI agent compatibility. The protocol's on-chain structure makes it accessible to autonomous AI agents operating within Web3 environments, extending the potential user base beyond human-operated wallets.

Security

Bando's EVM smart contracts were audited by Zokyo, a blockchain security firm, and received a score of 97 out of 100. The audit covers the core BFP contract stack. As Solana-specific programs come online, separate program audits would be expected before mainnet deployment.

Team and Backing

Bando was co-founded by Abraham (Ab), Luis, and Eduardo, all of whom previously worked together at Bitso, the Mexico-headquartered exchange that has been a central force in Latin American digital payments. That background directly shapes Bando's product orientation: this is a team that spent years building payment infrastructure for the Global South before launching Bando to address limitations they encountered firsthand. Abraham is also founder of Espacio Cripto, a Mexican crypto community organization, deepening the team's ties to local ecosystem development.

The company is headquartered in Mexico City and was founded in August 2023. It has raised $200,000 to date, backed by Outlier Ventures, through which it participated in the firm's inaugural LatAm Base Camp accelerator alongside Morgan Creek Digital, and 99 Startups, a Mexico-based seed-stage venture firm. Bando also received grant support through Gitcoin Grants 21, participating in both the Arbitrum and Celo ecosystem rounds.

Why Solana

Solana's low-fee, high-throughput environment is well-matched to a spending protocol's transaction profile. Gift card purchases, airtime top-ups, and bill payments are high-frequency, low-margin operations where mainnet Ethereum fees would be prohibitive and where even L2 costs accumulate at scale. Solana's fee structure removes that friction, and USDC on Solana issued natively by Circle is one of the most liquid stablecoin positions in the ecosystem.

Bando's off-ramp from Solana USDC to MXN directly addresses the largest crypto market in Latin America, giving Solana USDC holders a practical path to local-currency spending without leaving the Solana ecosystem. As the full BFP rolls out on Solana, the protocol adds a meaningful utility layer that connects Solana's fast, cheap transaction settlement to the everyday goods and services that define real-world financial access.