Bitso

Bitso is Latin America's largest cryptocurrency exchange and financial super-app, founded in 2014 in Mexico City. Built to bring regulated, accessible crypto infrastructure to a region historically underserved by traditional finance, Bitso has grown to serve more than 9 million users across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. The platform combines a full-service crypto exchange with stablecoin savings, fractional stock and ETF access, cross-border payment rails, and a Visa debit card — all inside a single mobile application.

Founding and Team

Bitso was co-founded in 2014 by Daniel Vogel (CEO), Ben Peters, and Pablo Gonzalez (Chief Design Officer). The company is headquartered in Mexico City. In 2021, the company raised a 250 million USD Series C, achieving a 2.2 billion USD valuation and becoming the first Latin American crypto unicorn. Total funding stands at approximately 331 million USD.

Core Platform Products

Crypto Exchange

Bitso's core offering is a retail spot exchange supporting over 100 cryptocurrencies. Supported assets include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), Polkadot (DOT), Litecoin (LTC), USDC, USDT, and many others. Users can trade against Mexican Peso (MXN), Brazilian Real (BRL), Colombian Peso (COP), Argentine Peso (ARS), and US Dollar (USD) pairs. The minimum investment is 10 USD.

Bitso Alpha

Bitso Alpha is the platform's professional trading interface, providing advanced order types, deeper market data, and tools aimed at active and institutional traders on the same underlying exchange infrastructure.

Stablecoin Savings and Yield

Bitso offers yield on stablecoins — primarily USDC and USDT — with an approximate 4% APY, weekly payouts, and no lock-up period. This product targets Latin American users seeking dollar-denominated savings instruments outside the traditional banking system. According to Bitso's own 2025 Crypto Landscape report, stablecoins represent 40% of all crypto purchases in Latin America, surpassing Bitcoin at 18%.

Crypto Staking

Users can stake select proof-of-stake assets directly through the Bitso app. Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) are among the supported staking assets, with reported APY ranging between 2.8% and 5% depending on the asset and market conditions.

Stocks and ETFs

Bitso provides access to more than 5,000 US and international stocks and ETFs through fractional shares. The platform also offers xStocks — tokenized representations of equities such as Apple, NVIDIA, and Tesla — enabling users to gain exposure to global equities without opening a traditional brokerage account.

Cross-Border Payments

Bitso's payments product enables users to send money across borders with local currency receipt on the other end. The service uses stablecoins and cryptocurrency as settlement layers to reduce friction and cost relative to traditional remittance channels. Bitso Business extends this to enterprise customers requiring B2B cross-border payment capabilities and treasury management.

Visa Debit Card

Bitso issues a Visa debit card in select markets, allowing users to spend their crypto and stablecoin balances at point-of-sale and online merchants with cashback rewards.

Bitso Onchain

In 2025, Bitso launched Bitso Onchain (accessible at onchain.cc), a self-custody decentralized exchange product designed to bring on-chain trading to mainstream users. The platform supports over 17,000 tokens across 14 blockchain networks — including Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base — and allows cross-chain swaps in a single transaction. Bitso covers gas fees and removes the requirement for seed phrases, abstracting away the two largest technical barriers that have historically kept retail users from on-chain activity. Rollout began for users in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina before a broader global release.

Developer API

Bitso provides a public RESTful trading API supporting order book queries, trade history, open order data, and private endpoints for order management and account operations. All private requests require signed API keys.

Solana Ecosystem Position

Bitso is not a Solana-native protocol, but it represents a major regulated access point for Solana adoption in Latin America. SOL is listed as a tradeable asset, available for staking through the Bitso app, and Solana is one of the 14 blockchains supported by Bitso Onchain's cross-chain DEX. For users in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia — many of whom lack access to US-based exchanges — Bitso is often the primary on-ramp to SOL and the broader Solana ecosystem. Bitso Onchain's support for Solana tokens enables retail Latin American users to participate in Solana DeFi through a familiar, compliant interface.

Security and Regulatory Status

Bitso completed a CCSS (Cryptocurrency Security Standard) v9 Level II audit in 2025, with Hacken serving as the certifying auditor. The company reports no major security breach since its 2014 founding.

Bitso holds regulatory licenses across several jurisdictions:

• Gibraltar: Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) DLT provider license — the first Latin American fintech to obtain this credential
• Mexico: Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV)
• Argentina: Comision Nacional de Valores (CNV)
• Brazil: Recognized under Brazil's crypto regulatory framework

This multi-jurisdictional licensing distinguishes Bitso from most regional crypto platforms.