Rio Trade

Rio is a Latin America-focused stablecoin foreign exchange and liquidity infrastructure platform that enables institutions, fintechs, and exchanges to convert between local currencies and stablecoins on-chain in under one second, with settlement supported across Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, Stellar, Base, and Tron.

The LATAM Stablecoin FX Problem

Stablecoin adoption has accelerated across Latin America as residents and businesses seek reliable dollar-denominated alternatives amid currency instability and limited access to traditional FX markets. But on-ramping and off-ramping — moving value between local currencies like Mexican pesos, Colombian pesos, or Peruvian soles and dollar-pegged stablecoins — historically required routing through slow correspondent banking channels with wide spreads and multi-day settlement windows. Rio was founded to replace that friction with on-chain settlement at internet speed.

Core Mechanism

Rio operates a real-time FX execution engine that handles stablecoin-to-fiat and fiat-to-stablecoin conversions end-to-end. When a partner initiates a conversion through Rio's API, the platform generates a time-bound quote — valid from five seconds up to ten minutes depending on configuration — and locks the rate the moment the trade is executed. Settlement happens on-chain in under one second, with full transaction traceability across the blockchain of the counterparty's choice.

The platform supports both market orders and limit orders. Limit orders allow partners to set a target all-in rate inclusive of taxes and fees, and wait in queue until market conditions reach the specified price, with support for partial fills, scheduling via time-in-force windows, and daily re-quoting. Webhooks provide real-time status updates with encrypted payloads and configurable retry logic, making Rio suitable for embedding into automated payment and treasury workflows.

On the fiat side, Rio routes payments through local banking rails using country-standard identifiers — CLABE for Mexico, CCI for Peru — with automatic payment detection for production environments. On the crypto side, partners send or receive tokens to per-order blockchain addresses, preventing address reuse and maintaining clean audit trails.

Products and Services

Stablecoin FX is Rio's flagship service: programmatic conversion between stablecoins and LATAM fiat currencies at tight, algorithmic spreads. The execution engine handles real-time pricing, on-chain settlement, and full audit trail generation. Clients integrate via REST API, embedding Rio's FX capability directly into payment applications, remittance platforms, neobanks, or treasury management systems.

Liquidity Provision serves exchanges and fintechs that need reliable stablecoin-to-local-currency liquidity on a continuous basis. Rio acts as market maker with algorithmically managed inventory, maintaining tight bid/ask spreads across corridors in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.

OTC Trading is designed for institutional clients with large block trades or specialized requirements. A dedicated OTC desk provides 24/7 market access with bespoke pricing and the same sub-second on-chain settlement infrastructure as the retail API.

Developer API is a fully documented RESTful interface built to the OpenAPI 3.0 specification and hosted at docs.rio.trade. The API surface covers the full conversion lifecycle: address registration, bank account management, quote creation, order management, payment confirmation, payout orchestration, webhook registration, and user onboarding flows. A sandbox environment at app.sandbox.rio.trade is available for integration testing. The API layer carries ISO 27001 certification for information security management — a recognized standard that makes Rio usable within regulated fintech and institutional environments.

Supported Assets and Networks

Rio supports conversion across an extensive matrix of stablecoin networks and local fiat currencies. On the crypto side, partners can send and receive USDC on Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Stellar, Base, and Tempo; EURC on Ethereum, Solana, and Base; and USDT on Ethereum, Polygon, Tron, and BSC. Solana-settled USDC, EURC, and USDT are all supported, making Rio a practical on-ramp and off-ramp layer for Solana-native applications and wallets.

On the fiat side, Rio currently covers the Mexican peso (MXN), US dollar corridors for Mexico and Peru, Peruvian sol (PEN), and Colombian peso (COP). Rio's own marketing materials reference eight or more local currencies in its broader liquidity operations.

Minimum order sizes are set per currency — 20 MXN, 4 PEN, 6,000 COP, and 1 USDC/USDT equivalent — keeping Rio accessible to fintechs and neobanks serving smaller-ticket consumer transactions as well as institutional block trades.

Scale, Partners, and Background

Rio self-reports on its website serving 50+ institutional clients, supporting 10+ stablecoins, spanning 8+ local currencies, and processing more than $4 billion in annual volume. Strategic partners include Coinbase, Fireblocks, FalconX, and Bitstamp — prime brokerage and custody infrastructure providers that underpin Rio's settlement and counterparty operations.

The company was founded in 2022 and graduated from Y Combinator's Summer 2022 (S22) cohort. It operates under the legal entity Rampa Holdings and is headquartered in Mexico City, with offices in Bogota, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires — a geographic footprint that mirrors its target LATAM markets.

The founding team brings a blend of blockchain infrastructure and fintech product experience. CEO Eudelio Garza previously worked in product at BlockVigil, a node infrastructure company for EVM networks, and identified the need for better on/off-ramp infrastructure while working with web3 developers in emerging markets. CTO Javier Roberts leads platform architecture and engineering. COO Ricardo Villarreal Chapa holds a computer engineering degree from Boston University and brings background in product management across banking and private equity. The team covers compliance, operations, finance, legal, engineering, QA, and growth functions.

Security and Audit Status

Rio's API infrastructure carries ISO 27001 certification for information security management. No public smart contract audit from an on-chain security firm has been published in accessible documentation. Given that Rio operates primarily as an API-driven FX and liquidity infrastructure business — with blockchain functioning as a settlement layer rather than a user-facing DeFi protocol with public smart contracts — the absence of a published chain-level audit is consistent with its institutional, API-driven model.

Role in the Solana Ecosystem

For Solana-native applications — wallets, remittance services, payment platforms, and fintechs building on the network — Rio provides a concrete on-ramp and off-ramp layer connecting on-chain stablecoin holdings to local banking rails across Mexico, Colombia, and Peru. Its sub-second on-chain settlement, multi-network stablecoin support including Solana-settled USDC and EURC, and API-first integration model make it practical infrastructure for any Solana product that needs to touch LATAM local currency. The combination of high transaction throughput and low fees that characterize Solana make it well-suited to the high-frequency, small-margin FX conversions that Rio's platform executes at scale.