Ripio

Ripio is one of Latin America's oldest and largest cryptocurrency companies, operating a full-stack platform that spans retail trading, non-custodial wallets, a Visa-branded crypto card, OTC services, and business-facing APIs. Founded in Buenos Aires in 2013 and serving more than 10 million registered users across eight countries, Ripio has built its identity around a single insight: that crypto adoption in Latin America depends less on DeFi innovation and more on localized financial infrastructure — payment rails that accept Argentine pesos, Brazilian reais, and Mexican pesos, customer support in Spanish and Portuguese, and regulatory legitimacy in markets where dollar access is restricted or financially punishing.

Origins and Growth

Ripio launched in 2013 under the name BitPagos, targeting Argentina's dollar-starved economy as an early use case for Bitcoin. Co-founders Sebastian Serrano (CEO) and Luciana Gruszeczka rebranded to Ripio in 2014 and began expanding regionally. Early backing included seed capital from Tim Draper and Medici Ventures.

The company has since grown through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions. In January 2021, Ripio acquired BitcoinTrade, then the second-largest crypto exchange in Brazil, adding approximately 300,000 Brazilian users in a single transaction. That September, Ripio closed a $50 million Series B round led by Digital Currency Group, with participation from Pantera Capital, Draper Ventures, Boost VC, and Amplo. Notable individual investors included MercadoLibre CEO Marcos Galperin and Globant CEO Martin Migoya — signatories who signal the company's ambition to serve as a foundational layer for Latin American digital finance.

Total disclosed funding stands at roughly $81 million across multiple rounds, including a $37 million ICO completed in 2017.

Platform and Products

Ripio is not a single product but a layered suite of services targeting different customer segments.

Retail consumers access the platform through the Ripio app, which provides a combined wallet and exchange experience. The app supports purchase, sale, and management of over 54 cryptocurrencies and earns 4.7 stars on Google Play across more than 51,000 reviews. Spot trading is available through Ripio Trade, which offers market, limit, stop-limit, and trailing stop orders. Maker fees start at 0.25% and taker fees at 0.50%, with volume-based reductions down to zero maker fees for users exceeding five million in monthly volume.

The Ripio Card is a prepaid Visa product that lets users spend crypto directly. It offers up to 2% cashback in BTC, ETH, or the company's own USD-pegged stablecoin. The card integrates with the existing wallet balance, eliminating the need for a separate conversion step before purchases.

Ripio Earn gives retail users access to DeFi yields without requiring them to interact directly with smart contracts. The product routes capital through established protocols including Aave, Compound, and Paxos, abstracting the complexity of on-chain interaction into a familiar savings interface.

Institutional and business clients use Ripio Select, an OTC desk designed for large-volume trades with a minimum threshold of $5,000. A separate B2B API suite — branded as Ripio Business — allows companies to embed crypto functionality into existing products without building their own exchange infrastructure.

LaChain and Stablecoins

A significant part of Ripio's recent strategy centers on LaChain, a proprietary Layer 1 blockchain built in collaboration with SenseiNode, Num Finance, Cedalio, and Buenbit. LaChain was designed as a low-cost settlement network for Latin America, with a particular focus on enabling local-currency stablecoins.

Ripio has used LaChain to issue a family of peso-pegged assets — wARS (Argentine peso), wMXN (Mexican peso), and wBRL (Brazilian real) — alongside UXD (Criptodólar), a USD-pegged stablecoin launched in August 2023. For users in Argentina, UXD carries zero fees and functions as a hedge against chronic peso devaluation. Ripio has described the stablecoin suite as its primary tool for financial inclusion: giving users a way to preserve value in a dollar-equivalent instrument without requiring a US bank account or physical dollar access.

A partnership with MercadoLibre to develop a stablecoin for the e-commerce platform's user base illustrates the B2B potential of this infrastructure play.

Security and Regulatory Standing

Ripio holds 95% of user funds in cold storage and requires two-factor or biometric authentication at login. The platform is SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II certified and has been continuously recertified on an annual cycle since 2022. External audits have been conducted by EY, PwC, KPMG, and the blockchain security firm Hacken. The company publishes Proof of Reserves and maintains compliance with Argentina's AAIP data protection framework.

Regulatory registrations span multiple jurisdictions: Argentina (registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider, PSAV #37, as of June 2024), Florida (Money Transmitter License FT230000427), Spain (central bank license), and Mexico (authorization from the CNBV, received February 2025). This breadth of licensing is unusual in the Latin American crypto landscape and has supported Ripio's partnerships with regulated counterparties like Visa and Paxos.

In November 2025, Ripio disclosed a company crypto treasury valued at more than $100 million in BTC and ETH, describing it as the second-largest corporate crypto treasury in Latin America. The treasury has been actively managed through trading and hedging strategies since 2017.

Solana Relationship

Ripio lists SOL among its tradeable assets on the exchange, alongside BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, and more than 50 other cryptocurrencies. The company's blockchain infrastructure activity is centered on Ethereum (for its RPC and legacy RCN tokens) and its own LaChain network. No Ripio-native product or token exists on Solana, and no announced Solana integration was identified.

Summary

Ripio represents the institutional end of Latin American crypto: a licensed, audited, multi-product platform that has spent more than a decade building local market depth rather than pursuing global feature parity. Its differentiation is localization — peso-denominated rails, local payment method integrations, Spanish and Portuguese support, and regulatory status in markets where competitors rely on informal access. With LaChain, a growing stablecoin suite, and B2B API ambitions targeting businesses rather than just individual traders, Ripio is evolving from a consumer exchange into a crypto infrastructure layer for the region.