Company
Vibrant
use case
Asset Issuance, Access to Fiat
Industry
Fintech, Digital Currencies
Country
Argentina, United States

About

Vibrant

is a wallet app developed on Stellar by a team at Sunship, Inc., a subsidiary of the Stellar Development Foundation. By employing Stellar, Vibrant makes it possible for Argentines experiencing inflation to purchase and hold USDC quickly, cheaply, and easily.

Challenge

Argentina is one of the Latin American countries hit hardest by ever-increasing inflation. With , the depreciation of the peso ranks as the most relevant issue for Argentines. 

To protect themselves from devaluation, Argentines typically preserve their wealth by exchanging the Argentine peso for the US dollar. This process usually involves opening foreign bank accounts and holding onto the physical bills at home. This leaves them with no safe way to store or use their money. 

Stablecoins have been growing in popularity in Argentina, but accessing stablecoins through exchanges often leaves customers with a confusing and cumbersome user experience.

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“Stellar helps people access assets and financial services they wouldn't otherwise have access to.”
Kyle McCollom
‍DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT

Solution

Vibrant saw an opportunity to give Argentines an alternative means of protecting themselves from devaluation. As a wallet app built on Stellar, Vibrant is designed to expand access to dollar-based stablecoins such as USDC, a leading digital dollar currency issued by Circle and governed by the Centre Consortium. 

Aware of the high user trust in LATAM-based digital assets settlement network Settle and their products, Vibrant integrated its services with Settle’s ARST stablecoin, pegged to the Argentine peso on Stellar. Now, Argentines can download the Vibrant app on their phone and use it to convert their pesos to ARST, buy USDC, and easily exchange USDC back into ARST and transfer to their regular bank account any time they want.

Access to New Markets and Products

  • By integrating with different partners such as Settle and Circle, Vibrant enables its users to easily access on/off ramps, allowing their value to move effortlessly between regular fiat and digital currencies. By integrating with anchors on Stellar, Vibrant can easily expand into new markets via their on/off ramps.
  • Since Stellar is ideal for issuing assets representing any type of value (e.g. fiat, securities, crypto), Vibrant can more easily launch new financial products based on what assets are available in the Stellar ecosystem.

Speed

  • In 2020, the inflation rate in Argentina closed out at 36.1%¹ and is projected to increase to 48.3%² in 2021, meaning the value of the peso can decrease in a matter of days. When someone has to wait days for a financial institution to exchange their pesos into physical US dollars (often in large denominations) and back again, the settlement time already threatens to devalue the final amount the user ends up receiving.
  • Transactions on Stellar clear and settle in a matter of seconds. With Vibrant, users are able to exchange ARST into USDC and back at a moment’s notice. They can then withdraw ARST to their bank account into pesos – a process that takes one business day to complete.

Low Fees

  • Transaction fees on Stellar are so low – less than a fraction of a cent – that Vibrant can sponsor them upfront on behalf of its users. On Vibrant, users don’t have to pay transaction fees in order to deposit, withdraw, or exchange their money.

Simple User Experience

  • Thanks to its suite of tools, standards for KYC compliance, and API capabilities, Stellar allows businesses to build products and services focusing on the user experience. People using Vibrant can transact quickly and easily, taking advantage of Settle’s on/off ramp to exchange their value all the way from fiat to ARST to USDC and back effortlessly.
  • Each USDC is backed by one dollar or asset with equivalent fair value, which is held in accounts with US regulated financial institutions.
  • Vibrant users are able to hold USDC tokens without having to worry about devaluation without limits or restrictions impacting their value.
Kyle McCollom

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT

Results

10x
improvement in conversion rates
60%
month-over-month growth in average balances

Today, Argentines have an easy and accessible way to protect themselves from devaluation of the peso. With just a mobile phone and a bank account, Argentines receive the anti-inflationary benefits of US dollars by holding USDC.

The Vibrant team focused on building a positive user experience for those looking for a safeguard of value, as well as developing features fintech companies would like to implement when building their own products on Stellar. On top of the wallet, the team plans on building more features that help Argentine users not just preserve their wealth, but grow it.

In addition to expanding product features, Vibrant plans to offer their services in different markets as well. Due to more on/off ramp anchors becoming available on Stellar, Vibrant can now integrate with more anchors and expand into countries such as Mexico.

¹

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