The Bitcoin Opportunity in Mexico with Maciej Cepnik of Aureo

Speaker A: If somebody would like to buy like automatically, I don't know, even $5 million worth of Bitcoin on a platform in Mexico, here, using Mexican pesos, it's, it's really hard. Uh, even the biggest players don't really have this. So we, I actually see an opportunity to build a real, real solution for that by being connected to mo, multiple, uh, market makers, multiple liquidity providers to really build a resilient system.

Speaker B: Hey everyone, welcome to the Smart Economy podcast where we ask your favorite builders the questions you wish you could ask yourself. This is a production of neonewstoday.com and I'm your host, Dylan Grabowski. In today's episode we're joined by Maciek Sepnik, the Chief Marketing Officer at Aureo, a bitcoin only financial services and non custodial exchange platform based out of Mexico. In this conversation we discuss how Machec ended up in Mexico, how building Aureo stemmed from needing to spend Bitcoin on everyday goods and services, the ways in which Bitcoin companies launch in Mexico, how the team identified their target users, the recent BIP110 soft torque failure on the Bitcoin network, and so much more. Just a reminder, nothing said in this episode is a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens and that the host or guest might hold tokens discussed in any given episode. You can check out a full disclaimer@www.neonwstoday.com. and of course, if you're enjoying this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcasting platform. And don't forget to share with friends and family every rating, review, like and comment helps us reach more people and bring you more of your favorite guests. With all of that said, I really enjoyed this conversation with Maciek and I hope you enjoy it too. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Smart Economy podcast. Today we're joined by Maciek Szepnik, the Chief Marketing Officer at Aureo, a bitcoin only financial services and non custodial exchange platform operating in Mexico and El Salvador. Maciek, how are you doing today?

Speaker A: I'm doing really good, Dylan. Thank you so much for the invitation and I'm excited to share what we have been doing and what's coming next.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm excited because this opportunity, uh, to have a conversation is kind of at this amalgamation of where I've been trying to take the pod basically since I went to DevConnect in Argentina last November. And that's really that there's this whole kind of like growing demand for bitcoin. Uh, and we won't talk about other blockchains or other verticals, but there's just this growing demand in Latam and it's not stopping. And it's different than the northern part of the American continent. It's a different focus. So I'm really excited to dig into this with you, but I don't know where I want to start first. I don't know if I want to hear. Let's, let's start here first. What was your genesis story with bitcoin? When did you first hear about it? What was the kind of aha moment that you had when it clicked for you?

Speaker A: Yes, that's the classic question. I always start with this one as well. And uh, yeah, I think it's important, you know, to know. Um, so my bitcoin journey started uh, basically 10 years ago in 2015. Uh, it was back in Montreal, uh, because I used to live my whole, I was born and raised in Montreal my whole life until I was 25 years old. Uh, and there was a really, there's still a really strong bitcoin commute in Montreal. But when I started I basically only viewed bitcoin and other cryptos as a way to make money fast. You know, I was like 18 years old, so just looking for ways uh, to, to make money without knowing nothing. Uh, so I had my phase, you know, of investing in altcoins. And you know, at that time everybody was a genius. So uh, it definitely was uh, successful story I guess in the beginning. Uh, but because uh, I was exposed so fast to like more the bitcoin focused community in Montreal. Bitcoin only community. Uh, I started being involved uh, in the meetups over there, started organizing them, uh, doing uh, also a lot of content. I used to have, uh, to be the co founder of a company called Verify. And when we started we were just doing basically investigation, helping people, uh, doing self custody. Uh, so you know this, that's how it all started. But pretty much in the beginning was just to make some money. Uh, and I always had, I think, like uh, uh, being really not interested but really wanting to be free in general. So slowly understood that bitcoin was that tool. And since then I have been basically a bitcoin entrepreneur. I quit school, I was studying finance. Uh, so basically at some point I asked like about the gold standards in the uh, financial finance 101 class. And uh, the teacher kind of laughed and said like, hey, maybe you learn about that in year three. So that's when I understood, like, this was not for me, and started basically being a bitcoin entrepreneur. Our first company was a bitcoin mining. Mining operation in Montreal. We got burned because at that time, there was a m. Soon as we started, the. Imposed a moratorium on use for miners in Quebec. I don't know if you heard about that story, but Quebec was kind of seen as the potential El Dorado for. For bitcoin mining in general. Um, but what happened is that the government imposed like, uh, some special rules because people got scared that the Chinese miners will steal all the electricity in Quebec and people will not be able to heat their homes. So, you know, this burned us. Then we started, uh, verify, Bitcoin consulting, uh, company. And then, uh, it turned into a bitcoin exchange. And that's when Covid started. And, uh, you know, most of the bitcoiners have a similar opinion about COVID And that's when I moved to Mexico, more or less five years ago. And, uh, it didn't turn out good. The, uh, verified story. We closed it down. And then after a few years living here, we saw an opportunity for opening, ah, Aureo. Uh, it used to be called Swapito when, uh, it started. So. Yeah, I don't know if that responds to the question.

Speaker B: No. That's awesome. And you also kind of started going down your professional trajectory, which is really interesting, digging into your background. Um, a lot of folks in the space in general, not just in bitcoin, but more broadly, have kind of fallen into crypto, into blockchain, into bitcoin, um, as part of a second or maybe even a third career. And something that's really interesting is this is kind of where you've been building your bread and butter since day one. I mean, you even dropped out of school to go become a bitcoin entrepreneur. So I think your story isn't necessarily completely told because, um, you talk about, uh, maybe a lot of bitcoiners have the philosophy that the pandemic maybe pushed them out of an authoritarian regime that they were in. And I'm wondering, how did you end up in Mexico? Because from what I understand, um, there were small respites in different parts of the world. Like, even here in the US we had, like, New York and California that were really rough to be in during the pandemic, but Florida and Texas were a little bit easier. So what was it about Mexico that made you want to leave Canada and go down south of the border?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I was becoming really crazy, you know, just argumenting with everyone, uh, I had the chance because in my family for example, my mom, she kind of understood, uh, it was uh, a scam from the beginning or at least not as dangerous uh, as they were saying online. And the line for me was basically uh, when they said like when you need to, you need to vaccinate. If not you will not be able to leave the country. And it's not about being anti vaxx or anything but that's for me was like the line like okay, this is really going uh, in a bad way. Uh, so that's when I packed my bags and I decided uh, to go. And I really had Mexico in mind. But because I left uh, I for like the first wave of the pandemic, I went to for the first time in my life on vacation to Mexico and you know, just like the basic expat stuff, going to Playa de Carmen and just felling in love and with the party, you know, and everything at that time was you know, as a 25 year old that's what you do. So even during the vacation like the first time I was like, okay, I know I'm um, uh, I want to come back here to live here. And then when they announced the rule that was like the signal for me. Okay, this is the moment to go. Um, I didn't go to Mexico first. I went to Costa Rica because I also heard the rules were kind of lenient as well. Um, but I didn't like it so much because I still like bigger city and not that I don't like nature, but becomes a bit harder for me to work when I'm only on the beach. So that's when I came back to Mexico and I started exploring. Uh, I've met my girlfriend now fiance. Uh, so you know, it was just like uh, every one thing led to another but it was really trying to seek that liberty. And obviously Mexico is not a perfect country. It's not as if it's like a libertarian paradise, like far, far from it, but there's still like some sort of um, uh, liberty or freedom that you can pursue here. So that's what I enjoy about it.

Speaker B: Mhm. Um, I'm curious to hear a little bit about before we hit record. You mentioned that you're bitcoin focused but you're not a toxic bitcoin maximalist. Um, how did you kind of re hone your focus into only building on and for bitcoin, Especially after you kind of had like a, ah, home run start where you were probably, you know, doing pretty good, um, buying shitcoins left and right and you know, you probably didn't get burnt or maybe you did, I don't know. I don't want to put words into your mouth but what was it about Bitcoin as, as a project, as an ecosystem, as a technology, as an idea that made you want to double down on that and not focus on any other type of blockchain or crypto project?

Speaker A: Yeah, good, good question. Um, well, you know, because when I started uh, I was kind of. I'm not saying for example other cryptos don't have interesting technology or any, anything like that because obviously they do. And the, the crypto ecosystem also has way more capital and uh, people say also a lot of talent uh, in regards of developers so they tend to develop like products that are more user friendly in general. Right. So I don't want to dismiss them completely. Uh, and a lot of things that crypto, some cryptos did after got integrated into Bitcoin much later on a much slower pace. But the theory behind it is that okay, if it works somewhere else it can also uh, and it's battle tested, it can also be integrated into Bitcoin. But for me Bitcoin is really the unique one that uh, really is decentralized for, for obvious reasons. You know, for example, uh, I was first time I heard about Ethereum it was like $7. But then the, the whole saga with uh, Ethereum classic happened and that was for example one proof for me that it wasn't what I was looking for. Because if you could revert a hack then we're coming back to the same system as we, as we have right now with the fiat system and considering the world where it's going like uh, you know, the dollar being diminished as the reserve currency, uh, just more, way more polarity in the whole, the whole world. Um, how do we guarantee that people, companies, uh, institution will have access to a new form of money, a new form of reserve asset that is in control. What I, I think the answer is clear in regards of that and only Bitcoin has these properties. Um, m. So that's why I focus, I kind of, I mean I won't, I never left that boat because I, at the beginning was just like okay, let, let's make money. But then after the, the company didn't work out in Canada, um, not because we're not growing but just uh, merger didn't finish the right way. Uh, me and my original co founders of the first company, we also the co founders of Aureo, we all had to find new Jobs, right. To survive or at least to not spend all of our bitcoin that was left after all our adventures. So what happened is that I was working at Bitrefill, uh, I don't know if you ever heard about it, my CEO was working at Wasabi, uh, which is a co engine Wallet, uh then my other co founder huh uh, uh, the company behind Wasabi uh closed down. But the, the Wallet I think is still open source and there's new uh, liquid, uh, there's new uh, coin joint coordinator. So it's still completely functioning. But the original company behind it that was running the main server, uh, is, is not anymore. I think they got, I mean they obviously got scared and for good reasons. After the samurai, uh, samurai guys got arrested. And then my third confounder was working at Bitcoin, well which is a bitcoin only company uh, in, in uh, Canada. So we were all earning our salary uh, in Bitcoin because that's the best way. Uh, I mean obviously you can use also stable coins. But as Bitcoin or Bitcoiners we choose the receiver salary in Bitcoin. And there wasn't any easy way to spend that Bitcoin in Mexico at that time like no platform was uh, uh implemented the Lightning Network. So like for example the most popular option here, uh, Bitso or giants, you know, I'm not saying they're not a great company but they haven't at that time implemented Lightning Network. So every time you wanted to spend Bitcoin you had to deposit on chain wait uh, for like four confirmation and then sell. So at that time Gustavo the CEO saw an opportunity because we saw a new uh, API being opened up uh to do Bitcoin. Two pesos off ramping with Lightning. And that's how Aureo started was called Swapilo. So it's not only by ideology, it's out of necessity. For us. He made it for himself and for us and for the few bitcoiners, uh, uh crazy uh, enough to ask their salary in Bitcoin. And that's how it started. So it's not just ideological reason. I think it's also practical.

Speaker B: Yeah, you guys are dogfooding uh, your own product out of necessity.

Speaker A: Yeah, at the beginning we were like the main clients who now were growing so like our numbers are becoming insignificant. Uh, but at the beginning, yeah there was like uh, you know, if you make something for yourself first, then you know you're resolving a real problem, then you can see if other people have a similar problem. Obviously There isn't as many people earning, uh, uh, but obviously the product could also be been used to just sell your bitcoin whenever you, you, you needed money.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: But we were mostly selling it as live uh, on bitcoin, uh, in Mexico because you basically could convert Bitcoin to pesos and send the pesos to any Mexican bank account. So uh, here in Mexico, I don't know if you're familiar, there's a Mexican uh, interbanking system called Spay that is really efficient. So even like tacos on the street accept Transferencia they call it. So you could basically interpay your tacos anywhere in Mexico using the product. And it works, uh, and um, still works today. Really good.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, when I was in Monterrey, uh, I was talking with the MOCA team. Mocha is building a payments solution, multi chain. So it's not bitcoin focused, but they were kind of telling me all about spay. And um, one of the things that was really mind opening to me was that uh, the specific use case you mentioned, you could have like an abuela on the street selling tacos and she knows how to use spay because it can connect to her cell phone and people can pay. So you have this multi generational gap that's closed. People from teenagers to grandparents all know how to send money and receive money on Spay. So it's almost like there's this huge education hurdle, this huge education gap that Mexico has because its population is already literate in sending money electronically. So do you find that, that kind of um, relationship, that kind of understanding with a ah, technology of moving money on, on digital Rails, does that kind of help Aureo, does that help onboard people? Because they kind of already get the first half of the story which is moving, moving funds on. On digital Rails or is there kind of a relationship there that I might be uh, fabricating or making up?

Speaker A: To be honest, I think, uh, yeah, I don't think it really helps because realistically like m, almost more than half of the population is still in the informal economy in Mexico. So most of the transaction happening outside of the big cities are completely uh, done in cash. And actually we just you know, because we want to understand how people, the co founders of the team are not from Mexico. We haven't lived here for a really long time. So we don't really understand like the fabric of this country. So we also do like uh, full reports uh, on Naureo and the latest report was about uh, how do Mexican invest. Right. And we find out most of them basically a huge uh, maturity. The only way they invest their money is through real estate. And when I'm saying real estate, it's not necessarily just buying an apartment in a big city. It's literally like buying bricks and building their house like brick by brick. Uh, basically. So yes, the adoption of spay, like the inter banking system has been tremendous in the country. Like it's one of the biggest uh, financial um, uh like success story of Mexico uh because I don't know the numbers exactly, but there's like tens of millions of transactions being done every day of uh, people using them. So yes, they adopted that really fast but they uh, they're really, the, the investment kind of landscape is really behind. So it, it also has been growing quite fast um, over the past decade. Let's say like there's a lot of fintechs trying to push people towards uh, investment apps where they can buy stocks, bonds or whatever. But, but still compared to the US or Canada, like uh, it's, it's, it's a world apart. So I wouldn't say necessarily that the, the, the fact that they know how to use pay well uh, is also, is enough to also push them towards uh, thinking how to diversify the investment and one of them being uh, Bitcoin. So I think the people that are investing in bitcoin right now in Mexico are way more, you know, literate, uh, they probably have a location, they are more wealthy, uh, which is unfortunate but it's just the reality of uh, uh, how things are happening. Um, so yeah, I would say not necessarily.

Speaker B: Thanks for checking my unfounded bias. Um, another question I have specifically about launching a company in Mexico is from. And I went down to Monterrey for a conference. Um, as I mentioned before we hit record, um, I went to visit a mutual acquaintance that we both have in Mexico City a few weeks ago. And from these conversations and what I've seen that I've taken, and again please tell me wherever I'm wrong because you guys are on the ground, you're doing the research, is that for fintech, for financial Internet companies, it's difficult to um, to build a new company to, to launch from scratch in Mexico. Is, is that the case? And if it is the case, what does being a bitcoin first fintech company, what are the advantages you have with being um, with building on a decentralized network?

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, really good, really good question. And you're absolutely right, it's a pain in the, to open the company here, um, for many reasons. So uh, the, there isn't a specific legal frame framework for bitcoin or crypto companies. So what everybody is doing is basically opening uh, not a shell company but a uh, company outside of Mexico, uh and having a proper license that is defined by the law of that country and using that to operate an operating company here in Mexico. So that's exactly what we did. Uh we used the bitcoin provider license from El Salvador in order to be able to operate here in Mexico. But that doesn't mean the company in Mexico doesn't have its own set of rules uh, to follow. So uh, operating crypto uh, or Bitcoin company in Mexico falls under the uh, the activity vulnerable, ah, vulnerable activity law which means you have to do KYCU users, you have to uh, report transaction to specific ah financial uh, intelligence uh units mostly to prevent um, money, ah laundering. Uh, so that in itself, you know it's a process, it takes time, it takes a little bit of money to start. But when we started investigating how to properly do this, every lawyer we went to, they said oh you need to open a fintech license which is basically another legal framework that does exist uh in Mexico and under which all the other fintechs company either offering uh, pesos, uh bank accounts or yield or whatever, they need the fintech license. But every lawyer was saying hey, you need the fintech license to operate, uh, you know what you want to do a simple brokerage uh to buy and sell Bitcoin in Mexico. And it was completely not true. And obviously uh, the people that fell into the trap, uh, the fintech license is way more expensive to obtain probably uh, 200, $300,000. Uh, sorry, 200, uh, uh yeah, 200,000. $300,000 worth of lawyers fees and process and getting accepted versus you know, uh, applying for being a activity vulnerable and having your processes set up in place with the cost like maybe uh, uh, a tenth of the price of a fintech license. Right. So I think also the, what was hard is not only the legal process of opening a company but also the misguidance of the experts or people that are pretending to help you here. Uh, because how many companies didn't open because when they heard that uh, you need at least $1 million to just start operating and start hiring the right people. Uh, you know, so that's a huge barrier for, for startups that want to start here in my opinion.

Speaker B: Two, two questions are, are the lawyers doing this because they're negligent, because they're uninformed or is there some sort of backwards incentive structure for them to kind of gatekeep fintech companies. So that's my first question. And then second, um, is the way around that basically building on bitcoin and blockchain?

Speaker A: Well obviously, uh, for the first question, uh, in regards of the incentives, I think the incentives are more personal financial wise because as I said like a fintech license is way more costful. So if you see somebody that maybe has the money, are you going to advise them? Well and I think also it was a lot of uh, basically miscommunication from the authorities themselves in Mexico because when the fintech uh, law launched, if I'm not mistaken, it was kind of uh, implied the crypto companies will fall under that. Um, but then banksico, the bank of Mexico said no, you can, you like that doesn't work, you cannot use this license or you need something else. So I think there was also a lot of confusion coming from authorities. So the lawyers maybe use that uh, as a way to you know, sell more expensive services. I think it's just normal. So you really had to dig in and ask. And um, so this main research that my, my co founder did, he, he used a lot, you know, LLMs AI to, to really dig in and really find out like what is the right solution.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: and then for the second question, so, and obviously I'm not saying that every lawyer in Mexico is a uh, is a crook that is just trying to scam you but uh, you have to, you know, you cannot stop at the first one, right? Just you need to shop around. Uh, the first one will give you a quote for $50,000, the next one 30, the next one 10, maybe the last one at 8 know. So you just have to dig in deep and we um, so yeah, that's for the first question. The second question, well you don't have a choice if you're touching Fiat. You know, if you're going to use bank accounts, if you're going to be interchanging virtual assets whenever it's bitcoin on other cryptos and you're going to um, uh, be, be interacting with the Mexican banking system, then you don't have a choice to follow uh, the laws here. Um, but then if you're opening a wallet and you don't touch Fiat, I'm not sure exactly what type of legal infrastructure you need in order to operate in Mexico, but I can imagine it's much more easy or at least uh. So yeah, your question basically yes, if you don't touch Fiat, uh, then you don't need to pass through all of that if you're opening a wallet, uh, I'm guessing, uh, right.

Speaker B: I think this is a good point to bring in Aoudeo. Um, from the onset, um, it just seems like uh, a wallet and an exchange, a place to buy and sell Bitcoin and a place to hold your Bitcoin. Um, is there any more nuance to, to what our offers or are you guys just doubling down and being super good at a very specific use case?

Speaker A: Yeah, also really good question. So we raised our funding round in October 2025. Uh, and since then we have built, building the platform and we launched the platform in March. So we basically have less than six months operating really the platform. And, and it really started as a simple brokerage platform. So it's not an exchange, it's more a brokerage platform. You know you get a quote, you get a price, you get the Bitcoin. Uh, and we have way bigger plans uh, towards the future. But now you can as an individual or a company buy and sell Bitcoin in uh, in Mexico. And we're not a wallet and we're not uh, for now a custodian. So we have a non custodial flow. So that means that as soon as somebody sends us pesos, our system transforms it into Bitcoin and sends it to your last saved address and the same for the off ramp. To sell Bitcoin you give you an invoice, uh, you pay that invoice and you receive the pesos directly. Um, um, in your bank account. And we call them direct to bank and direct to wallets. You know instead of using terms like ah, non custodial, we, we prefer to use like a positive type of marketing messaging and explaining what it does. So these are like our two core main products and are available in the app. Um, what we do intend in the future is to have custody lending collateral, Bitcoin collateralized loan. But this takes a lot of time, right? So right now we really focus on hey, you're an individual or a company in Mexico, you want to buy a large amount of Bitcoin. Uh, we are here to help you whenever you, you want to do self custody or whenever you want to use like a multi institution custody solution. Uh, we kind of like the, the white glove service for Bitcoin for individuals and companies. And we do intend to built more products coming uh, into the future. Uh so what's coming next mostly is like corporate accounts. Mhm. Uh, so right now like to open uh a crypto account with any company, even the biggest one. It's really uh, like manual process. It's really complicated. Uh, it's mostly done through WhatsApp, you know, and then the manager changes of your account so they restart the process again, you're missing a document. It takes uh, long uh, time. Then you don't necessarily have like divided access or uh, tiered access in the corporate account. So you don't have really like a manager role or you know, CEO role, somebody that can initiate transactions. So we want to get into like proper um, Bitcoin management platform for companies also in Mexico because the corporate adoption in Mexico is seriously lacking compared to other countries though.

Speaker B: And his name is eluding me right now. There is um, ah, a, a well known Mexican industrialist billionaire who is allocating a lot of his wealth into Bitcoin. Is this kind of like a story or a narrative that Aureo uses when you're going out and, and knocking on the doors and talking to, to corporates, to, to larger scale companies? Um, do you use this as a reference or is this just kind of um, the hero of Mexico and that's

Speaker A: that um, the thing about his name is Ricardo Salina. And yes, we kind of lucky to have such a figure here in Mexico. But at the same time he's a really controversial figure. There's a lot of people that don't like him. Um, uh, one, ah, like for sure he has balls, you know, but he's in some trouble with the government, uh, but he has few money, you know, so sorry if I cannot say that on your podcast. So he can kind of do what he wants but at the same time he's really like arrogant on social media. So I respect what he does, I respect his love for Bitcoin. Uh, but we don't use it necessarily. As an example, I think everybody knows he's using Bitcoin and he likes Bitcoin. But uh, we try to be more uh, international, you know, saying, you know, here's uh, the companies in the States doing this, there's companies in the uk, there's companies in uh, Asia doing this. So we don't, we don't focus on him only to kind of convince uh, other Mexicans. Uh, because yeah, it's either you love him or you hate him. It's like there's no in between.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, it's the same story with billionaires all over the place. I feel people either love them or hate them. Um, you can just come to America and see what people, how they talk about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. It's either like a hero and like you, you love him, or he's the worst person in the world. So, uh, I think there's nuance to everything. Uh, but uh, yeah, no, but uh, it's good you me mentioned it up.

Speaker B: Yeah. Another question I have, and maybe feel free to tell me if this is getting into proprietary information or too inside ball, but I'm curious as to like, what's the level of, of float that you have to have? Because I would assume that dealing with settlement in between banks may or may not be done within the day. It might be T1T +2. I'm not too familiar with uh, bank accounts and how spay operates, but if you have people buying and selling Bitcoin, there needs to be kind of that intermediary bucket of funds that can allow somebody to put their bitcoin in and be able to get uh, pesos out. So do you guys have to manage basically an account of bitcoin and account of peso that basically settles on behalf of your clients while you guys basically eat the rest of the settlement time? If that makes sense?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good question. And um, yes, absolutely. So for now we use mainly LightSpark and Bitso business accounts to do all the transactions. And that's in App, right? So in App, we started with uh, hundred thousand pesos limit per transaction, which is around five to six thousand dollars per transaction. And that's only in app, right. And now we increase it, uh, we increased it to 200,000 pesos, which is around um, well, a little bit more than uh, $11,000, $12,000. But that's in app, right? Because we also have an OTC desk where then the settlement is way more flexible. Uh, as in the app you want instantaneous payouts and instantaneous uh, um, ah, buys and sells. So in the app, yes, we do have a float that we're increasing slowly and we have alert system to make sure like if there's a high activity day, we make sure to replenish it, uh, on time and everything. But yeah, you definitely need a float, uh, if you want to have a successful uh, uh, like a functioning operation. Uh, but there's definitely if somebody would like to buy like automatically, I don't know, even $5 million worth of Bitcoin on a platform in Mexico here using Mexican pesos. It's really hard, uh, even the biggest players don't really have this. So I actually see an opportunity to build a real solution for that by being connected to multiple, uh, market makers, multiple liquidity providers to really build a resilience system because yeah, it's, it's not like in the US like you want to buy hundred million dollars worth of bitcoin, it doesn't exist here. It's going to be a long and complicated, uh, process and as you said, you know, banking relationship, uh, it all takes a little bit of time. So this is what we want to focus on and be, uh, be this, you know, big uh, big provider for bitcoin liquidity pesos in Mexico.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's gonna take some time, but we're gonna get there.

Speaker B: Yeah. It just sounds like I was having some super negative conversations with um, developers, builders, software engineers when I was in Monterrey in October last year. And there's just a little bit of um, I wouldn't even say anxiety. It's almost like, like doom and hopelessness when it comes to building companies in, in blockchain in Mexico to the point where some people were just like not even bothering working with any Mexican entities. So I'm not quite sure if you feel like there's an uphill struggle or if AO has kind of found the path. And as long as you guys just keep trudging forward, there's, there's more and more opportunity ahead of you.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because basically as you said, I, I agree with that. It's really hard. Um, the processes are long, ah, tedious, you know, but then again, as you said, maybe if we go through it and we have enough resilience and we have enough different partners, if one fails, well then we have five others that can provide it. Right. So I think a moat in Mexico can actually be, are you compliant enough? Are you uh, having uh, established relationships enough to actually be the one that survives through the challenges, the legal, the compliance challenges and actually be um, the company that survive all of this. And that could be enough to be not necessarily the biggest player in the market, but uh, successful story. Uh. So yeah, that's kind of what we, we count on. For example, uh, just the compliance burden is really big. Right. Because you have to submit a bunch of documents, transaction reports and we wanted from the start to make it as easy and uh, for us to not lose time on all these processes.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So we, we automate as much as possible all the compliance burden to make sure we are not getting lost in Google sheets. And um, you know, from, from, from the people we work with when we, when we need and we show them like hey, we, we have all this backend system to manage everything, to manage the risk and everything. They're like you're the first company that we see that have like an automatic system for that everybody else is working on, on Google sheets and everything. So yeah, I think maybe I'm saying too much, I don't know. But uh, yeah, it's definitely just surviving the pain, uh, is, is an advantage here in Mexico.

Speaker B: And I would also have to imagine that if you can survive the pain, then there's a blue ocean opportunity in front of you. Because who really is your biggest competitor today in the Mexican market? Is it, is it basically just Bitso?

Speaker A: No. Um, well, obviously Bitso is a giant. It's uh, you know, it's a really, it's a really respectable company. Uh, and obviously we work with them. I uh, the, the CEO Daniel Vogel is a bitcoiner. You know, he has been saying the uh, that Bitcoin is the solution for many things. And they're still doing uh, doing it at Bitso from 2015 or from a really long time ago. Uh, but I think they already started opening up to other type of markets, you know, seizing opportunities such as stock markets, you know, giving access to the American stock markets, international stock market to, to, to Mexicans. So yes, they are our biggest competitor, but we don't really want to uh, do the same thing as us because we believe there is a segment that is like Bitcoin only that exists in the States. There is a model in the States, uh, for example, such as river, uh, companies like that, that focus only on Bitcoin, um, um, and they are really successful and we think there's enough capital here in Mexico, especially a lot of capital that is stuck in real estate that could transition to Bitcoin eventually or is already transitioning towards Bitcoin and seizing that small segment of the market is already a huge market for us. So we don't have like the necessarily the, the, the vision that bitsour is our competitor because we want to build like this market on its own. But yeah, everybody that sells bitcoin is our competitor. So you know, there's Binance here, Bitget, all the bitcoin, all the big uh, trading companies. There's a bunch of Chinese exchanges here too. So yeah, it's going to be tough but we believe we can kind of uh, uh, carve out a niche out of all of this.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, so you mentioned that uh, Aureo started a swappy dome. And you also mentioned that last November you guys successfully went through a 1.1 million pre seed raise from early writers. And I'm just curious how did the process of going Through a raise make you guys need to hone in on what you're doing, maybe shave some things that you wanted to do that you had to get rid of because your investors weren't necessarily aligned with that vision. And in what way did going, going through the fundraise really help you guys solidify specifically and exactly what you want to do?

Speaker A: So we started the conversation a little bit before mid M 2025 and uh, we already knew the guys from early writers and we got like kind of reintroduced again through an acquaintance. I actually met a guy uh, that at a Ethereum conference in Denver. At the time I was working at Bitterfill and I showed him Swapilo and he was like oh that's really cool. So introduced us, the conversation started and like the pitch that we did at the beginning like has nothing to do with what we're doing right now. And to be honest it was kind of fall from the sky in the sense that um, we didn't have to convince them too much because what I think happened is that they knew us from a really long time. They knew Gustavo, my CEO, so they kind of invested more in the team rather than the product, at least in the beginning. And they also sold us the idea that uh, you know they have a operating company called uh, Onramp where they sell uh, multi institution custody, uh services. Uh, so they kind of like pushed us towards hey you guys should think more institutional. Uh you should more high net worth, more you know, serious capital, uh, uh corporation services and all that stuff. More B2B. And we kind of uh, started already thinking that and now with time, with the months that have been passing, yes on Aurelia you can buy 500 pesos worth and we always going to be there for the people that want to start the bitcoin journey. But the reality is that you cannot compete as a startup even if you receive uh, we receive the pre. Like we need to use all that money as much as possible to build infrastructure and product. We cannot spend almost nothing on really on customer acquisition, uh, on marketing as much as uh, like uh, you know we, we need to be really careful. Like million looks like a lot but it's not that much. Right. So we really need to focus on high volume um clients on B2B use cases. So we're going to come out with an API soon because when people ah, saw our app, uh, there's a lot of companies that approached us and say like hey, do you have an API? Right? If you build it, we're going to use it as a product. So um, I think we're going to shift towards a model where our own app is more like a marketing for all the backend infrastructure uh, that we're building to make it uh, work. Uh, so definitely the, the investors helped us in the beginning. They were the one telling us hey, like we're going to invest but just do this. You know, build uh, you know, build services, not for retail. You're not going to be able to make it with such a small amount because it's all a battle of attrition. You know, who pays more to acquire the users to up their numbers. We, we don't pay any users to, to, to use our platform. Right. Um, so yeah, we, we and they also told us, hey, you should, you should change your name. And we were, we were uh, we were agreeing with it. You know, swapito sounded like cool, like a retail app. It was hard to kind of depart from the name. But Aurelia, it was also kind of new message and new uh, uh, brands that we wanted to present it as something more professional and serious and Kiss,

Speaker B: uh, what's the significance of Aureo? When I think of it, um, people who don't speak Spanish, Oro is the word for gold. So I'm kind of like getting gold ish vibes. Is that the plan words that you guys were going with?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh, it's always a struggle to find a name for a startup. Uh, I think swapiro came faster to us but then Aureo, it took some time but then we kind of settled on it and we really like it now. Uh, so Auro used to be the Roman gold coin that was like the standard of money uh, for a really long time. So um, that's also, you know, the logo is kind of that like a coin but also uh, the horizon and the sun and everything. So yeah, it's exactly that. I think it also uh, means like a perfect number, like the representation of perfect number. So yeah, that was kind of the vibe that we were going after. Yeah.

Speaker B: Awesome. Love it. What has um, customer acquisition and user growth looked like since you guys launched in March? Are you, you mentioned that you're using the app to kind of drive marketing to larger scale players. Institution, enterprise, company level players. So what does it look like right now? Are you, are you able to um, capture both those institutional level players as well as retail? Are you seeing that retail is attracted more to Aurao, um, than, than as opposed to institutions? Do you have to kind of target your marketing, um, directives towards the two different groups? Just what does user growth and acquisition look like over the past five months?

Speaker A: So yeah, since we launched in March, we, we grew considerably like month per month despite the bear market. Also the bear market is just uh, brutal, really hard and just brutal in general. So now we're, we're seeing some hope. So uh, at the beginning since our product is mostly uh, made for retail users at the moment, uh the marketing so far uh, has been uh, uh, directed towards retail users, investors. Uh but you know, with the language where we kind of uh, say to them that you know, once they become a client of our railroad, they become a vip, they can always book a call with us, ask us any questions in regards to fiscal, legal compliance or security OPSEC stuff. Uh, so the, the, the thing I just told you, like the strategy that we'll be using, uh, more and more, using the platform more as a representation of uh, what we can do in the backend, uh, that's not yet an application so I cannot really say. But we already have some potential uh, companies lined up for like the API for example that we will be launching really soon. So you know the user acquisition so far I don't know how we did it but every month we grew in the dozens or hundreds of percent in terms of volume but it's still nowhere to what we really need to achieve success in the company. So that's why we are already started thinking and most of the volume always, always 80% of volume comes for 20% of your clients. Right? Yeah, I think, I think or even more so I think it's a rule that applies to even more to, to companies such as ours. Um, so yeah, still, still not there yet, but grinding uh every day.

Speaker B: I mean you guys fundraised, uh, closed the deal a month after the bear market started after 10, 10. And then you've been building during a pretty negative sentiment time. Um, while banks and institutions and all these big large scale players are integrating support for Bitcoin, integrating support for blockchain, integrating tokenization. So it was almost as if the bear market we've been in for the past uh, 10 months hasn't really lined up because sentiment is awful. But adoption is happening at a large scale. And so who are the types of users that you guys have been grinding to grip at? Are these first time bitcoiners or are these bitcoiners who see that using Audeo offers better opportunities than maybe using Binance or Bitso?

Speaker A: Uh, actually the, the product itself, I still consider it as an expert product because okay, as I said, you know with direct to bank and direct to wallet. The you have to at least know how to use a wallet. And for most, most of the crypto bitcoin users today still hold their Bitcoin on the platform. Right? So the, the clients that we captured are actually bitcoiners and the juicer platform because the UX and the UI is just better than everything else that exists on the market because it's the kind of users that buy bitcoin uh, and send it to their wallet and we basically made a product that does it for them. So they choose us uh, because uh, it has the best ui, the best UX for a bitcoiner, an existing Bitcoiner. And ah, so we kind of have been you know, seeking all the potential bitcoiners or bitcoin investors uh, in Mexico and you know, trying to put in front, uh, front of them that the product, the uh, the service they will get and that's how we acquired them. So m, of course we had, we have beginners as well, you know, people telling about us uh, to, to their friends, to families. But so far mostly it has been bitcoin. Not experts, but people that really have been familiar with bitcoin and that have been accumulating during the burn markets. Right. Um, so yeah, that's the kind of users we got so far. Uh obviously when we're going to integrate custody and everything then we probably have a more retail, uh, more uh, even more beginner type of uh, customer.

Speaker B: I've been um, marketing, creating educational content and um, informing ecosystem users um, about blockchain and crypto and just educating people for about as long as, as you've been in the space, you probably have a year or two on me. Um, so I'm curious after your time um, building uh, building an exchange, building an educational platform yourself, uh also working in bit refill which is more chain agnostic if I'm correct. Um, what are some of the opportunities and constraints of having uh, a chief marketing position in a Bitcoin ecosystem?

Speaker A: I think the hardest thing to realize is that Bitcoin doesn't solve uh, mainstream problem. Bitcoin solves a problem for the few that are ready to understand that they may have a problem in the future. Because bitcoiners all over the world, they're going to try to convince merchants to accept Bitcoin but it does nothing. Yes, maybe they will put a little bitcoin accept sign but nobody's going to go and actually pay with Bitcoin. So this is completely useless for bitcoin adoption. And this kind of upset thing to say, we're just not there yet. In my opinion, uh, bitcoin is not. I use bitcoin as money every day, whenever I can directly, uh, peer to peer. Uh, if, if, if I go to a coffee shop and it accepts Bitcoin, awesome. I will pay with, with bitcoin. But the reality is that bitcoin is not necessarily a form of payment. It can be used as a form of payment, but it's mostly independent, censorship resistant money that is going to be the last resort or the kind of like the last um, uncorrelated asset if everything goes down. And, and not everybody is ready for this truth. Right? So the, the people that are really invested in the, into bitcoin and that's really under, um, you know, they understand how the world is changing. The world order is changing. Like the, the US might, the US dollar might, you know, overinflate. Uh, those are, this is the target market of bitcoin. It's kind of the crazy people that are seeing potential futures in, on the horizon. And understanding Bitcoin is a really great solution not only from an international perspective, but also national perspective. So for example, in Mexico there is more restriction in regards of how people can use uh, their capital. You know, their, their bank account can be frozen. So if that doesn't concern you, like, it's really hard for me to sell you the idea of bitcoin. Um, so I think that's the biggest challenge is understanding bitcoin is not necessarily for everyone and not an understanding. And applying it. This uh, in your marketing is kind of like uh, it's painful because you would like everyone to have bitcoin. Right? But not everybody's ready, at least not right now.

Speaker B: Right. People buy bitcoin at the price they deserve. Um, we're running up on the end of our hour, but I have to ask this question and I'm not necessarily trying to drag you into any bitcoin politics, but um, this is a real concern that and I love bitcoin. I'm a huge bitcoin fan. It was the first thing that got me interested in blockchain and crypto in 2017. And I've never lost sight of it. So I'm asking a question, um, journalistically. Recently we saw BIP, uh, 110 try to take over the Bitcoin network. And basically BIP 110 said we want to put a year moratorium on ordinals, on uh, BRC 20s, on anything that's building as a non monetary use. Case on top of the bitcoin network. There's arguments for and against that. The, the long term prospect of bitcoin faces a problem with its security funding because every four years we go through a halving and there's less and less subsidy that's going to the bitcoin miners. My perspective, um, and of course anybody who's a hardcore bitcoin fan can just call me a shitcoiner and whatever. My perspective is that the way that miners were going to be subsidized in the future was by more and more on chain activity paying for revenue and for fees, something like BRC 20s ordinals. So when you have this kind of internal division within the bitcoin community as to whether we should or shouldn't have non monetary uses on top of the bitcoin network, um, and the implications that that has for the future of the security of the network or not, um, how do you view that when you're going out and you're talking with bitcoiners and you're talking about Aureo, um, and at the same time there's this civil war happening at the bitcoin network? How do you balance that? How do you kind of think about the two different worlds that bitcoin could be? Whether There's a Bitcoin 10 world where there's only bitcoin as money and nothing else happening on it. And yeah, maybe we do have to worry about uh, the lessening and lessening subsidies every four years. Or should bitcoin have this kind of opportunity for people to build on it in the way they see fit? I know that's a huge question. I know it's political, I know it's not fair to ask you as the last question of the interview, but I'm super curious to hear your thoughts.

Speaker A: No, no problem. I have no problem answering. I think what happened with bip110 uh, proves that bitcoin work. Uh, you know they made a lot of noise, they made a lot of um, you know they scared people away. Probably some, some of actually just the people on Twitter because most probably if you ask most bitcoin investor, they never heard about that thing. So it's good. Um, you know what, what is non monetary use case? Uh, the data that is going to the, the bitcoin blockchains is just data. And the paper itself, the BIP 110 paper proved that uh, it was completely uh, inefficient and didn't work for its intended use which was blocking, you know, NFTs also the, the big C word, uh, uh, I don't want to say it. Uh, so it proved it didn't work. So for me personally, I don't like NFTs. I think it's a distraction and I think just natural network effects will. And you know, we saw a big rise of NFTs ordinals, uh, during few months and then as soon as the bear market goes down, uh, they disappear, you know. So I think it's going to come and go by, uh, opportunistic waves, uh, which has been happening in the crypto ecosystem always. But the economics at the end will always make sense. I don't think necessarily they are needed, uh, on the long term to make sure the subsidy and the network fees are enough to pay for the miners because I think eventually, uh, they will get priced out just by, um, Bitcoin being used as money by default. So, you know, I just, I'm realistic with all of this. Uh, I know that you cannot really block this kind of usage. So I don't embrace it, but I don't necessarily condemn it. Uh, like, uh, it's not my focus. My focus is really on explaining on how bitcoin works and why it worked. Because in the, in this case it really showed that bitcoin works. There was a minority that pretended they had consensus, uh, and they said like the miners took over and everything. But that's completely bonkers, right? Like bitcoin work exactly as intended and uh, you know, uh, so I, I know it's really nuanced and everything and people will call some, some of their, the people from the camp of BIP 110 will call me a shitcoiner, but you know, I don't really care and doesn't mean I like ordinals. You know, like if you want to do ordinals, I, I don't really care. It's gonna, in my opinion, it's just gonna be like waves of, of uh, of uh, interest sometimes and it's gonna fade away. Yeah, but, but yeah, again it's technology, it's people experimenting with it. So it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Speaker B: I think for me, what it really showcased is CT crypto. Twitter is such a small bubble and if you were on there and you saw the bip110 faithfuls, you would think that this is a, uh, guaranteed soft fork. But only 2.5% of the miners signaled support for it. So there was really a, um, a distance between what we talk about on Twitter, on crypto Twitter, and what the reality Is that's actually happening out there. So thank, uh, you for your nuanced insights. And um, yeah, it was a fun saga to watch play out. So we've hit our time.

Speaker A: Were you expecting that answer or were you expecting something, Another answer?

Speaker B: Actually, it was exactly what I expected because you started off this whole conversation saying you're focused on bitcoin, but you're not a maxi.

Speaker A: So when somebody says I'm a maxi,

Speaker B: but a toxic maxi.

Speaker A: Sorry, yeah, that's the thing. Also, like the. You're probably aware also of what happened with Coldcart. Uh, so that's also a proof that this whole kind of pleb. Toxic culture was completely detrimental to the ecosystem. And we need to be way more careful and way more vigilance, uh, as Bitcoiners, if you consider yourself a bitcoin maxi, to not fall into this tribalistic kind of, I don't know, behavior, uh, and just following up some leaders, we kind of fell into the same trap that we said shitcoiners were following, uh, for many years. So we got our lesson. Uh, definitely, uh, I mean the bitcoin maxis, uh, from that part. Uh, but I think they're a minority.

Speaker B: Yeah. And not to dunk on maxis. I think to get bitcoin to the place where it's at today, there needed to be that die hard faithful group that were willing to put everything on the line to help keep this fledging new network alive in its first decade of life. So, um, I don't even say anything negative about, about Maxis because there was a role that that type of mentality played in the success of where bitcoin is today. So that is a topic for another podcast though. Anyone who listened to today's episode and is interested in learning more about Aureo or getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they can do that?

Speaker A: I'm really active on, uh, X. So anyone. I think that's how you got in touch with me. So I respond to my DMs. Even if there's a lot of scams, I can't see the ones that are real. Uh, so you can just contact me on next. And by the way, uh, you can use Aureo, uh, as a foreigner, uh, so you don't have to be Mexican. So for example, if you come to live few months or if you uh, uh, you know, also, I don't know, you need to pay some Mexican providers or people that you're paying, I don't know, uh, you can also make an account as a foreigner, so, uh, you don't need to be Mexican. Uh, awesome.

Speaker B: Maciek, thank you so much for your time today. This was a fantastic conversation.

Speaker A: Thank you darling. Uh, it was also very nice. Cheers.

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