ABOUT
We started Panmoni to make money work across borders
YapBay is our remittances protocol. Built after years of fieldwork, one successful pilot, and a lot of learning. No VC funding. No empty promises. Just code and community.
YapBay is our remittances protocol. Built after years of fieldwork, one successful pilot, and a lot of learning. No VC funding. No empty promises. Just code and community.
It started in 2018 in Latin America. We were teaching people to use simple crypto wallets. Most weren't interested in speculation β they just wanted to send money home.
The existing options were expensive, slow, and unreliable. Banks charged too much. Western Union was worse. Even crypto on-ramps were confusing and unreliable. Meanwhile, almost everyone had a phone.
In 2019 we ran a remittances pilot between Madrid and Caracas. Venezuelan immigrants in Spain wanted to send money home for food. We invented combo remittances β their funds paid for groceries directly, cross-border with Dash, through a network of local stores. It worked β real people used it, real money moved.
But it was fragile. It depended on trust, on specific people being available, on manual coordination. When the pandemic hit, the logistics collapsed. The lesson was clear: you can't build durable financial infrastructure on goodwill alone.
So we built YapBay. The workflow, the trust problems, the edge cases β all of it translated into code. Smart contracts hold funds. P2P matching replaces manual coordination. No middleman.
The problem is massive
Sub-$200 remittances face the highest fees, disproportionately hurting families that need every dollar most.
Global average cost
To send $200 globally (World Bank RPW, Q3 2025). More than double the 3% SDG target.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The world's most expensive region (World Bank, Q1 2025).
People locked out
Without official ID, excluded from formal finance. Another 2.8B lack digital ID.
Traditional remittances vs YapBay
Traditional
Fixed transfer fees plus exchange rate markups. The "zero fee" ads hide the spread.
YapBay
No YapBay fees (for now). You pay gas + the trader's spread. That's it.
Traditional
800 million people lack formal ID. Even for those who have it, KYC is slow and intrusive.
YapBay
No KYC at the protocol level. No identity data stored β nothing to leak.
Traditional
Days for a wire. Business hours only. Holidays off. Power outages freeze transfers.
YapBay
P2P networks don't go down when banks do. As long as your phone works.
Traditional
Banks can freeze funds, reverse transactions, or block transfers anytime.
YapBay
Funds locked until both confirm. No middleman can freeze or reverse.
Bonus
Send money AND buy groceries, medicine, or essentials for your recipient.
YapBay
All delivered locally. All in one transaction.
How it works
YapBay chains two P2P trades into one fiat-in, fiat-out transaction. No middleman. No custody. Just smart contracts doing the work.
Pick offer 1
Buy crypto with fiat
Pay fiat
Get stablecoin
Sequential escrow
Auto-transfers between legs
Pick offer 2
Sell crypto for local fiat
Recipient gets
local fiat
You find an offer. You pay fiat (e.g., USD) to a trader β they give you stablecoin (e.g., USDC). That stablecoin goes into the smart contract escrow. The escrow holds the funds.
Your stablecoin is automatically escrowed into Leg 2. Another trader buys your stablecoin and delivers local fiat to your recipient. The escrow transfers automatically β no extra steps.
Neither sender nor receiver need touch crypto if they don't feel comfortable with it. Traders handle the local fiat side. You just pick your offers, pay in fiat, and recipients get cash deposited.
Funds locked until both parties confirm. No one can freeze them.
Independent operators set their own rates in specific corridors.
5% security bond from both parties. Community governance decides.
The protocol only needs a wallet β no phone number required. Traders choose their own rules.
CTO & Founder
Bitcoin since 2011. Taught thousands of people across Latam the basics of Bitcoin. Dev with experience in P2P and regulated fintech. 2x Honorable Mention @ Colosseum hackathons.
Community & Co-Founder
Solana Superteam Nigeria community leader.
COO & Co-Founder
On-chain data wizard.
All YapBay code is MIT licensed. The contracts, the API, the frontend β all public. You can read it, audit it, fork it, build on it.
We're building in public. Join the Telegram community or reach out directly.