"There's a lot of misconceptions about China."
"People don't realize that China is actually one of the most technologically advanced places in the world. Because of its size, it's such a competitive market that Chinese companies actually need to start looking abroad in order to stay alive. If you look at China's economy, prices have stayed the same since 2018. It's actually deflationary."
"If you're a Chinese merchant, you don't want Venezuelan pesos, you don't want Colombian pesos, you don't want Nigerian naira. You want either Chinese, or you want dollars. So there is such a huge demand from them to be able to collect these payments from all over the world."
@mansa_mlk at @mansa_fi settles cross-border payments in China.
"The best fish are found in muddy waters."
@mansa_mlk, founder and CEO of @MANSA_fi, said this today on Stabledash Live. Building stablecoin products for emerging markets, follows the same logic.
Product-market fit is found in the hardest, messiest markets, the ones where money moves slowly and is expensive.
"People use stablecoins in markets where the financial infrastructure has failed, where it takes seven days to clear SWIFT, where the fees can go all the way up to 5%."
"We have essentially done $510 million in volume across Colombia, across Nigeria, across Ghana, across the Philippines. And we're also heavily moving into other markets in Southeast Asia and in Latin America, as well as very exotic currencies on the African continent, because that's where you have the most friction."
"You don't really need stablecoins in the US. The Venmo transactions are quick enough. In Europe, the SEPA transactions are also pretty much quick enough. The real bottleneck exists in places where there's some friction, and that's where MANSA is present."
MANSA's Mouloukou Sanoh spent 22 of his 30 years in China.
"What people don't understand is that China is actually the reason why a lot of these emerging markets started adopting stablecoins. Because if you look at the map of the places that have the largest stablecoin volume, it's also the places that trade with China more. And Chinese merchants, because of capital controls, actually started demanding to get paid in USDT."
@dr3wrogers asked what advantage growing up there gave him.
"In the unfortunate geopolitical situation that we're in, people don't realize that China is actually one of the most technologically advanced places in the world, but also because of its size, it's such a competitive market that Chinese companies actually need to start looking abroad in order to stay alive."
"If you look at China's economy, prices have stayed the same since 2018, it's actually deflationary."
"But if you're a Chinese merchant, you don't want Venezuelan pesos, you don't want Colombian pesos, you don't want Nigerian naira, you want either Chinese Yuan or you want dollars."
@mansa_mlk, Founder & CEO of @mansa_fi on the show.
"The reason why I built MANSA is because I actually have a vendetta against Western Union. If anybody from Western Union is watching this, know that I'm coming after your a**."
@mansa_mlk built @mansa_fi after years of sending remittances through Western Union as a student in Hong Kong.
"When I went to college in Hong Kong at 17 years old, I couldn't get a bank account. So my parents would send me money by Western Union. I'm not the most punctual person. I would arrive literally one minute late and they would say the system is closed. Or I would walk to the Western Union and think about how much money I would get, having already spent it in my mind. And I would get to Western Union and then ask the fees, I'd be like, what the hell? How come it's so expensive?"
"When you really think about it from a first principles basis, it's because of liquidity. Coming from a family that has traditionally done business with emerging markets, you realize that the system is incredibly unfair and the fees are incredibly expensive."
"To anybody building anything in stablecoins or anything in general, I would recommend building something that you can relate to, building something that you have a deep passion to, and that can guide you as well. That's what separates missionaries from mercenaries."
2/He walked away from one of Africa's largest web3 platforms on that bet.
Meet Mouloukou Sanoh (@Mansa_mlk ), co-founder & CEO of MANSA (
@MANSA_FI ), the Tether-backed fintech building the liquidity layer beneath cross-border payments in emerging markets.
@gaspardlezin@a16z Hey buddy seems like you’ve missed @MANSA_FI , we’re backed by tether and have done nearly 500mnUSDT in volume in the last 18 months instantly settling transactions globally
I completely agree, stablecoins are not a magic bullet. They simply make moving money cross border much faster and cheaper. The real value is connecting them to local RTP rails, such as UPI, so people like your cousin can seamlessly transc funds. This will reduce fees but not completely to 0, people still need to make money 😂