Bitcoin for Remittances Growing Rapidly

The 3rd largest remittance market, The Philippines, receives over $30 Billion per-year primarily driven by "OFWs" (Overseas Filipino Workers). While primarily driven by traditional remittances via Western Union or other similar services to a "Cash Pick-Up counter" in the Philippines, it comes with an average transaction time of 3 days and costs 7% in fees. More Filipinos are turning to bitcoin wallet apps with traditional rails in the Philippines like the Coins.ph bitcoin/crypto (shitcoin) wallet, or the newer Pouch.ph lightning wallet.

I'm biased as the founder of Pouch.ph. We launched our banking rails just 3 months ago and last month we processed nearly $100,000 USD worth of BTC=>PHP remittances. We are just now working with regulators in the Philippines -- One of our most frustrating constraints is the requirement to "KYC" our users (collect Photo Ids) so that they can participate in digital finance -- while half of the population does not even have a valid ID!!

To work around this, we have just launched our "Pouch Lite" feature (which works very similarly to Wallet of Satoshi) so that we can continue to support remittances to those without govt-issued IDs.

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⚡Try the Lightning Network & get a ["@pouch.ph](mailto:"@pouch.ph)" lightning address, by using Pouch Lite with No KYC:

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⚡iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pouch-borderless-payments/id1584404678

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⚡Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pouch.ph

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⚡Connect to our node: https://amboss.space/node/02343c19a39dd11cfc6f7571f36213dd52fb70ee45ee4074913d43891fb59579b5

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⚡Visit our Bitcoin Island community where nearly 100+ hotels/restaurants/etc accept bitcoin/lightning in a concentrated area in the Philippine Island of Boracay: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1RhAWjyThRscnQrkjHhYNR0T3-PAM0k8&hl=en_US&ll=11.969233725052172%2C121.93207172564215&z=14

(If you're interested in coming to Bitcoin Island feel free to drop a note to [outreach@pouch.ph](mailto:outreach@pouch.ph))

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⚡As always, don't trust custodians with any significant amount of money, especially unlicensed ones like ourselves, self-custody, run your own node, and let's all fix the money together. Cheers ⚡

Submitted August 06, 2022 at 01:24AM by Pouch-PH https://ift.tt/uJ7ATPj