The Colombian startup safeguarding savings from currency devaluation
How can you protect your money when your country is facing the devaluation of its local currency? A Colombian engineer, Martín Peláez, quit his job at Tesla to develop an app that helps people safeguard their savings using blockchain technology.
In 2023, Peláez was one of the Latin American innovators under 35 included in the MIT list. Three years ago, his native Colombia was grappling with the devaluation of the peso and political uncertainty.
“People were looking for a safe haven to protect their finances,” Peláez, a 24-year-old mechanical engineer from Medellín, told Global South World.
To prevent their money from losing value, many opted to save in more stable currencies and transfer their savings abroad. However, there was no easy way to do this.
“When we tried to open a bank account in the United States, it was very hard,” Peláez explains. “There were many barriers to entry. You needed a high amount of money to open an account, and it took a long time.”
Peláez, along with two associates, started building a prototype. A few months later, the team launched Plenti, a digital wallet that uses blockchain technology. The app allows Colombian users to open a bank account in US dollars and facilitates transactions with the United States.
“We leverage the power of blockchain through stablecoins,” Peláez explains. Stablecoins are a form of digital currency linked to a government-issued currency, such as the US dollar.
“Every time someone in Plenti has one digital dollar, there is a physical dollar backing it up. That is one of the best features of this technology: there will never be a devaluation of one or the other.”
According to the co-founder, Plenti has already facilitated about half a billion dollars in transactions and has over 20,000 users. Currently, the app only operates in Colombia and the United States, but the team has plans to expand into other Latin American countries facing similar issues.
“I feel very hopeful for the future. I believe there’s a significant opportunity in the market. Blockchain is still a young technology that hasn’t been fully adopted by everyone, so there’s great potential for Plenti to grow into something bigger.”
