Jamal Raees & Yanni Giannaros: Wyre – Using Blockchain for Cross-Border Payments

Wyre is a leading fiat-to-cryptocurrency and payment infrastructure company for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In blockchain time, Wyre has been around forever -- it was founded in 2013. Wyre leverages blockchain to facilitate cross-border payments, bridging the gap between traditional payment processing and digital assets. Focusing on developers, the company provides easy-to-integrate APIs which enable thousands of developers to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. The company has “on-ramped” over 15 million end users to their partners and has processed over $10B in payments since inception.

We were joined by Co-founder and CEO Yanni Giannaros, and Director of Crypto Strategy Jamal Raees, to chat about payments applications in general and in web3, how Wyre works on a technical and business level including regulatory constraints, their recent acquisition by Bolt, and the roadmap for the platform.

Topics covered in this episode:

The history of Wyre and the changes they have seen in the space over the past 10 yearsYanni and Jamal's backgrounds and how they metA technical overview of WyreThe challenges of running an onrampBolt's recent acquisition of WyrePayments applications in web 3 - what works and what doesn'tThe Wyre business model and feesThe jurisdictional restrictions for using Wyre and Yanni and Jamal's thoughts on the current regulatory environmentThe future of crypto interfacesThe Wyre roadmap

Episode links:

WyreWyre on TwitterYanni on TwitterJamal on Twitter

Sponsors:

ParaSwap: ParaSwap aggregates all major DEXs and makes sure you beat the market price at every single swap and with the lowest slippage - paraswap.io/epicenterChorus One: Chorus One runs validators on cutting edge Proof of Stake networks such as Cosmos, Solana, Celo, Polkadot and Oasis. - https://epicenter.rocks/chorusone

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/449