Hello, MiniPay community!

We’re excited to celebrate MiniPay’s first anniversary with all of you! If you’re new here, MiniPay is a dollar stablecoin wallet built on the Celo blockchain and embedded within the Opera Mini browser. MiniPay has experienced an incredible year of growth and transformation, and so we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our journey so far, share some key achievements, and give you a glimpse of what’s coming next.

It all began in September 2023, when we first announced the launch of MiniPay. The mission was clear: to simplify the Web3 onboarding experience and enable fast, easy, and affordable peer-to-peer payments – all you needed was a phone number! Two months later we expanded our services, helping even more people send funds to family and friends locally and abroad while only using a phone numbers. 

In January 2024 we reached a major milestone with over 1 million wallet activations, and by March that number had already doubled. Such rapid growth demonstrated the enthusiasm and trust our users have for MiniPay, inspiring us to keep on innovating. In July, we launched a significant upgrade to MiniPay, which featured a brand new look and feel, as well as support for the popular stablecoins USDC and USDT. We didn’t stop there, though, introducing “Pockets” – a first-of-its-kind innovation that lets users Drag & Swap 1:1 between all three stablecoins supported in the wallet. 

Ambassador outreach

At the heart of MiniPay’s growth is a community-first approach. It’s the micro-communities, the vibrant university campuses, and the enterprising youth that are turning the tide. The Minipay Ambassador Program is a testament to this belief. What started with a  group of 100 dedicated student ambassadors has now expanded to over 1000 ambassadors across multiple markets. And by popular demand, we have expanded beyond just students, giving anyone with a MiniPay wallet an opportunity to become community champions.

These ambassadors have ignited a grassroots movement. Their enthusiasm and commitment exemplify how focused, local engagement can spark significant change and drive widespread adoption. Each ambassador plays a crucial role in fueling growth by spreading awareness, driving user stories, and educating users about the benefits of MiniPay.

A growing list of partnerships

Along the way, collaborating with an ever-increasing list of new partners has been a vital driving force. MiniPay has forged valuable partnerships with key organizations that have been instrumental in our growth and success stories. With the help of on and off-ramps like Fonbnk, Partna, Cashramp, and Yellowcard, MiniPay is able to provide a unique localized cash-in-cash-out experience to users in the various markets where we are live, enabling users to go from local currency to stablecoin in minutes using their local payment methods and at competitive rates. Other partners – such as Blockscratch, Polkamarkets, Pretium, and Impact Market – comprise a growing roster of integrated dApps that have greatly contributed to the utility of the wallet by providing solutions to everyday challenges; users can pay for local bills and utilities using stablecoins, or even claim Universal Basic Income. Finally, technological integrations – such as our collaboration with Mento Labs, which powers the Drag & Swap feature for instant 1:1 stablecoin swaps with Pockets – or Mural – which has helped unlock new possibilities for enabling immediate payments from businesses to freelancers worldwide, at scale – have allowed MiniPay to further grow and thrive. We are grateful for the continued support of our partners, and look forward to working together as we scale even greater heights.

What’s next

Over 3 million wallets later, MiniPay has evolved through iterative development. We’ve continued to listen to feedback from our users and turned pain points into features, and we have engaged in conscious collaborations with ecosystem partners to continue to deliver on our mission: enabling fast, easy, and affordable peer-to-peer payments. In the process we’ve expanded to seven markets, with more planned in the near future.

As we celebrate this significant milestone, we’re even more excited for the future. Beyond this, we are dedicated to growing MiniPay’s utility through ongoing collaborations with builders in the Celo Ecosystem and beyond, introducing innovative applications that bring practical value to our users’ everyday lives. With these efforts, the mission remains clear and the journey has only just begun – here’s to the next chapter!

If you’re new to MiniPay or want to learn more. Download Opera Mini now, and join us for another year of growth, innovation, and easier digital payments for everyone!

MiniPayMobilenewsOpera

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