Five Years of Bitso and Stellar: From Remittance Corridor to Native USDC

Bitso added Stellar as a supported network for USDC transfers on June 11, 2026, making it the seventh network option on the exchange alongside Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Avalanche. The announcement is the latest step in a relationship that started in 2021 with a more specific mandate: replacing Bitcoin as the bridge asset on one of the busiest remittance corridors in the world.

Why the US-Mexico corridor drove the first agreement

On August 10, 2021, Bitso and the Stellar Development Foundation announced a partnership to integrate Stellar USDC as the exchange's primary bridge asset for US-Mexico remittances. The strategic rationale was straightforward: Bitso had processed $1.2 billion in cross-border payments between the US and Mexico in 2020 alone and served more than 2 million users across Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. The US-to-Mexico corridor is one of the largest remittance corridors globally, and Bitcoin, the prior bridge asset, had become expensive to use as a transit layer during periods of elevated network fees.

The switch to Stellar USDC was designed to lower transaction costs and improve the user experience for those 2 million users. The partnership also opened the door to a broader relationship with the Stellar ecosystem: Bitso would assist Stellar anchors and partners across Latin America with deposits and withdrawals, and fintechs and remittance companies would gain access to Bitso's API for liquidity and local payment network connections.

A B2B layer: the Tribal Credit deal of December 2021

Four months after the initial announcement, a three-way partnership brought Tribal Credit into the relationship. On December 9, 2021, Bitso, the Stellar Development Foundation, and Tribal Credit announced a service enabling companies in Mexico to send B2B payments in Pesos to the US, with recipients receiving USD.

Tribal Credit, a B2B payment and financing platform for emerging markets, framed the opportunity in market terms: 62 million SMBs transact globally each year, with Latin America representing a $175 billion market opportunity led by Mexico. Bitso provided the exchange liquidity and Stellar's network handled settlement. Mohamed Elkasstawi, Chief Strategy Officer at Tribal Credit, described the goal as saving "time and money for SMBs across LatAm who are sending payments to the US, particularly payments that are time-sensitive or require improved traceability."

"Bitso and Tribal Credit share a common mission of providing top-tier financial services to SMBs across Latin America," said Carlos Cota, Product Manager at Bitso. Mark Heynen, SDF's Vice President of Business Development and Partnerships, noted the combination of lending capabilities (Tribal Credit), exchange liquidity (Bitso), and low-cost settlement (Stellar USDC) as the core of the arrangement's potential to "significantly expand financial access for SMBs in the LatAm region."

Tribal Credit itself was backed by the Stellar Development Foundation, QED Investors, BECO Capital, and Global Ventures, with a product set that included multi-currency VISA corporate cards, credit lines, and payroll services.

Joining the Anchor Network: July 2023

By mid-2023, the relationship had graduated from a bilateral corridor agreement to a formal Anchor Network membership. On July 19, 2023, Bitso officially joined Stellar's Anchor Network in a direct partnership with SDF, enabling businesses worldwide to transact in USDC directly into Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico through Bitso's local banking connections.

The numbers at that point illustrated the scale of the operation: Bitso had processed $3.3 billion in Mexico-US transactions and registered a 32% increase in total international transfers during the second half of 2022. Santiago Alvarado, SVP of Institutional Product at Bitso, attributed the growth to rising demand for cross-border settlement: "In recent years, we have seen an increase in cross-border payments globally for both international commerce and remittances. By leveraging blockchain technology and crypto assets, we can significantly improve settlement times and overall costs."

The Anchor Network integration extended Bitso's footprint beyond Mexico and retail remittances. Businesses across the Americas could route USDC payments through Bitso's local banking rails into accounts in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, with Bitso's direct connections to local banking systems handling last-mile settlement.

Native USDC on Stellar: the June 2026 integration

On June 11, 2026, Bitso launched Stellar USDC support for its full user base, adding it as the seventh network option for USDC transfers on the exchange. The integration brings Stellar's core settlement properties to Bitso's retail customers: 3-5 second confirmation times, fees averaging around $0.0001 per transaction regardless of transfer size, and USDC natively issued by Circle rather than wrapped or bridged.

Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is now live on Stellar, connecting native USDC to 23 other blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and Base. That connectivity matters for Bitso users who move USDC between platforms: transfers out of Bitso via Stellar can reach any CCTP-enabled chain directly without an additional bridging step.

Bitso also introduced a yield product tied to the integration: USDC balances held within the Bitso app can earn up to 3.1% annually through Treasury bonds. The exchange's blog post frames the Stellar network as built specifically for payments: "Most blockchains were built for general-purpose computing and adapted for payments later. Stellar was designed the other way around."

What the timeline shows

The four events spanning 2021 to 2026 represent a progression across distinct use cases. The 2021 announcement addressed a narrow problem: cutting costs on the US-Mexico remittance corridor by replacing Bitcoin. The December 2021 Tribal Credit trilateral expanded that into B2B flows between countries. The 2023 Anchor Network membership formalized Bitso's role in Stellar's payment infrastructure across three Latin American markets. The 2026 integration completes the retail layer, offering Stellar USDC to all Bitso users as a standard network choice alongside the major general-purpose blockchains.

Bitso was founded in 2014 and had over 400 employees across 30 countries as of December 2021. It holds a Distributed Ledger Technology license from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission and was described, as of late 2021, as the first exchange in Latin America to insure user funds. The company's stated user count was 2 million in August 2021 and 2.75 million by December of the same year. No public data on current user counts for 2026 is available.

Sources

• LatAm crypto exchange Bitso to integrate Stellar USDC (Stellar.org, August 10, 2021)
• Tribal Credit, Bitso, Stellar Development Foundation partner to enable faster, cheaper international B2B payments in LatAm (Stellar.org, December 9, 2021)
• Latin American Crypto Firm Bitso Joins Stellar Network to Boost International USDC Payments (CoinDesk, July 19, 2023)
• Bitso Adds Stellar USDC Support (Bitso Blog, June 11, 2026)

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Written byRaph