# El Dorado founder says about 50% of Bolivia's imports come from China

Global, a Stabledash show. Oct 30, 2026. Guillermo Goncalvez.
https://live.stabledash.com/shows/global/episodes/why-a-crypto-neobank-went-brick-and-mortar-in-bolivia--H_7LEyWZRE

After opening its first office in Santa Cruz, El Dorado is building around Bolivia's trade with China and plans to add USDT microcredit, which its founder ties to his view that stablecoins are mainly for cross-border payments.

Guillermo Goncalvez, founder of El Dorado, says about 50% of all Bolivia's imports come directly or indirectly from China. He spoke after the company opened its first office in Bolivia, in Santa Cruz, which he described as the city where all commerce and finance in the country is handled.

## A physical office in Santa Cruz

According to Guillermo Goncalvez, the El Dorado office was previously used by BCP Bank, which he called one of Bolivia's biggest banks. He says the company, a new player, is ranked among the top five financial applications in the country. He added that El Dorado is starting to plan other openings next year, which the signal places in 2027.

## Trade with China

Guillermo Goncalvez says China is the number one partner of almost every Latin American country except Mexico. He is also optimistic that electric vehicle adoption will become a trend that matters at a macro level in the region.

## Microcredit in an informal market

Guillermo Goncalvez describes Bolivia as the most informal market in South America, saying informality makes up to 80 to 90% of the economy and consumer credit is about 5% of GDP. He says Bolivia introduced real-time payments about five years ago, similar to Brazil's approach, and that up to 80 to 90% of the population uses those systems.

El Dorado will launch its own microcredit system in Bolivia with Altala and Tempo. Users will be able to request $100 or $200 Tether USDt loans in the app, and the company will use Thales financial intelligence and data sourcing to build a credit score.

## Dollars and stablecoins

Guillermo Goncalvez calls the US dollar the single best financial product ever created. He says stablecoins are mostly useful for cross-border payments, something he says was not obvious four or five years ago. El Dorado works with Augustus, a stablecoin-native bank, for correspondent banking in the US and SWIFT transfers. He also cited WAP as a model for offering the full stack of ecommerce and payment tools.

Taken together, Guillermo Goncalvez describes a strategy for El Dorado that combines a local office, payments tied to Bolivia's China trade and small dollar-stablecoin loans, all resting on his view that stablecoins earn their place in cross-border payments.

## Key takeaways

1. El Dorado has opened its first physical office in Bolivia, in Santa Cruz, and Guillermo Goncalvez says the company is planning more openings next year.
2. Guillermo Goncalvez says about 50% of Bolivia's imports come directly or indirectly from China, which he calls the number one trade partner of almost every Latin American country except Mexico.
3. El Dorado plans to offer Tether USDt loans of $100 or $200 through its app, working with Altala and Tempo.

## Transcript

**Drew Rogers** (0:01)

Global money deserves global coverage. We got Guillermo from Eldorado. Great to see you. I was not privileged enough to be, in the first interview that you had with Zach, so I'm I'm very excited to to finally get a chance to chat with you. How's it going?

**Zach Fowler** (0:17)

How's it going, guys? Nice to see you again. Excited to be here. Yeah. Good to see you. Great. Yeah, man. I remember leaving the interview telling us, Drew, that was just a... That was a great one we just had. And for those that don't know, you know, Eldorado, you've really been super app for consumers. And, in Mexico City, you were revealing your your b to b business solution. You said, and with that, we're opening up a brick and mortar location in Bolivia. Go go...

If you're watching this now and you wanna go watch that interview, it's on our YouTube. Just type in El Dorado when you're on our page. But, man, bring us... Give us the TLDR, what you did, what the launch was like for this brick and mortar location, the why behind a brick and mortar location in Bolivia specifically. And then, yeah, I would love to know just, like, how the last... What has that been now? Almost four ish months, you know, that you've... It sounds like you've had this location. What's it been like?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (1:07)

Absolutely. So thank you again for for the invite. It's super exciting to be here again. I remember we also talked about organizing a stable dash next off-site in in Bolivia. So, hopefully, we'll be able to call you there some... Sometime soon. That would be fine. Yeah. Since since last time we spoke, we actually opened our first office in Bolivia. We're actually starting to plan a few other other openings later, next year, but, it it all came up pretty organically, to to be honest.

Like, in Bolivia, if you wanna, perform any type of, international payment, Our customers are used to either going to the bank or going to, offices where, either a banker or an OTC desk, whether informal or informal, would help, this basically, importers execute their payments predominantly to China, Hong Kong, and The US. So that's how we came up with the idea of of actually opening our own office. We actually choose Santa Cruz as the main city where all commerce and finance is handled in Bolivia.

The office was actually previously used for one of Bolivia's biggest bank called the BCP Bank in Bolivia. So I think that that's a signal of the the new wins that are coming in the country.

**Drew Rogers** (2:46)

How how has it been having a brick and mortar in terms of the impact it's had on customer relationships, your team serving serving the users? Like, this is very unique in terms of the companies that we typically cover, and it's something that, like, if you go to any market traditionally with banks, like, you're gonna see local bank branches all over the place. Like, where I live right now in The US, like, there are many, many, many of them.

And oftentimes, those buildings are beautiful as well and, like, traditionally have been so crucial to the relationships around banking. How have you seen the physical brick and mortar impact Eldorado's customer relationships?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (3:29)

To your point, that's simply a continuation of, how, financial businesses build trust over the past century. So, we believe that we're simply a a... An evolution or a continuation of that. And and, yeah, the the the way people are are using the Office right now is predominantly as a as a as a as a point of information and and requesting support for for these international transactions. But to...

In the end, it's all it's all about building trust in the in the financial ecosystem and especially in countries like Bolivia or potentially others like Argentina or Venezuela where people don't trust their financial institutions, the old financial institutions. Being a new player, a player that is ranked among the top five financial applications in the country, actually having an an office, a beautiful office. You you guys saw the videos. So it's a it's a beautiful, beautiful office.

You can you can go there on a Monday through Saturday basis, you can do whatever financial transaction you need from opening a consumer account to requesting a Visa powered card for your business to processing a swift transfer on a Saturday afternoon, so your payment lands in China by Monday.

**Zach Fowler** (5:04)

China. Alright. Let's talk about this. From Bolivia to China, is this, like, was there like a bunch of Chinese refugees that came there? Like, is this sending money back to family? Is this like automotive industry? Many... Like, all the above? Why that border? Why do you call out China specifically?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (5:24)

No. It's it's predominantly import import based businesses. About 50% of all Bolivia's imports are coming directly or indirectly from China. So we're talking about electric vehicles, electric motorcycles, equipment for the agro industry, for the health industry, prime prime goods. So so, yeah, a little bit of everything, even even energy materials. So, we're seeing a bunch of activity coming from, that corridor specifically. And it it makes sense.

I mean, China is the number one partner of almost every single LatAm country except for Mexico. So, if you are in the import business in in Latin in Latin America, you better do payments to China.

**Zach Fowler** (6:22)

Well, I mean, I will say, like I said, I I haven't been to Mexico at time, but when we were in Mexico City, the first thing that absolutely shocked me was the sea of Chinese car brands and EVs. Just something that you just don't see here in The States. You know? Obviously, some of these... Some of these brands just never even heard of. And so I can only imagine what's going on in the rest of the country. So you would say...

Would you say a lot of this stable point activity is even driven by the EV craze, motorcycles, and having to import export these? Like, is this, like, towards the top of even within the import export vertical, or is this just one tiny piece of the puzzle?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (6:59)

It's a piece of the puzzle. It's becoming more and more important as as we speak, and, I believe the the opportunity is huge. I mean, we, ultimately partner with the importers. So we try to, be a resource or... Resourceful partner in terms of understanding their operations and being able to to help wherever we can. So we're we're learning a bunch in in the process, and and I'm particularly excited about mobility. I I I never I never thought this this is going to be, like, an interest of mine.

I've been completely obsessed about financial services for the past decade.

**Drew Rogers** (7:44)

But but, yeah, I now understand a little bit better why mobility and electric mobility is important, especially in is cheap so fascinating to... What's so fascinating about it? Like, why are you... What what piques your interest so much? What's unique about it? The the unique thing about it is that,

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (8:01)

I'm I'm interested in productive assets. So if you can import, an electric motorcycle, that you can use to be... Become, like, a delivery provider in one of the top ride sharing apps, then that productive asset suddenly generates cash flow that that you can use to pay for the asset itself. So that creates a a whole new, like, window of opportunities. And something similar happens with cars and and Uber and so on.

So we're seeing a bunch of Chinese electric vehicles being extremely, extremely competitive compared to the to the gas powered ones. So, yeah, I'm just excited to to to see what's going to happen over the next couple of decades, but, I'm pretty optimistic that this is a trend that, that we're going to see on a on a macro level become, predominantly important. I I was I was pretty impressed in Brazil.

In Brazil, you can go to almost any of the big chain supermarkets, and you can actually purchase an an electric motorcycle or an electric scooter directly at the supermarket. So I'm I'm I'm really hoping that we can see that also in Argentina, in Bolivia, in Venezuela, and in many other countries of LatAm over the next few years.

**Drew Rogers** (9:32)

Can you bring us a little bit... Like, let's zoom in specifically on Bolivia. What do people... For those who aren't familiar with that financial center, how would you approach at a high level explaining what makes Bolivia unique in the context of Latin America? Like, what are some unique parts of maybe the the user base that you've learned there, the things they might care about, or the needs that they have when it comes to financial products?

Bring us a little bit into what you've learned specifically about Bolivia.

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (10:06)

Of course. So a few basic data points. So Bolivia is by far the most informal market in South America. So informality is up to... Represents up to 80 to 90% of the economy. And then, consumer credit is barely, about 5% of GDP. So there's at least a three or four x catch up opportunity with the rest of LATAM's most developed markets. It's a... It's an import based economy that relies heavily on Chinese and American imports. And and the the credit alternatives are just starting to pop up.

So Bolivia introduced real time payments about five years ago. They did a similar play to Brazil, which in my opinion, became became a pretty successful story. In in Bolivia, real time payments are free, interoperable, twenty four seven, similar to the peaks phenomenon in Brazil. Up to 80 to 90% of the population uses, these, payment systems. And, and now we're starting to see other layers that are being built on top of this payment model. So we're starting to see buy now, pay later solutions.

We're starting to see orchestration between stablecoin companies and these real time payments. And and and I believe that's a a huge opportunity for fintechs like ours who want to build competitive financial products and services on top of this real time payment systems. How

**Zach Fowler** (11:54)

do you think about buy now, pay later? Is this is this just up... Charges up into the right, a common thing that, you know, people in Bolivia and and other parts of Latin America are using? Is it not there yet because the infrastructure isn't there yet, but people would use it? Why... Yeah. How do you think about that specific, like, product? And even even... I have to imagine one day within maybe even the Eldorado app.

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (12:19)

Yeah. That that would probably be great. And, I think that, credit is ultimately the holy trail of many of these, crypto neobanks. Many of of us are thinking about it, discussing different approaches to it. So we are going to launch our own microcredit system very, very soon in Bolivia. We're actually partnering with Altala and Tempo in order to do so. This is actually the first the first place I'm I'm announcing this, but it will it will come out very, very soon.

And, yeah, we'll we'll share more news about it, but you will be able to basically request a $100 or $200 USDT loans directly from the Eldorado app, and we will be leveraging Thales financial intelligence and data sourcing in order to provide, like, a credit score for you. And the idea is, for that to, eventually become a revolving line of credit that increases, by you paying your, credit on time.

**Drew Rogers** (13:37)

So interesting. Tell us a little bit about the relationship with Tempo. We noticed that they've been, you know, a friend of Eldorado. Is there... Are they, like, on the cap table? Where did that partnership come come to be?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (13:53)

Template is a fantastic partner. I believe that a payment first, blockchain was something needed, for the ecosystem. We ultimately abstract all blockchain processes to our end users. So having an easy to set up blockchain is extremely helpful. And and also on the on the business side, they have been also a tremendously good partner in terms of helping us find deals and and amplifying the story of of Eldorado and and actually working together with us in setting up, this, credit programs with companies like Tala.

So, so, yeah, we're extremely happy to be partnering with these big companies in order to provide high quality financial services to the underserved in LatAm.

**Drew Rogers** (14:52)

It's awesome. There's definitely one more thing, Zach. I I just wanted to pop up here. Go for it. So I saw this on your website, and I just... Especially as we kick off the first real... Like, day that we're doing Stable Ash Global, I really loved this part of the website, why the Latino dream. I'll read this, and then I'd love your perspective on, you know, where... Kind of, like, riff on this a little bit. So why the Latino dream?

Because in Latin America, saving often means losing because sending money is expensive and complicated because banks create obstacles where there should be solutions, because millions need simple dollars, not empty promises. Eldorado exists to change that, a super app created in and for Latin America, a place where you can earn, save, spend, send, invest, and access dollars in crypto all in one place. The Latin American dream... The Latin dream isn't a slogan.

It's the dream of seeing an entire region play on a level playing field. We're working to achieve it dollar by dollar. Speak a little bit to this manifesto, really, like... And what it means to you personally.

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (16:06)

Yeah. I I think at some point, should definitely expand on it, but I'll start saying, what my good friend Ferdinand from Augustus also, says, and that is that the US dollar specifically is the single best financial product to ever be created. And it's a product that we, as entrepreneurs, should make easily available to everyone in the world and especially to the ones needing it the most, Venezuelans, Argentinians, Bolivians are among those.

And and if you ask any Latin American with a little bit of financial education, many of them will tell you that the Latin American dream is earning money in US dollars, but then spending money in your local currency in pesos or Bolivianos or whatever the name of your local currency in Latin America. So the the Eldorado app is a project that aims to become a partner so you can achieve that Latin American dream of earning money in in US dollars.

**Drew Rogers** (17:21)

I love it. Absolutely love it. What is the... Just since we're... You mentioned Fernan and the Augustus team, would love your thoughts on, like, how you see them as partners or people that you wanna be working with, or how should other builders in Latin America or just the the conversation around modern money be thinking about Augustus, where they sit in the stack, how you might wanna work with a company like that.

That was definitely something that Ferdinand also shared of, like, the the dollar is, like, the best global product in the world. So sounds like you guys are very aligned on that, but how would a company like Eldorado or others partner with with Augustus?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (18:03)

Yes. Of course. So in order for us to provide, like, first quality financial products and services, we need to be working with banks. So having a stable coin native, AI native bank that can provide us with, correspondent banking in The US, swift transfers all over the world is extremely, extremely useful both for our, consumer and business, services.

So I'm extremely happy that we have, companies like Augustus in the space doing the hard work of going and pursuing an an OCC license, and that's certainly something that we don't wish to do at least in the short term. So it is fantastic that we can partner with players that want to go through all the all the process of actually receiving some of these licenses in order to not have us go through two or three intermediaries to actually get to a bank that can power our customers' transactions.

**Zach Fowler** (19:14)

Yeah.

**Drew Rogers** (19:15)

Yeah. It's awesome. I'm excited to see them grow.

**Zach Fowler** (19:18)

You know, with this... I love this, like, the the Latin dream, but, like, when we... What's what's, like, your big dream for Eldorado? Like, you mentioned kind of, like, repeating this Bolivia brick and mortar playbook. Like, where where do you see yourself? Like, ten... Like, kind of the the the typical interview question. Where do you see yourself in ten years? But like I said, we talked to a lot of ne... Neobank founders.

I think you have a very unique perspective on, like, how you're building, how you're scaling your business. Help us understand, like, where where do you... What role do you see Eldorado playing in the next ten years for, you know, for people across Latin America?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (19:57)

Absolutely. So we we expect to do a lot in the next ten years, but in a nutshell, we want Eldorado to be the single company that helps the region accelerate and increase the rate of GDP growth in Latin America. And we plan to accomplish that by providing a global financial products and services. And today, that's b two c and b two b payments. But tomorrow, that could be also ecommerce, credit, and much more.

**Zach Fowler** (20:36)

It's amazing. How do you think about, like, how do you think about empowering entrepreneurship in Latin America, like, for some of this next generation? Like, what companies do you see people may be starting? What are people interested in doing? You mentioned kind of the ecommerce angle. We've had... We've heard... Drew, you kind of coined this, and you probably remember where where it goes back to.

But, you know, this notion of the the companies that have succeeded like Shopify because they they empowered entrepreneurship. So how do you how do you think you can empower, you know, Latin entrepreneurs? I

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (21:09)

think that there's, an interesting opportunity, for us to be the partner of many companies who want to sell online in LatAm and want to have access to all the 70 plus local made... Payment methods that we support at El Dorado, A company that I really admire in The US and that has done a great job lately is WAP.

So I think that that approach is extremely interesting, the way they partner with digital entrepreneurs, and they provide them with all the financial stack and and even, like, one person companies, like influencer based companies. So I feel like there's a huge opportunity for for financial companies to also start offering the full stack of ecommerce and payment solutions.

And and, yeah, this is thinking out loud, but that's that's the way I envision companies like ours entering other space and also empowering the already existing entrepreneur base of of many of our countries.

**Drew Rogers** (22:26)

Yeah. WAP is crushing it. It's been it's been cool to see that company have, like, a breakout moment. It seems like in the last twelve months, really, really starting to hit their stride and scale. And that's exactly, I think... When I think about empowering entrepreneurship, WAP is doing that really, really well. So... Yeah, man. This was fun. Any any other...

As you think about Bolivia or specifically any any of the other countries that you guys are really going deep with, any other insights or perspectives that you've recently seen on the ground around the users that are... Or people or, like, retail users or businesses or, like, any learnings from them that you would wanna call out before we close?

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (23:17)

Yeah. I would say that my final statement is that stable points are mostly useful for cross border payments. This is relatively obvious now, but it wasn't at all obvious, like, four, five years ago where we were building, like, I don't know, like, geo generating sources and so on.

And I think that's okay, but I I I do think that cross border payments is by far the number one use case both for consumers, Bolivians who live in Brazil, Bolivians who live in Argentina, Venezuelans who live in Colombia, in Brazil, in Chile, in Peru. All of those are fantastic users for actually adopting stablecoins, whether they know it or not. Because in many cases, our customers don't even know that there are, like, stablecoin flows behind the scenes.

They only know that they need to transfer Brazilian rice and that their families or counterparties will receive Bolivianos via the local payment methods. And then something similar happens on the b two b side. Like, a stablecoin power, cross border payments is by far the best use for b two b stablecoin payments. And and I'm I'm very happy that that's the case, and it is quite recent. About three years ago or even four years ago, that was not the case.

It's only been possible since the rise of Breach, BB and K, Augustus, and many of these companies and banks who are now powering a whole ecosystem of fintechs like ours. So I think that now that we have the infrastructure or orchestration layer ready, now it is time to double down on the, consumer facing layer.

**Drew Rogers** (25:20)

Mhmm. Yeah. We really feel refreshing in application layer, which you guys are absolutely crushing. So thank you for thank you for building at that layer. It's really fun for us to, I think, sit in between, like, the infrastructure and people who are building things like BlindPay and Augustus and Bridge and BBNK, like the the companies you've mentioned, but also it's increasingly fun to go up the stack and see what's getting built with those tools. So really, really great to catch up with you, Guillermo.

Zach, I'll let you I'll let you close us.

**Zach Fowler** (25:54)

No. Guillermo, thanks for coming on. We do need to do the Bolivia. Keep us posted so can do in another brick and mortar. And I think we threw around the idea of, like, giving away a Toyota and... Or, like, a bunch of stable coins. So, maybe one day we do that as well. But, yeah, just thank you for coming on. Thanks for being a part of of Global and, even giving Augusta some flowers. We didn't we didn't script that today, so always great to win that, that happens.

And, like, such as grateful to to have you in our network.

**Guillermo Goncalvez** (26:22)

Thank you, guys. I appreciate the invite.

**Zach Fowler** (26:24)

Sounds good. See you, Gabriel. Man. See you.