C14

We believe bringing the next billion users into the digital asset economy requires on-ramps that promote global accessibility, greater liquidity, and friction-minimized interactions with applications.

Buying and selling crypto across the world still remains prohibitively expensive or difficult, particularly for long-tail or new assets.  There is often a lack of liquidity for these assets and the process of acquiring them for utilization is still filled with various friction points.  

Take the typical flow where you make an account on Coinbase, purchase Ethereum, create your own Metamask wallet, and send the ETH tokens to your wallet.  Be sure to input the right network and wallet address or you’ll lose all your tokens. Now connect Metamask to Uniswap or the DEX where your desired token is listed.  Swap it for some more fees on top of the fees you’ve already paid on Coinbase and to send to Metamask.

This is a friction-filled process and a challenge even for experienced users. The next billion people aren’t going to join the digital asset economy if things remain this way.  Many crypto on-ramps today remain broken from a combination of issues like slow processing times, large fees, and poor customer support.  The vast majority of assets, even high-profile ones, remain difficult for consumers to buy.  For example, Evmost only just launched their first direct fiat onramp with C14.

We were fortunate to meet Erich in early 2022 through industry peers who commended his work ethic, propensity for action, and desire to build a principled, ethical organization from the ground up.  After several meetings and shared visions of what the digital asset economy should look like, we came away thrilled at the prospect of backing him.  We believe Erich’s extensive experience in the digital asset space, culminating in his time running BD and Sales at Wyre, provided him with an intimate knowledge of the ramping space. 

The way we see it billions of users still need access to digital assets, and consumers in developed and emerging markets need a streamlined and robust checkout experience.

So what does the next generation of fiat-to-crypto payment flow look like? 

Dev-Friendly Embedded Payments Flow For a Seamless User Experience

Unlike other ramps, C14 doesn’t redirect users to a new page or ask them to trust a brand they’ve never seen before. They provide an embeddable payment widget with a seamless user experience and minimal brand presence. That way, users can easily navigate the payment process and avoid third-party brands or websites that typically lead to a high drop-off rate for partners.

C14’s embeddable widget provides an easy, e-commerce-like payments tool that can be embedded across partner blockchains and digital asset ecosystems. 

Unlike other ramps, integrating with C14 provides a seamless fiat-to-crypto payment flow that can be provided to any project built in your ecosystem. This means users can easily transact across your entire ecosystem, and developers have a powerful incentive to build on your chain instead of one that hasn’t integrated with C14. C14’s generalized blockchain layer allows for easy and quick integrations - allowing developers on emerging blockchains to onboard their users quickly. For example, C14 recently announced its integration with Aleph Zero, a privacy-focused, enterprise-grade, public blockchain. 

‍Streamlined KYC

The first time a user engages with the C14 widget, they’ll be asked to complete a simple know-your-customer (KYC) process. Unlike other ramps, which incorporate overly burdensome KYC checklists and lengthy approval pending periods, the entire C14 KYC flow can be completed in a few minutes. Once users are identified they are good to transact.  Fraud mitigation is a major priority. 

Once a user has completed the KYC process with C14, they can store payment methods directly in their account and complete future transactions in a matter of seconds. This makes for a seamless payment experience as the user moves around different projects on a C14-partnered blockchain.

C14 utilizes behavioral and consumer data to mitigate fraud and risk on the platform, seeking to keep partners safe without burdening end-users with intrusive data requests.

‍Know Who Loves You

C14 has partnered with some of the leading DEX’s and NFT marketplaces on its supported ecosystems. Since C14’s go-live date, C14 has added support for an additional five blockchains, with three more integrations scheduled to go live in the next few weeks.

‍Proactive Regulatory Compliance

C14 has taken a proactive approach to regulatory matters. C14 is registered as a Money Service Business (MSB), with FinCEN as well as a Foreign Money Service Business (FMSB), with FINTRAC in Canada. C14 has acquired a Virtual-Asset-Service-Provider registration in the European Union. With the regulatory environment likely to shift over the next several years, we believe C14 is well-positioned to offer its services to a broader range of customers and partners.

‍Dedicated Partner Support‍

Shockingly, one of the biggest issues with current ramp providers in our opinion is a lack of communication between the project and the ramp provider. Transaction reconciliation between ramps and their partners is still a highly manual process, with errors and disputes resolved over Telegram and Slack chats.  C14’s tools allow its partners to understand and resolve payment issues without the need for human intervention.

In less than 12 months, C14 already offers coverage for users in the United States, Canada, Brazil, the European Union - with the intended addition of over a dozen jurisdictions arriving by the end of the first quarter, 2023.  Whether you’re already using legacy onramps or looking for one for the first time, delight your users with C14.