Mika Reyes: Founder Highlight

What is your story Mika? How did you get into crypto?

I was born and raised in the Philippines, and came to the U.S. by way of college. I’ve felt the international payments problem firsthand. When I send money back home in pesos or when my dad wants to buy goods in the U.S. in dollars, we actually keep a running ledger of the amounts we owe one another given the difficulty of moving money abroad. That’s why my experience with stablecoins felt magical!

Additionally, my background growing in the Philippines has colored my desire to help people from emerging markets like those in my home in Manila. Stablecoins has product-market fit particularly in emerging markets like the Philippines, and other countries in Latam and Africa. I’m excited to be able to apply a technology that is making waves of change to a group of people I care about.

I bought my first cryptocurrencies in 2018, which introduced me to crypto as an investment vehicle. In 2021, I was diving deeper into the web3 world, particularly exploring blockchain applications. It helped that my partner had also started working at Phantom, so we were both discovering the weird, wild world of web3 together.

Initially, I was very interested in NFTs and the strong sense of community they fostered. In fact, I met my cofounder at an NFT community meetup (shoutout to Crypto Covens!)

During this time, as I immersed myself in various communities, participated (and even won) hackathons, and worked on freelance projects. In these freelance projects, I got paid in USDC Solana and was floored at how quickly it arrived from my client in Europe! It’s a big upgrade from keeping a ledger between my dad and I!

What is the story of Parallax? Why did you start Parallax?

During my crypto exploration, I set up a Phantom wallet, secured my seed phrase, and sent USDC to my partner. The transfer was instant with virtually no fees! This method quickly became essential for my freelance work.

As an immigrant from the Philippines, I was struck by the potential of stablecoins to move money instantly across borders without high costs or long waits. However, setting up wallets and managing complex addresses felt risky, and converting funds for everyday use was challenging.

This experience inspired us to create Parallax, making fast, affordable money transfers accessible for freelancers and contractors globally. Since launch, Parallax has resonated with users who need quick, low-cost payments, and we're now expanding to support businesses moving funds across borders for a more connected, stablecoin-powered economy.

Who does Parallax serve? How do they use the product? How does it compare versus Payoneer, Wise or other remittance solutions?

Parallax starts with freelancers, remote workers, and businesses worldwide who need a faster, cheaper, and more reliable way to get paid in USD. These users are tired of waiting days for bank processing and dealing with opaque fees. With Parallax, they get instant access to their earnings in USD, low, transparent fees, and a user-friendly experience that doesn’t require them to be crypto experts.

Users engage with Parallax by receiving payments directly in USDC. They can then withdraw their funds in local currency, or keep their balance in USDC within a secure, self-custodied wallet for savings or future payments. We accumulate savings from lower operational expenses and decreased regulatory burden from stablecoins and self-custody and we pass these savings back to our users.. Unlike crypto-heavy platforms like Metamask, Parallax takes the complexity out of the equation with an intuitive interface that feels familiar and accessible to everyone.

How do stablecoins uniquely enable Parallax?

Stablecoins are at the heart of what makes Parallax work so seamlessly. They bypass traditional banking intermediaries, which means no crazy operational costs or increased regulatory burden from being a custodian of funds when we expand globally. We pass these lowered costs back to our users.

Transactions settle almost instantly on blockchain networks like Solana—think seconds or minutes instead of the days you’d wait with SWIFT. For freelancers and businesses that need their money yesterday, that speed is a game-changer!

Stablecoins give users in countries with restrictive banking or limited access to USD the economic choice to receive USD more freely. With just an internet connection, you can receive, store, and withdraw funds in your preferred currency—no bank approval needed.

Parallax integrates this into a super user-friendly, self-custody wallet. That means you’re in full control of your money without relying on third parties, which is huge in markets where trust in banks is shaky.

It sounds like your users are mostly non-crypto-savy users. How much education is necessary to get your users to actually use Parallax?

Not much at all! 😊 We built it for the non-crypto-savvy user in mind, and that required us abstracting the “crypto” part as much as possible.

For example, our users send or withdraw money like they would with a bank - with a 6-digit PIN.

Here’s the twist: that PIN actually initiates the blockchain transaction, or, from users’ perspective sends the money!

One of the mind-blowing things we did was build our own wallet (no providers in the middle!) that marries the benefits of self-custody with a very familiar user experience.

Our wallet creation rates are high (~93%) & users complete the setup within ~2 minutes!

We did this by:

1. Eliminating jargon: No mention of “seed phrases” “wallet address” or “shards"
2. Analogies: For instance, compare the PIN and security file to two keys to a lock.
3. Focused on our user rather than the tech: Ultimately, we aren’t building a crypto app — we are building a financial product leveraging crypto

We’re proud that we have built a strong and intuitive user experience while leveraging the benefits of crypto, stablecoins and self-custody!

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What is your business model? How does Parallax make money?

We keep fees lower than traditional money transfer companies (which deal with opex, currency risk, treasury management and regulatory risks) by passing on efficiency gains and savings from our modern tech back to users.Right now, we charge fees upon withdrawal or when converting between fiat and stablecoins.Eventually, we’ll earn a yield on stablecoins that are held and distributed within Parallax wallets. Even without incentives, a surprising amount of users leave $1k up to even $40k on their Parallax wallet for long periods of time!Over time, we’ll have more revenue-generating products such as premium accounts and features for businesses and individuals.

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What is the vision for Parallax? What could go right?

We want to revolutionize cross-border payments by building a stablecoin-powered financial ecosystem that is faster, cheaper, and more inclusive than traditional banking. We call this “Cross-Border Payments 3.0” - a wave of stablecoin and self-custody powered companies makes waves of change in cross-border payments.We see a huge opportunity for mass adoption, starting with individuals and SMBs seeking cost-effective alternatives to platforms like PayPal and Payoneer—while appealing to non-crypto-savvy users by abstracting blockchain complexities.And it’s working!We’re quietly making crypto more accessible to more users and we can’t wait to be one the earliest players and a significant part of this movement!

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How to get in contact with Mika?

You can find or reach out to Mika on Twitter and learn more about Parallax here.