One shared goal: use Stellar to fix real-world problems in our region.
A Week of Building—and Belonging
We just returned from Casa Builders CDMX, a week-long hackathon hosted by the Blockchain Acceleration Foundation (BAF) and Stellar. It brought together builders from across Latin America to work on projects that matter—financial access, digital identity, and public-good infrastructure.
But more than that, it brought together a community.
We connected with:
- Engineers from the Stellar Development Foundation (backend, ecosystem, marketing)
- Volunteers from Stellar Give, who help builders and initiatives focused on impact
- Teams at Google Mexico and Meta, where we met founders using Stellar in production (Alfred Pay, Cash Abroad, Decaf, Vesseo Wallet, Blaze Payments)
The Three Tracks That Framed the Hackathon
This wasn’t just "build whatever." These were the tracks:
💸 Dinero sin fronteras — Inclusive finance & remittances
Projects that break barriers to financial access:
Remittances, microfinance, group savings, and stablecoin flows for underserved communities.
🪪 Identidad sin barreras — Identity and credentials
Self-sovereign identity, on-chain credentials, and tools for those excluded from traditional systems.
💚 Código para la causa — Transparency for public good
Tools for NGOs, DAOs, and grassroots initiatives to increase transparency and traceability of funds.
🇨🇷 Latin America Showed Up—And So Did Costa Rica
We weren’t alone.
Builders from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, and more made the trip. And from Costa Rica alone, there were 12 of us—more than any other country.
As founders from Costa Rica, it was powerful to see our community represented—and shipping.
Our Role at the Hackathon
50% of the Trustless Work team participated: Joel and myself (Alberto) We came to contribute, not just compete.
- We mentored teams building escrow flows and programmable finance tools
- We ran an impromptu workshop on integrating the Trustless Work API
- We teamed up with other Costa Rican founders— Brandon from KindFi and Matias from Numo Wallet—to build something real
🚀 What We Built: Pacto
Pacto is a decentralized P2P ramp for stablecoins. It lets users buy or sell stablecoins using fiat on local rails, with every trade protected by programmable escrow via Trustless Work.
In just a few days, we shipped:
- CRCX, a testnet stablecoin pegged to the Costa Rican colón
- A mint/burn dashboard for CRCX
- A P2P marketplace interface for listings
- A full escrow integration with dispute resolution logic
You can think of Pacto as a decentralized version of Binance P2P—without custodians, and with smart contracts enforcing the flow. We added the stablecoin because we belive this model enables a bottoms up adoption to local stablecoins adoption. Where we can use the p2p also as OTC, allowing us to grow in volume & adoption while not worrying about liquidity.
It wasn’t just a demo. It worked. And it’s just the beginning. You will be hearing more of Pacto in the short-term.
The Takeaway
Hackathons like Casa Builders remind us that blockchain isn't the point—people are.
What matters is:
- Giving migrants a cheaper way to send money
- Helping undocumented folks prove who they are
- Enabling NGOs to earn trust with transparent flows
- Letting local founders build global infrastructure
That’s why Trustless Work exists. That’s why we’re proud to support builders in Latin America and beyond.
Oh by the way, WE WON!
