Karsa 💸 recently launched!

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^{"Save in stablecoins; protect against inflation in emerging markets"}

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^{tl;dr: Karsa is a global dollar account—enabling anyone in emerging markets to buy and save in stablecoins to protect against currency instability.}

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Founded by Shahryar Hasnani & Dale Wilson‍

Shahryar and Dale have been working in the crypto space for the majority of their careers (leading business development and protocol engineering, respectively). The founders have lived and worked across the world in the same regions that they want to provide the Karsa product to—the founders deeply understand the tech, the market, and how stablecoins can best be leveraged to create more financial freedom.

They’ve been close friends for years, joined the industry at similar times (Shahryar actually got Dale to FOMO in), and now they work together out of Dale’s kitchen in New York.‍‍

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The Problem

Over a billion people live in countries with severe inflation (5-10%+) and are unable to protect their wealth due to strict capital controls (Shahryar’s family in Pakistan still acutely faces this problem). The traditional banking systems in most of these countries are systematically designed to prevent access to assets like dollars.

The Karsa founders spent the majority of their careers in crypto, traveling everywhere from the Middle East to Southeast Asia for work—and they observed how people in regions with economic instability have begun to adopt stablecoins as a store of value. However, existing products—typically peer-to-peer crypto exchanges—are centered on traders and are still too complex for average users, hindering mass-market adoption.

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The Solution

https://youtu.be/C160H4yB08w

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Karsa is a global digital wallet that makes it easy for anyone across the world to deposit money using local payment methods and save in dollar-denominated stablecoins.

For a user, it looks similar to a bank—but under the hood, Karsa routes its supply from a network of verified peer-to-peer stablecoin traders, whom buyers are making their deposit payments to.

• Structuring it as peer-to-peer allows Karsa to actually be global from day one and circumvent government interference: in most of these markets, centralized products (i.e., requiring a bank account in the relevant country) often get shut down. This means that in many of the regions Karsa operates in, it is the only way anyone can reasonably get access to stablecoins.
• Unlike incumbent exchanges, however, the founders entirely abstracted the ‘P2P’. Traditionally, buyers and sellers engage in chats for each transaction (to confirm details, etc.). This is onerous for sellers, and off-putting for new buyers. Instead, Karsa sits in the middle, matching price orders and managing verification, appeals, etc. with sellers directly—much less work for sellers, and an incredibly simple process for buyers.
• The founders also abstracted everything crypto about it—no crypto knowledge, wallet / key management, etc. needed, so that even your parents could use the platform.
• User funds are held in self-custody crypto wallets, meaning your money is always yours—unlike a centralized exchange (e.g., FTX) there’s no way for Karsa to access, freeze, or lose your funds.

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Learn More

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^{🌐 Visit to gokarsa.com learn more.}

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^{✨ Karsa is already going live with sellers in Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Paraguay and setting up a couple other regions!}

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^{🤝 If you know or work with anyone in South Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Middle East—whether they’re a contract worker, freelancer, developer, crypto trader, SMB owner, or just family/friends who would be interested in saving with Karsa or working with the founders as a stablecoin supplier—please don’t hesitate to connect them to the Karsa team via email.  Folks with these profiles have been incredibly helpful in providing feedback and suggesting future product features.}

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^{👣 Follow Karsa 💸 on LinkedIn & X.}

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