“People Won’t Go Back” - Sling Money Founder Foresees Explosive Stablecoin Adoption

Stablecoins are arguably crypto’s most tangible and transformative real-world use case, helping millions of people transfer wealth instantly and affordably across the globe.

Sitting down with SolanaFloor, Sling Money founder Simon Amor argues that greater regulatory clarity is setting the stage for widespread stablecoin adoption.

Gaining Trust in Emerging Economies

The crypto industry hasn’t done itself any favors in recent years, with countless scams, hacks, and a certain $8B insolvency sowing seeds of disrepute among the general public. But despite its poor image, the industry appears to be setting itself on the right track. 

With clearer regulations on the horizon and more meaningful consumer apps than ever before, credibility is returning to the blockchain world. Sling Money, a stablecoin-powered payments platform enabling transfers in 40+ currencies across 140 nations, is one such example, solving genuine problems for real-world users.

Speaking with SolanaFloor at Accelerate, Sling Money founder Simon Amor asserted that building consumer trust takes time, but is achievable through providing a consistent and reliable user experience.

“How do you increase trust in a new thing… I honestly think the best thing that crypto apps can do is solve real-world problems and do it over a long period of time.”

Amor also credited Sling Money’s adherence to regulation and legal compliance as an integral part of establishing trust and ensuring the protocol’s longevity. Sling Money’s legal team has worked diligently to ensure the application is fully compliant within all its operational jurisdictions. 

“The regulatory space is ever-changing, and you don't want to be one of those applications that grows really large and gets a lot of users and then has to shut down because they've not been doing things the right way.”

While some pockets of the crypto community champion deregulation and privacy, Amor affirms that having regulatory clarity is essential to expanding the crypto ecosystem. This is critically important within financial applications, which are typically a centrepiece of the user’s livelihood.

“Regulation, ultimately is good for the consumer. It builds up that trust. If you have a regulated app, you feel a lot more confident interacting with it, especially if it's dealing with your money.”

Currently, the majority of Sling Money’s users are based in emerging markets like Brazil, and Eastern African nations like Uganda and Kenya. 

This is consistent with Chainalysis research published in December 2024, which suggested that Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed the highest rates of retail-sized YoY stablecoin growth.

“We've got a really good user base now in Brazil. We've got a good user base across Eastern Africa, in Uganda, and in Kenya. We've been doing events in these countries and speaking to the community and growing there… you have these remittance corridors, and Brazil is one of the markets that moves a lot of money around different places around the world.”

The Simplicity of Stablecoins

Echoing a common sentiment within consumer app circles, Amor is adamant that stablecoins are the natural progression of digital payments in the modern age. The Sling Money founder posited that, despite considerable improvements within the stablecoin industry, the sector is on the cusp of new highs in utility and adoption that could lead to a point of no return.

“Stablecoins have really started to evolve in the coming years, and I think we're at the point now, or we're about to hit a point, where it's just going to absolutely accelerate… once you've used it, people won't go back. Once you use WhatsApp, you don't go and use SMS anymore.”

When asked if Sling Money was considering incorporating a wider range of features into its product, like crypto debit cards or yield-bearing stablecoins, Amor confirmed that the platform would iterate on user feedback. However, the founder acknowledged that there was beauty in simplicity and wanted to avoid making Sling Money unnecessarily complicated.

"I think there's definitely room for all this stuff in the Sling product. I think what you have to be very cautious of is not building something that becomes excessively complex by adding and adding and adding and adding… In a lot of ways, all this stuff is just still moving money from A to B. A spending card is just moving money from my wallet to a merchant. It all fits in, I think, with what we're trying to achieve at Sling."

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