Research · Jul 22 · 27 min

Tether-Backed MANSA Hit $510M in Stablecoin Cross-Border Settlement with Mouloukou Sanoh

With Mouloukou Sanoh

Key takeaways

Tether USDt backs Mansa as an equity investor, and roughly 90 percent of MANSA's pipeline comes from that relationship.
Mansa reports $510 million in on-chain volume and $253 million in payments financed to clients since launching in August 2024.
Mouloukou Sanoh says solving prefunding first, with over $100 million raised in credit, is what MANSA's new payment rails were built on.

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0:00MANSA settles emerging market payments instantly with Tether backing1 of 10

Summary

MANSA's CEO says its settlement business in emerging markets rests on USDT liquidity, on having solved prefunding first and on a Tether relationship that brings in most of its deals.

Mansa, a stablecoin-native cross-border settlement platform, is backed by Tether USDt as an equity investor, and roughly 90 percent of its pipeline comes from that relationship. CEO Mouloukou Sanoh says Tether is the company's largest investor and also helps with its go-to-market strategy and marketing. MANSA has processed $510 million in on-chain volume since launching in August 2024.

Volume and corridors

Mansa has financed $253 million in payments to clients and is active across 40 corridors, including Nigeria, Kenya, Colombia, the Philippines and Ghana. Mouloukou Sanoh says stablecoins are not really needed in the US or Europe, where Venmo and SEPA transactions are "quick enough". In his view the real bottleneck is in the markets with the most friction.

“That's what separates missionaries from mercenaries.”

Mouloukou Sanoh

Why USDT

Mouloukou Sanoh argues that Tether USDt has the deepest liquidity in emerging markets. He says he could move 10,000,000 USDT in less than ten minutes, while USDC would involve "a lot more friction". He expects USDT to remain the number one stablecoin because it has the most utility. He adds that the chain matters less than local demand: in his account, USDT on Tron converts with less slippage than USDT on Ethereum. MANSA also works closely with Plasma, which he calls a fantastic partner.

Prefunding and China

According to Mouloukou Sanoh, $4,000,000,000,000 sits locked in correspondent banking and payout partner accounts around the world. Mansa built its own China payment rail, connected to the country's instant payment system Synapse, which settles any inbound payment in 30 minutes. Sanoh says Chinese merchants started demanding payment in USDT because of capital controls, so demand for stablecoin settlement into China has always existed.

Next rails and advice

Mansa says it will release an India payment rail "incredibly soon", along with a Colombian peso rail and a larger focus on Latin America. Mouloukou Sanoh tells builders to keep things simple and do the hard things first. For MANSA, he says, that meant solving prefunding, which included raising over $100 million in credit from some of the biggest credit funds, something he calls "incredibly difficult".

In Mouloukou Sanoh's account, Mansa grew by taking on prefunding before anything else and by leaning on Tether USDt for distribution and USDT liquidity. He tells founders to build something they can relate to, which he says is what separates missionaries from mercenaries.

Western Union, Tether, Goldman Sachs, and Grab come up most.

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