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Coinbase's payment push goes country-scale as El Salvador pivots into stablecoins

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El Salvador launched Sivar, a national app tied to Modveon and Coinbase’s payments stack, on Tuesday. The app is set up to let eligible senders in the U.S. move money to verified recipients in El Salvador for a flat $2 fee, with settlement in stablecoins on Base.

Key claims & sources

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Coinbase said the new Sivar app runs on its payments infrastructure.
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El Salvador’s government and Modveon launched Sivar on Tuesday as a national app for remittances and identity verification.
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The app lets U.S. residents send any amount of money to verified recipients in El Salvador for a flat $2 fee.
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Modveon said Sivar will integrate Coinbase’s infrastructure to settle cross-border transfers on Base, the Layer-2 network.

What it means

People sending money from the U.S. to El Salvador now have a new app path that is tied to identity checks and a flat fee. Verified recipients in El Salvador are the ones who would see the transfer come through Sivar, and the launch was announced on Tuesday.

The practical change is that transfers are described as settling in stablecoins on Base, rather than through a standard cash-remittance flow. What stays the same is that the app still depends on sender and recipient verification, and the flat $2 fee applies regardless of amount.

What remains open is the scale of use after launch and how broadly the app is available beyond eligible senders and verified recipients. The announcement leaves those adoption details unspecified, and a fuller rollout update would be needed to show how the service is being used in practice. (per cryptopolitan.com)

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