Coinbase and Palo Alto-based Modveon have launched Sivar, a remittance and identity app for El Salvador that runs on Coinbase's payments infrastructure and settles transfers in stablecoins on Base, Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network. The rollout was announced Tuesday and is described as the first national deployment of Modveon's Verified Operating System.
The app allows eligible senders to transfer funds from the U.S. to verified recipients in El Salvador for a flat $2 fee regardless of transaction amount. More than 25,000 Salvadorans signed up before launch, and recipients can collect cash at more than 1,000 locations across El Salvador. On the front end, Sivar works like a traditional payments app, while Coinbase's infrastructure moves peer-to-peer transfers over Coinbase APIs. Senders fund transfers from a debit card through Coinbase Onramp, and each user receives a non-custodial wallet inside the app.
Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said the flat fee is possible because the money moves entirely in digital dollars instead of using percentage-based remittance rails. Modveon CEO and co-founder Nana Murugesan called Sivar the first national rollout of the company's Verified Operating System, which bundles identity, community features, and payments.
The opportunity is substantial: Coinbase said U.S.-based Salvadorans accounted for about 92% of roughly $9 billion in remittances sent to El Salvador in 2025. The launch also underlines a policy shift for El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 but has since moved toward stablecoin-based rails. In August, Cryptopolitan reported that a restaurant staffer in El Zonte, the town known as Bitcoin Beach, called the local Bitcoin payment scene dead.
Under a 40-month loan program with the International Monetary Fund, El Salvador amended its Bitcoin Law in January 2025 to make merchant acceptance voluntary and prohibit tax payments in Bitcoin. The IMF's combined second and third review in early September said majority ownership and operational control of the state Chivo wallet had moved to a private operator, unlocking about $140 million. El Salvador's public-sector Bitcoin holdings remain near 7,764 BTC and have not grown through new purchases.
Adriana Mira, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, described Sivar as a step toward a more personal digital experience designed to meet the needs of Salvadorans wherever they may be. Sivar arrives one day after Coinbase said it deepened its partnership with Citi to offer businesses fiat-and-stablecoin payment rails using Citi's Virtual Account Wallet and letting Citi institutional clients accept stablecoin payments through Spring by Citi. Coinbase's Q4 2025 shareholder letter named scaling stablecoins and payments infrastructure as a top 2026 priority, and Sivar takes that ambition to country scale.
