Making Crypto Feel Normal: Zeymer Montes on MOCA, Payments, & UX That Actually Works

Zeymer Montes, founder of MOCA, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to talk about building crypto products that real people can actually use. From gasless payments and QR-code POS systems to smart wallets and encrypted messaging, Montes shares how MOCA is rethinking crypto UX, onboarding merchants, and making on-chain payments feel as simple as Venmo, without giving up self-custody.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Zeymer Montes, founder of MOCA, a crypto payments ecosystem built to make on-chain transactions feel intuitive for users and merchants alike.

Montes discusses his path from early Bitcoin curiosity to years in Web2 software development, where he learned that great products depend as much on UX and communication as they do on technical execution. The conversation explores MOCA’s smart wallet, point-of-sale system, encrypted messenger, and how these pieces work together to support gasless payments, cross-chain settlement, and merchant adoption.

They also dig into onboarding challenges, why language choices matter in crypto UX, how MOCA handles behind-the-scenes token swaps, and why simplicity is essential if crypto payments are going to work in the real world.

What you’ll learn:
• Why UX remains crypto’s biggest barrier
• How MOCA enables crypto payments via QR codes
• What “pay with any wallet” looks like in practice
• How merchants receive stablecoins regardless of payment token
• Why messaging and payments belong together
• How referral-driven revenue supports long-term growth
• What’s next for MOCA’s wallet, POS, and messenger

Zeymer Montes is the founder of MOCA, a crypto payments and wallet ecosystem focused on usability, self-custody, and merchant adoption. With a background in Web2 software development and product leadership, Montes brings a user-first mindset to building crypto infrastructure that works across chains, devices, and experience levels.

Previous guests include: Paul Neuner, Founder and CEO of Telcoin; Aryan Sheikhalian, Head of Research at CMT Digital; David Hoffman, co-Founder and host of Bankless; Fabian Gompf, Chief Executive Officer of the Web3 Foundation; Kurt Hemecker, CEO of the Mina Foundation; Sunny Lu, co-Founder and CEO of VeChain Foundation; Joe Doll, general counsel at Magic Eden; Philippe Schommers, the Head of Infrastructure at Gnosis; and many others.

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