VIVA Puts Telecom Payments on an Avalanche-Based Network

From 2012 to 2025, global mobile data traffic grew by more than 50% annually, while telecom service revenue increased by less than 1% a year, according to McKinsey figures cited by Iris.

Telecom operators possess assets that financial applications often spend heavily to acquire: established customer bases, verified identities and broad distribution networks.

Those advantages can be especially valuable in emerging markets.

“In the U.S. the operator is like one rail among many,” Ava Labs Chief Business Officer John Nahas told CoinDesk. In markets such as Bolivia, by contrast, “the mobile carrier is often the rail that people do everything on.”

For that reason, Iris initially plans to focus on Latin America and potentially parts of Africa and Asia rather than the U.S., Nahas said.

VIVA offers an early test of whether this model can improve carriers’ economics. Nahas said a super-app deployed by the operator reduced churn among prepaid mobile customers by 33% while increasing their lifetime value by 35%.

“When you start to see numbers like this, it just starts making a lot of sense,” he said, adding that Iris now needs more real-world case studies.

Stablecoins power the telecom model

Iris operates on a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 network, giving it control over its settlement, operational and compliance requirements. USDi serves as the settlement asset, while also allowing VIVA to hold eligible operating reserves in U.S. dollars—an option that could prove particularly useful in markets with volatile local currencies.

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