Ripio CEO Acknowledges Error After wARS Conversion Complaints

Ripio co-founder and CEO Sebastián Serrano said on Oct. 30 that a configuration error by its retail operations team had affected some users, after customers complained that its peso-linked wARS token was converting below its stated one-peso peg inside the app.

“Last night the retail operations team made an error while adjusting a configuration, some users were affected and we are already fixing it,” Serrano wrote on X, translated from Spanish. He was responding to a post questioning whether wARS had maintained its one-to-one value against the Argentine peso.

The complaints concerned peso transfer and withdrawal screens in Ripio's app. At 9:53 p.m. ET on Oct. 29, X user @LMancini14 reported a rate of 0.95 pesos per wARS. The attached transfer screen displayed that exchange rate and a proposed debit of 1,052.63 wARS to send 1,000 pesos, rather than an equal number of tokens and pesos.

In a separate post at 10:14 p.m. ET, Joaquin Viñuela shared a withdrawal screen marked completed, showing 3,157.89 wARS debited for a 3,000-peso withdrawal.

By 6:24 a.m. ET on Oct. 30, Viñuela said that “now parity has returned,” translated from Spanish. That was a user's report, not a company announcement that the issue had been resolved for everyone.

Ripio's wARS product page describes the token as a stablecoin with one-to-one parity against the Argentine peso and says users can convert it to pesos through Ripio at any time. The reported conversion rates meant users needed more than one wARS to withdraw each peso.

The company's whitepaper says wARS belongs to a family of tokens issued by a Ripio affiliate and fully backed by local currencies or local-currency instruments held at regulated institutions. It also says holders have no redemption right against the issuer and can only sell their tokens in the market.

Ripio's public status page listed all systems as operational and no incidents for Oct. 30. Serrano's reply did not specify the error's exact start or end time, how many users were affected, or whether affected users had been reimbursed.