Their rules.

By Andrés Peña Mellado

During his university years, Bastián Koh came up with a simple idea: each person could choose the impact of their own banking rewards. That concern still appears in what he builds, in how he listens to users, and in the ideas he decides to try again.

In an environmental sustainability class, Bastián Koh proposed that using a bank account or card should earn something like loyalty points. The person could choose where they went: planting a tree or supporting an organization that cleaned the oceans.

The project called for reducing a negative externality. He imagined a choice made by the person using the account, arising from something as ordinary as making a payment.

“There was an idea there that stayed with me afterward: as consumers we can, up to a point, ‘vote with our money,’ but that is not enough. If we want that vote to truly carry weight, we need to organize, build new things, and experiment with alternative models, so that our decisions are not simply absorbed by giant organizations.”

People who know Bastián today through Tellus or his work on Stellar may recognize that concern in his projects. He also traces it to his earlier work with nonprofit organizations on immigration, political equity, and sustainable development.

He took part in campaigns supporting legislation and representatives committed to the environment and access to green spaces.

Arriving alone and finding a place to take part

“I left Chile at 18 and arrived in the United States alone,” he says. There he experienced the difficulty of accessing inclusive financial services; remittances and the possibility of helping his family intersected with what he studied and the organizations where he worked.

When he explains why he founded Tellus, he brings those experiences together: immigration, the environment, and economic systems capable of creating local and global impact.

“Tellus was born, to a large extent, from that intersection.”

He first encountered crypto as an investor and had been exposed to Bitcoin and Ethereum. What caught his attention about Stellar was its community and the room he found to contribute to it.

“Builders had a real ability to participate, propose things, and shape the community according to their own vision.”

That connected with his interests in governance, civic organization, and economic models. He wanted to experiment with forms of organization that could be useful beyond crypto, especially in Ibero-America.

Bastián now describes Tellus Cooperative as a U.S.-based foundation dedicated to bringing global resources and opportunities to local communities. When he talks about difficult decisions, he says they try to make them as a team and seek ways to make them more democratic.

“And when we really have to make a complex decision, I try to return to a fairly simple question: which option lets us do the most good possible with the resources we have?”

Designing with the user in view

In Passport, that search comes down to small decisions that can include someone in an activity or leave them out. Bastián had students in mind, as well as people seeking a career change or coming to an event for the first time and needing to know what comes next.

Within the ambassador program, he insists on thinking about “that builder who might not even know yet that they are a builder.” Someone who needs tools, space, and a chance to begin.

To him, asking someone to find an app, check whether it works on their phone, download it, and create an account means losing participants at every step. At an event, the connection may be poor, mobile data scarce, or people may simply have little appetite for another app.

That is why he chose a web app and passkeys. His proposed flow starts with a QR code: open a page and create an account, with access to a wallet without going through the full traditional crypto onboarding process. Tellus has already explained how it works in its article on Stellar Passport.

Asked whether any particular feedback changed his perspective, Bastián talks about hundreds of small comments and about watching where people hesitate, get lost, or need an explanation.

“Having users work with the app constantly has allowed me to stop designing only from what I think someone needs and start designing from how they actually behave.”

The bounty idea he let mature

There is an earlier Tellus attempt that Bastián is returning to. A few years ago he wanted to develop a decentralized bounty system, with rewards for tasks or contributions. He remembers its potential, but also too many unanswered questions about how to make it work.

“The idea had potential, but at the time the market was not ready, and too many questions remained about how to make it work properly.”

The attempt was paused. Bastián describes it as an idea they decided to give time.

“Rather than abandon the idea completely, we let it mature.”

Now they are taking it up again with a different vision and several more years of learning. In his answers he says they have just launched a new pilot and that he wants to see how the community responds and where it could go.

That return sits alongside things he has already been able to bring about and mentions with pride: work with students at Universidad de La Frontera, connecting people to opportunities outside their home country, and opening the Stellar Barrio hub in Santiago, something he had been trying to do for a long time.

The bounties return as an open test. Bastián holds on to the idea and hopes to learn from what happens when he puts it back in the community’s hands.

“For me it also shows something important: when an idea does not work the first time, it does not necessarily mean the idea was wrong. Sometimes you just do not yet have the context, the tools, or the right moment.”