A new class of startups is using bitcoin and the blockchain to drastically lower fees as they try to grab a share of the remittance market from old competitors like Western Union.

“Dollars wrapped with love.” That’s how Dilip Ratha describes remittances—the money immigrants send home to their families and friends. “There are millions of people who migrate each year. With the help of the family, they cross oceans, they cross deserts, they cross rivers, they cross mountains,” Ratha, an economist, said in a 2014 TED talk. “They risk their lives to realize a dream, and that dream is as simple as having a decent job somewhere so they can send money home and help the family, which has helped them before.”