Tether has reportedly invested $20 million in Argentine digital bank Ualá, adding another Latin American financial platform to its growing list of stablecoin-focused investments.
Summary
- Tether has reportedly invested $20 million in Argentine digital bank Ualá through its $197 million funding round.
- The investment adds to Tether’s recent backing of Mercado Bitcoin and Belo as it expands across Latin America’s financial sector.
- Alongside these investments, Tether has continued promoting stablecoins for payroll, treasury payments and other real world financial use cases.
According to a Bloomberg report, the investment was part of Ualá’s $197 million equity funding round announced in March and led by Allianz X.
Although Ualá identified Tether as one of the participating investors at the time, it did not disclose how much the stablecoin issuer contributed. Bloomberg reported that Tether’s investment totaled $20 million.
Latin America remains central to Tether’s investment strategy
The latest investment continues a series of deals that have expanded Tether’s presence across Latin America’s financial and digital asset sectors.
Earlier this month, Tether invested $20 million in Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin to support the expansion of its blockchain infrastructure, tokenized assets, lending services, and on-chain capital markets across the region.
A few months earlier, the company also led a $14 million Series A funding round for Argentine crypto platform Belo, alongside investors including Titan Fund, The Venture City, Mindset Ventures, and G2. According to Tether, the funding was intended to support Belo’s crypto payment products and financial services.
Outside its investment activity, Tether has also continued promoting USDT for practical payment use cases across Latin America.
Earlier this week, reports from Bolivia said government officials were evaluating a proposal to recognize USDT alongside the boliviano and the U.S. dollar within the country’s payment system as authorities respond to a prolonged shortage of foreign currency. Local banks Banco Unión and Banco FIE already provide services connected to USDT, according to previous reports.
Enterprise payments become another focus
Alongside its regional expansion, Tether has been increasing its investment in enterprise payment infrastructure.
Last week, the company led a $7 million funding round for Pact Labs to integrate its USAT stablecoin into U.S. payroll systems. According to Tether, the partnership is designed to bring blockchain-based settlement into a payroll market that processes more than $11 trillion annually by allowing businesses to pay wages using stablecoin payment rails.
Corporate treasury has also become part of that strategy. Earlier this month, Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai Motor Mexico completed a pilot cross-border treasury payment using USDT on the Avalanche blockchain. According to Tether, the companies settled a $20,000 transfer in about seven minutes through settlement infrastructure provided by Axiym, while Hyundai Card handled the compliance, accounting and operational framework for the pilot.
Tether’s investment activity comes as USDT remains the largest stablecoin by market value. According to CoinMarketCap, the token’s market capitalization stood at about $184.4 billion at the time of reporting.
