Tether has committed $20 million to Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin, backing the company’s push into tokenized assets, stablecoin payments, lending, and other blockchain-based financial services across Latin America.
What Mercado Bitcoin Brings to the Table
Founded in 2013, Mercado Bitcoin began as a crypto trading venue before expanding into a broader regulated financial platform. The company now reports more than 4.5 million users and has issued over 2 billion Brazilian reais, roughly $370 million, in tokenized assets. It holds close to a dozen licenses spanning Brazil and Europe, including a payment institution license granted by Brazil’s central bank.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino described Mercado Bitcoin as one of Latin America’s most comprehensive regulated onchain financial platforms, specifically citing its licensing stack, tokenization infrastructure, and integrated financial services as reasons for backing the firm.
In February, Mercado Bitcoin disclosed it had deployed more than $20 million in tokenized private credit on Rootstock, a Bitcoin sidechain, marking one segment of its wider tokenization business.
Tether Deploying Q1 Profits Into Strategic Holdings
The Mercado Bitcoin deal fits within the broader investment strategy of Tether Investments, which focuses on companies building blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Tether issues USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin, with approximately $184 billion currently in circulation. The company posted roughly $1.04 billion in net profit during the first quarter of 2026 and has been actively recycling those earnings into new positions.
Recent moves include an April participation in a $134 million funding round for Stablecoin Development Corporation, a NYSE American-listed company targeting stablecoin economy access; a May investment in remittance platform LemFi to integrate USDT as a settlement layer for cross-border payments across Africa and Asia; and a separate May plan with the Government of Georgia to launch a stablecoin pegged to the Georgian lari. Beyond stablecoin initiatives, Tether’s investment arm has placed capital in artificial intelligence, energy, biotechnology, and digital media sectors.
Despite ongoing speculation about a potential public listing, Ardoino has stated clearly that Tether has no plans to go public.
Latin America as a Growing Blockchain Finance Frontier
The investment places Tether at the centre of an accelerating effort to bring regulated onchain finance to Latin American markets. Mercado Bitcoin’s regulatory footprint, spanning Brazil’s central bank payment license and multiple European authorisations, gives it a compliance base that few regional platforms can match. The fresh capital is earmarked to extend its tokenized finance offerings, stablecoin payment rails, and cross-border services further across the region.
