Tether said Tuesday it will invest $20 million in a strategic growth financing round for Mercado Bitcoin, a move that deepens the stablecoin issuer’s push into Latin America’s fast-growing market for blockchain-based financial services.
Tether, the largest company in the digital asset industry and the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, framed the deal as part of a broader strategy of backing platforms that pair regulatory licensing with market scale.
Mercado Bitcoin, founded in São Paulo in 2013, has grown from a cryptocurrency exchange into what it describes as a full-stack on-chain financial services platform.
The company now serves 4.5 million users and says it has issued more than 2 billion reais in tokenized assets. It holds more than 10 licenses across Brazil and Europe, including a payment institution license from Brazil’s central bank, along with broker-dealer, securitization and asset management capabilities.
Its business spans trading, tokenized investment products, credit and lending, stablecoin-based payments, and cross-border services.
