Tether Holdings Ltd. will invest $20 million in Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin, betting that demand for tokenized financial assets and blockchain-based payments will continue to grow across Latin America, according to a company announcement.
The investment is part of a strategic financing round that will fund Mercado Bitcoin’s expansion in tokenized investment products, stablecoin payments, lending, on-chain capital markets and cross-border financial services, Tether said in its announcement.
The deal adds to Tether’s growing portfolio of investments beyond its flagship USDT stablecoin. Flush with profits from managing the reserves backing the world’s largest dollar-pegged token, the company has increasingly deployed capital into crypto infrastructure, artificial intelligence, energy and payments businesses.
Mercado Bitcoin, one of Latin America’s largest regulated digital-asset platforms, serves more than 4.5 million customers and has issued more than 2 billion reais ($370 million) of tokenized real-world assets, including private credit and fixed-income securities. Earlier this year, the company tokenized more than $200 million of private credit assets on the Bitcoin sidechain Rootstock, according to The Block.
The investment comes as tokenization—the process of representing traditional financial assets on blockchains—gains momentum among banks, asset managers and crypto firms seeking faster settlement, broader investor access and lower operating costs. Latin America has emerged as a key testing ground for the technology, particularly in Brazil, where regulators have taken a comparatively open approach to digital assets.
Tether Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino said the investment reflects the company’s strategy of backing infrastructure that expands access to digital financial services in emerging markets. Mercado Bitcoin Chief Executive Officer Roberto Dagnoni said the funding would accelerate the company’s international expansion and strengthen its on-chain financial offerings, according to Tether’s announcement.
The transaction reinforces Brazil’s position as one of the region’s most active markets for blockchain-based finance, even as competition intensifies among exchanges and fintech firms seeking to move beyond cryptocurrency trading into tokenized versions of traditional financial product