Tether Backs Mercado Bitcoin With $20M Investment
Tether invested $20 million in Mercado Bitcoin to expand tokenized assets, stablecoin payments and lending across Latin America.
Tether Investments has invested $20 million in Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin to fund the company’s expansion of tokenized assets, stablecoin payments, lending and other blockchain-based financial services across Latin America.
Founded in 2013, Mercado Bitcoin has grown from a crypto trading venue into a regulated financial-services provider. The company serves more than 4.5 million users and says it has issued over 2 billion Brazilian reais (about $370 million) in tokenized assets.
Mercado Bitcoin operates under nearly a dozen licenses in Brazil and Europe, including a payment institution license from Brazil’s central bank. In February the firm reported it had deployed more than $20 million in tokenized private credit on Rootstock, a Bitcoin sidechain.
Tether is the issuer of USDT, the largest stablecoin, with roughly $184 billion in circulation. In the first quarter of 2026 Tether reported about $1.04 billion in net profit, which it is directing into strategic investments through Tether Investments.
Recent allocations by Tether include participation in a $134 million funding round for a stablecoin infrastructure company and capital for LemFi, a remittance platform intended to integrate USDT for cross-border settlements in Africa and Asia. Tether has also announced plans with the Government of Georgia to launch a stablecoin pegged to the Georgian lari.
Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino described Mercado Bitcoin as “one of Latin America’s most comprehensive regulated onchain financial platforms,” pointing to its licensing, tokenization infrastructure and integrated services.
Neither company disclosed the ownership stake tied to the $20 million investment or a specific timeline for rolling out new products. Mercado Bitcoin said the funding will be used to scale its regulated onchain products and regional payment infrastructure.
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