- Tether led a $14 million Series A funding round in Argentine crypto wallet Belo, alongside Titan Fund, The Venture City, Mindset Ventures and G2.
- Belo plans to deepen its footprint in Brazil and expand to markets such as Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay.
- The company, founded in 2021, has surpassed 3 million users and combines payments, FX and cross‑border transfers in a single app using stablecoin infrastructure.
- The deal reflects Tether’s broader strategy to grow USDT-based payment rails in Latin America, where demand for dollar-linked assets remains strong.
Against a backdrop of rising demand for dollar-linked digital assets in Latin America, stablecoin issuer Tether has taken a new step to cement its presence in the region. The company has led a fresh investment round in Argentine fintech Belo, a move that aims to boost the use of USDT in everyday payments and cross‑border transfers across multiple countries.
The operation puts the spotlight on Latin America as a testing ground for stablecoin-based finance, where high inflation, currency volatility and fragmented banking systems have left room for alternative payment rails. With Belo already operating profitably and showing strong user traction, the new capital is designed less to keep the lights on and more to scale a model that appears to be working.
Tether takes the lead in Belo’s $14 million Series A
The core of the announcement is straightforward: Tether headed a $14 million Series A funding round in Belo, an Argentine crypto wallet and payments platform focused on Latin America. Several existing and new investors joined the round, including Titan Fund, The Venture City, Mindset Ventures and G2, according to multiple statements.
Although the valuation of Belo was not disclosed, the size of this Series A clearly stands out when compared with the company’s earlier funding. The new injection dwarfs the roughly $3 million Belo reportedly raised in its seed round back in 2022, signalling a higher degree of confidence in both the business model and the broader trajectory of digital assets in the region.
For Tether, the deal fits into a broader strategy of expanding USDT’s distribution through local partners that already have direct access to consumers and businesses. By backing a regional wallet that sits at the intersection of crypto infrastructure and day‑to‑day financial use cases, Tether is effectively investing in the “last mile” of its stablecoin rails.
Belo’s CEO, Manuel Beaudroit, framed the agreement as a strong strategic alignment between the two companies. In different interviews, he has argued that Tether sees Belo as a vehicle to drive USDT usage at both the consumer front end and at the infrastructure level, where the stablecoin operates quietly under the hood to move value between currencies and countries.
Belo: a Latin American wallet built on stablecoin rails
Founded in Buenos Aires in 2021, Belo positions itself as a digital wallet that blends local currencies with digital dollars. Users can hold and transfer their domestic money side by side with dollar‑denominated stablecoins, notably USDT, using a single app interface rather than juggling multiple services.
The company has grown quickly in just a few years. Various sources indicate that Belo has already surpassed 3 million users across Latin America, a notable milestone for a platform that started in Argentina and is still in the early stages of its regional rollout. The app targets both individuals and small businesses that need faster, cheaper ways to move funds within and across borders.
Belo’s value proposition is to combine payments, currency exchange and cross‑border transfers into one coherent flow. Instead of forcing users to manually convert between pesos, dollars and other local currencies via separate banking products, the app uses crypto infrastructure in the background to handle the heavy lifting.
From the user’s perspective, that complexity is abstracted away. People can pay, save and send money without necessarily dealing with the technical details of blockchain, wallets or on‑chain transactions. According to the company, crypto runs “behind the scenes” to connect different currencies and jurisdictions, while the front end stays as close as possible to a standard fintech experience.
Beaudroit has repeatedly stressed that Belo reached this new funding round after three years of profitable operations, something not always common among early‑stage fintech and crypto companies. In his view, the Series A is less about buying time and more about pressing the accelerator on a product that people already use in their daily lives.
Latin America as fertile ground for USDT adoption
The investment also sheds light on a broader trend: the rapid growth of stablecoins as a practical tool in emerging markets. These digital tokens are typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar and are designed to hold a relatively stable value, which makes them attractive as a medium of exchange and store of value.
Recent data from Artemis Analytics, cited in several reports, points to a 72% surge in global stablecoin transaction volumes in 2025, reaching around $33 trillion. While part of this activity is related to trading and DeFi, a growing share is linked to real-world uses such as remittances, merchant payments and cross‑border settlements.
In Latin America specifically, USDT has become dominant in many of the region’s crypto flows. Artemis’s analysis highlights that the stablecoin represents the bulk of stablecoin usage in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In these markets, demand for exposure to dollars is high, but direct access to dollar accounts can be limited or expensive.
For many users, holding digital dollars functions as a hedge against local currency depreciation and inflation. Stablecoins are also increasingly used to send and receive remittances, pay international suppliers or contractors, and bypass complex or costly foreign‑exchange mechanisms that have long characterised the region.
By backing Belo, Tether is effectively reinforcing its bet on USDT as a payment and savings layer in economies with volatile monetary conditions. Instead of focusing exclusively on speculative trading, the company appears intent on supporting applications that bring stablecoins closer to everyday financial tasks.
Expansion plans: Brazil, Mexico and beyond
The proceeds of the Series A are earmarked for an ambitious regional rollout. Belo has already entered the Brazilian market, one of the largest economies in Latin America and a key hub for crypto adoption. The company now aims to deepen its presence there, particularly among freelancers, remote workers and other users who frequently move funds across borders.
Beyond Brazil, the roadmap includes a push into Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. In some communications, the company has also referenced a broader list of up to seven additional countries it intends to target, with Peru and Bolivia often cited among the priority destinations.
In practice, this means adapting the platform to multiple regulatory frameworks, currencies and banking environments. Each country has its own rules around foreign exchange, capital controls and digital assets, so Belo’s back‑end infrastructure needs to be flexible enough to navigate that patchwork while keeping the user experience as uniform as possible.
The firm plans to use part of the capital to expand its team, including hires in product, engineering and operations. One of the stated goals is to increase headcount by around 20%, ensuring the company has enough capacity to serve a growing base of users and to support new local partnerships across the region.
Internally, management describes this phase as a shift from proving concept to building scale. As Beaudroit has put it in different remarks, the fresh funding is meant to “scale what already works”, extending Belo’s services to more markets and strengthening the infrastructure that keeps those services running reliably.
How Belo uses crypto infrastructure behind the scenes
A significant part of Belo’s pitch lies in how it uses crypto infrastructure as an invisible layer rather than a visible selling point. The app leverages stablecoins and blockchain rails to move value quickly and, in many cases, more cheaply than traditional banking channels, but it doesn’t require users to manage private keys or complex wallet setups.
In regions where transferring money between countries remains slow and costly, this architecture can make a practical difference. Users often depend on several intermediaries—banks, remittance companies, currency exchanges and payment processors—to send or receive funds. Each extra step tends to add fees, delays and friction.
By contrast, Belo’s model aims to route funds through stablecoin rails that act as a neutral bridge between currencies. For example, a payment might start in a local currency, be converted into USDT in the background, travel across borders on-chain, and then be converted back into another local currency at the destination, all orchestrated through the app.
Segments such as remote workers and freelancers who get paid in one currency and spend in another are natural beneficiaries of this design. So are small businesses that operate in several markets but lack access to sophisticated treasury tools or multi‑currency bank accounts.
Beaudroit has argued that this approach reflects a wider shift, where crypto tools are beginning to fill gaps left by traditional finance. In his view, what matters to users is not whether a transaction is technically on-chain, but whether it is faster, cheaper and more predictable than the alternatives they are used to.
Tether’s broader strategy and diversification beyond crypto
The Belo deal also fits into a larger narrative around Tether’s evolving corporate strategy. While the company is best known for issuing USDT, it has been steadily broadening its investment footprint across sectors and geographies.
In Latin America, Tether’s expansion goes beyond pure crypto services. The company has, for instance, acquired a controlling stake in agricultural firm Adecoagro, adding exposure to a very different corner of the economy. Other investments have reportedly spanned areas such as neurotechnology and sports equipment, underscoring an interest in combining digital finance with tangible, real‑world assets.
This diversification can be read as an attempt to anchor digital liquidity to the real economy. By backing businesses that operate in sectors like agriculture, energy or manufacturing, Tether and similar actors can gain access to cash flows and collateral that are less correlated with the volatility of the crypto markets.
At the same time, these moves reinforce the idea that stablecoins are becoming a foundational layer for broader financial infrastructure. As volumes grow and use cases multiply, the firms that control major stablecoin networks are positioning themselves at the crossroads between traditional capital markets and digital asset ecosystems.
For Belo, being part of this strategy offers both opportunities and responsibilities. The partnership with Tether brings capital, visibility and access to a widely used stablecoin, but it also places the company squarely in the spotlight at a time when regulators and policymakers are paying closer attention to the systemic role of stablecoins in global finance.
Viewed together, Tether’s leadership in Belo’s $14 million Series A, the wallet’s rapid user growth, and the planned expansion into multiple Latin American markets illustrate how stablecoin-powered payment platforms are moving from niche experiments to everyday tools. In a region marked by inflation, exchange-rate swings and uneven access to banking, the combination of digital wallets, crypto rails and dollar-pegged tokens is increasingly shaping how people save, pay and send money across borders.
