Tether USDT Available in Over 24,000 ATMS in Brazil
Source: Tether
Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced that SmartPay aims to boost the Brazilian population’s access to the popular USDT stablecoin by making it available at more than 24,000 ATMs across the South American country.
“The difficulties and limitations imposed by inflation and a less-than-inclusive financial system has excluded many of Brazil’s citizens from being able to participate in the country's growing economy,” said Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether, as quoted in a statement.
“Adding tether tokens to ATMs across Brazil provides the opportunity to include more people in the financial system. This will bring major changes not only to the payments industry but to the entire Brazilian financial ecosystem,” according to the executive.
Under the plan, SmartPay is to launch the service at its ATMs on November 3.
“With access to SmartPay, users can select the best cryptocurrency for their desired use case, including tether tokens like USD₮. They will also be able to send and receive tether tokens anywhere in the world, whenever they want and withdraw Reais in Brazil,” the statement said.
It is noteworthy tha a study carried out by the country’s research institution Instituto Locomotiva in January 2021 indicated that Brazil has as many as 34 million unbanked adult inhabitants.
“After we integrated tether tokens with the Brazilian Payment System called PiX, we integrated with TecBan which is the largest ATM company provider in Brazil. Before we used to say where you can pay with PiX, you can pay with tether tokens - now where you see Banco24Horas you can convert tether tokens into Reais,” Rocelo Lopes, the CEO of SmartPay.
Tether says that its stablecoin is “currently one of the most used cryptocurrencies in the region. Recent data shows that USD₮ is one of the tokens most used in the country when it comes to value moved. More than $1.4 billion was moved using USD₮ across 79,836 operations in August, with an average amount of almost $18,000 per transaction.”
The latest development comes shortly after Tether dropped its opposition to commercial papers, moving to replace them with significantly more liquid and secure US Treasury Bills.
Per an announcement from Tether, the entity’s decision to eliminate its commercial paper holdings and replace it with US Treasuries is part of a drive to increase transparency and confidence among users of the widely used stablecoin.
“Reducing commercial papers to zero demonstrates Tether’s commitment to backing its tokens with the most secure reserves in the market. This is a step towards even greater transparency and trust, not only for Tether but for the entire stablecoin industry,” according to the announcement.
