Bolivia is evaluating integrating Tether’s USDt into its national payments system, a move that could mark one of Latin America’s most significant stablecoin adoption initiatives as the country grapples with a persistent shortage of US dollars.

Economy and Public Finance Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza told a press conference on Monday that the government is assessing a regulatory framework that would allow USDT to circulate “as just another currency,” alongside the boliviano and the US dollar. 

According to the Spanish news outlet CriptoNoticias, the framework is still under review and, if adopted, would recognize USDT for everyday transactions, including payments, savings and trade, without relying exclusively on cash or the traditional banking system.

Espinoza said any rollout would require a robust regulatory framework and strong anti-money laundering safeguards because Bolivia remains on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, which identifies jurisdictions under increased monitoring for deficiencies in preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.

Source: EL DEBER

The proposal is part of Bolivia’s broader embrace of digital assets following the lifting of its longstanding ban on cryptocurrencies in 2024. Since taking office in late 2025, President Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s administration has pledged to integrate digital assets into the formal financial system, paving the way for banks to offer crypto-related products and services, including stablecoin-based accounts.

USDT is the world’s largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization exceeding $184 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Related: USDT wins payments, USDC wins DeFi as stablecoins diverge: Dune

Dollar shortage fuels stablecoin push

Bolivia’s stablecoin initiative comes as the country grapples with a prolonged shortage of US dollars, which are widely used alongside the national currency, the boliviano.

As Reuters reported, Bolivia maintained an official exchange rate of 6.86 bolivianos per US dollar for purchases and 6.96 for sales from 2011 until earlier this year, when mounting pressure on foreign exchange reserves forced the government to abandon the long-standing peg. The resulting dollar shortage fueled the expansion of a parallel foreign exchange market, where the dollar traded at a steep premium to the official rate.

The widening gap between the official and parallel exchange rates has boosted demand for dollar-denominated alternatives, including stablecoins such as USDT, which have increasingly been used for payments.

Bolivia ranked highly in Chainalysis’ 2025 evaluation of crypto adoption across Latin America, with $14.8 billion in total transaction volume over a 12-month period.

Related: Crypto Biz: How stablecoins found their niche

Michael Saylor spent Monday morning boasting about a bigger pile of cash to support dividends, yet the dividend-paying shares of STRC he intended to reassure barely budged.

The problem seems to be confidence, not cash.

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest publicly-traded holder of BTC, diluted its common stockholders last week to increase its dollar stockpile by $450 million.

Now holding $3 billion, MSTR shareholders paid for 17% more cash than the $2.55 billion balance it last disclosed as of July 5.

More cash should mean more comfort. However, investors in STRC, the dividend-yielding preferred stock that requires cash for semi-monthly payouts, don’t seem to agree.

By this morning, STRC had actually dropped to $86.60, a decline of 1% versus Friday’s closing price. 

Even though Strategy’s larger cash reserve should pay for more months of STRC dividends — the kind of news that should boost confidence in any other security — it didn’t boost STRC.

There seems to be another problem at Strategy that cash can’t solve.

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The market shrugged

Strategy was supposed to keep the price of STRC boring. Instead, its wild fluctuations are generating daily headlines.

The company adjusts the dividend regularly with a stated objective to keep the stock trading between $99 and $100. It hasn’t.

When the price sags, Strategy raises dividend payouts to lure buyers back toward its $100 par. When the price is higher, Strategy sells shares to cap the price. 

Unfortunately, STRC has actually declined in value since its dividend rate has climbed from 9% at launch to 12% currently.

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Moreover, even with 20 months of cash providing so-called “dividend coverage” and a yield far richer than most junk bonds, STRC was trading 13% below par today.

The price of STRC is actually lower today than before Strategy increased its cash by 17%.

So, what gives?

The mechanism driving the price of STRC lower is far simpler than the quantity of cash or the mathematics of Strategy’s dilution or leverage ratios. 

The problem appears to be confidence. Without a rally in BTC to boost the value of Strategy’s massive treasury, investors have only one reason to bid up STRC back to par: Belief in management’s resolve to fund long-term dividends.

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Sadly, there are plenty of reasons to doubt their resolve.

A preferred share is a promise to pay dividends, honor terms, and perform what the prospectus says. In addition, investors base their decisions on guidance and forward-looking statements from management.

Investors aren’t discounting STRC because they doubt the existence of $3 billion in cash or the mathematics of how many months that quantity could service in dividend payouts. They’re discounting the man making the promises about those payouts.

Read more: Strategy’s STRC hit another all-time low today

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Michael Saylor’s shifting promises

Strategy founder Saylor has a long record of forecasts he later abandoned. Each reversal teaches the market to price his assurances below face value.

For example, last summer, Strategy told investors it wouldn’t issue new MSTR shares below 2.5 times its BTC multiple-to-net asset value (mNAV), except to pay interest and preferred dividends.

Days later, it quietly rewrote that promise, adding a third exception for whenever it deemed issuances advantageous. It then sold hundreds of millions of dollars of stock below 2.5x mNAV anyway.

Consider another, egregious example.

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For years, Saylor preached about never selling BTC, a mantra Protos has catalogued across his interviews and posts.

However, over late June and early July, Strategy sold 3,588 BTC and authorized over $1 billion in additional sales. The examples continue.

Saylor spent early 2026 assuring markets that debt, not BTC sales, would carry the company through any BTC bear market.

He told CNBC the company would simply refinance and extend its obligations during a BTC bear market. A few months later, he wasn’t refinancing but instead selling BTC to fund dividend payments.

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Saylor has also slashed his own earnings forecast, which makes trusting his future forecasts difficult. In December, Strategy cut its fiscal year 2025 earnings per share guidance from a target of $80 per share to a revised range to less than $19.

That erased hopes of more than 76% of the profit it had projected.

Read more: Strategy’s ‘stable’ STRC spends a lot of time below its $100 target

Despite promises, STRC is nothing like a bank account

Saylor has also likened STRC to a high-yield bank account or money market.

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Nevertheless, STRC sank to an all-time low of $71.25 in June, losing many savers one-third of their savings, unlike any insured bank account or money market. 

After Saylor’s guidance about STRC’s $100 stability confronted the reality of $71.25 and everybody had lost money, it became difficult to maintain confidence in his ability to forecast future stability for STRC.

STRC isn’t any kind of bank account or money market, isn’t backed by segregated BTC, and carries no ordinary redemption right. In order for investors to sell STRC for $100, they must find other traders who are willing to buy it from them at $100.

Strategy won’t be bidding.

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The pattern of shifting promises is older than Strategy’s BTC era. In 2000, the SEC charged Saylor and two other executives.

The company had allegedly inflated its reported sales and profit in breach of accounting rules. Saylor paid more than $8 million to settle that civil action.

Decades later, the market re-learning to be wary of the same man. Strategy just added 17% more cash to a reserve meant to keep STRC pinned at $100. Despite this, STRC failed to rally, staying 13% below par this morning and actually declining relative to Friday.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Hyundai Motor’s U.S. and Mexican operations have completed a pilot cross-border treasury payment using Tether’s USDT stablecoin, settling a $20,000 transfer in about seven minutes over the Avalanche blockchain.

According to Tether, the proof-of-concept involved Hyundai Motor America converting U.S. dollars into USDT before sending the stablecoin to Hyundai Motor Mexico, where it was converted back into U.S. dollars.

Tether said the transfer, including verification, took around seven minutes, while a conventional cross-border bank transfer would typically require three to four hours or longer.

The pilot tested stablecoins inside corporate treasury operations

Supporting the pilot, Tether said Axiym supplied the settlement infrastructure, while Hyundai Card designed the remittance structure and managed the regulatory, compliance, accounting and operational requirements needed for the test.

According to Tether, the companies built the trial to determine whether stablecoin settlement could fit into existing corporate treasury processes without requiring changes to governance, compliance or accounting frameworks.

The next stage will extend testing to additional payment corridors and local currency settlements, according to Tether, as the participating companies evaluate stablecoin settlement across more enterprise treasury workflows.

Corporate treasury has become one of the fastest-growing areas for stablecoin adoption. In April, treasury management software provider Kyriba partnered with Circle to integrate the USDC stablecoin into its enterprise treasury platform.

According to the companies, treasury teams can manage stablecoin balances alongside cash positions, complete eligible cross-border and intercompany payments in near real time, and access liquidity outside normal banking hours while continuing to use existing treasury approval processes.

A separate report from Bitso Business, published this month, found stablecoin transaction volumes on its platform rose 81% year over year during the first half of 2026.

According to Bitso Business, the increase came from demand for real-time settlement, treasury management and cross-border liquidity solutions. The company added that more than 60% of newly onboarded business clients during the period were financial institutions, including banks and licensed payment providers.

Tether continues expanding its enterprise strategy

Business adoption surveys also indicate rising corporate interest in stablecoins. According to a June report by Paybis, 22.5% of surveyed businesses already use stablecoins for international payments or expect to do so within the next 12 months.

The report, citing McKinsey research, said business-to-business transactions accounted for roughly 60% of the estimated $390 billion in global stablecoin payment volume recorded during 2025.

DefiLlama data shows the stablecoin market has continued to expand alongside that adoption. According to the analytics platform, total stablecoin market capitalization has reached about $312.3 billion, up roughly 21.5% from $257.1 billion a year earlier, with Tether’s USDT remaining the largest stablecoin by market value.

The Hyundai pilot arrives as Tether continues investing in blockchain infrastructure and enterprise finance. As previously reported by crypto.news, the company invested $20 million in Mercado Bitcoin on July 7 to support the Brazilian digital asset platform’s expansion into tokenized assets, blockchain payments, lending and on-chain capital markets.

Tether said it is prioritizing companies that combine regulatory approvals with blockchain infrastructure capable of serving institutional demand.

Recent activity has extended beyond Latin America. During June, Tether announced plans to lead a funding round of up to $1.4 billion for German robotics company NEURA Robotics, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre on tokenization initiatives and blockchain education, and confirmed it would discontinue Alloy by Tether and its aUSDT token following a review of market demand and platform usage.

Bolivia is exploring a path to place Tether’s USDT inside its domestic payments framework, as the country searches for ways to operate in an environment where US dollars remain scarce. If the plan advances, USDT could be treated as a currency option alongside the boliviano and the US dollar—an approach aimed at supporting everyday transactions such as payments, saving, and trade.

Economy and Public Finance Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza said during a Monday press conference that the government is assessing a regulatory structure that would allow USDT to circulate “as just another currency.” However, the minister also warned that any rollout depends on strong safeguards, including anti-money laundering controls, given that Bolivia remains on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list for deficiencies related to preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.

Key takeaways

• Bolivia’s finance ministry is evaluating whether USDT can be recognized for retail use in the national payments system.
• Officials say USDT would need a comprehensive regulatory and compliance framework due to Bolivia’s FATF grey-list status.
• The proposal follows changes in Bolivia’s stance on cryptocurrencies since its long-standing ban was lifted in 2024.
• Broader demand for dollar-denominated alternatives has intensified as Bolivia struggled with a persistent US dollar shortage and exchange-rate pressures.
• Tether is likely central to the idea given USDT’s scale as the largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

USDT as “another currency” in Bolivia’s payments system

According to reporting by CriptoNoticias, the regulatory framework under review would potentially recognize USDT for everyday use, including payments and other common financial activities. The government’s stated goal is to avoid tying usage exclusively to cash or the traditional banking channel, which can be difficult in countries where liquidity constraints and currency volatility affect how people store and move value.

Espinoza’s remarks also underline that the proposal is not simply about adoption—it is about building an enforcement-ready system. With Bolivia on the FATF grey list, authorities would need to demonstrate robust controls around compliance, monitoring, and AML requirements before any wider acceptance of stablecoins could become feasible.

Why stablecoins are gaining traction: the dollar squeeze

Bolivia’s stablecoin discussions come at a time when the country has been grappling with a prolonged shortage of US dollars, which are widely used alongside the boliviano. As Reuters reported, Bolivia held an official exchange rate—6.86 bolivianos per US dollar for purchases and 6.96 for sales—from 2011 until earlier this year, when pressure on foreign-exchange reserves forced the government to abandon the long-standing peg.

Once the peg ended, a parallel foreign exchange market expanded, and the dollar traded at a premium relative to the official rate. Reuters’ coverage links that growing gap to heightened demand for dollar-denominated alternatives. In this context, stablecoins such as USDT can appear attractive because they aim to maintain a consistent value relative to the US dollar.

That dynamic helps explain why USDT—already a dominant stablecoin globally—has become part of the policy conversation. While stablecoins do not eliminate exchange-rate and liquidity issues overnight, they can change the mechanics of payments by enabling transfers that are not directly constrained by local cash availability in the same way.

Bolivia’s policy shift after the 2024 crypto ban

The USDT payments idea also fits within Bolivia’s broader move toward regulated participation in digital assets. The country lifted its long-standing ban on cryptocurrencies in 2024, opening space for new rules and institutional integration. CriptoNoticias’ framing of the USDT proposal is consistent with a wider effort to bring crypto-related tools into the formal financial sector rather than leaving them to operate solely in the shadows.

The political direction appears to have accelerated further under President Rodrigo Paz Pereira. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted that the administration, after he took office in late 2025, pledged to integrate digital assets into the formal financial system. That includes paving the way for banks to offer crypto-related products and services, potentially including stablecoin-based accounts.

USDT’s prominence is part of why it is likely to be considered first. CoinMarketCap data cited in the source notes that USDT’s market capitalization exceeds $184 billion, making it the largest stablecoin by size.

Market backdrop: adoption in Latin America and what to watch next

Bolivia is not acting in isolation. Chainalysis, in its 2025 evaluation of crypto adoption across Latin America, reported $14.8 billion in total transaction volume over a 12-month period. While that figure does not isolate Bolivia alone, it signals that stablecoin usage and broader crypto activity have found a meaningful foothold across the region.

What remains uncertain is whether Bolivia can translate its intent into implementable regulation quickly enough to affect day-to-day commerce—and whether the approach will gain institutional buy-in from banks and payment providers. The FATF grey-list constraint is a major variable: it implies that regulators must design a system that can withstand compliance scrutiny and demonstrate effective AML controls.

For users and investors, the immediate watch points are straightforward: the details of any proposed legal definition of USDT in Bolivia, the compliance obligations that would be required for institutions handling stablecoin flows, and whether pilots or limited rollouts precede any broader recognition. As Bolivia weighs stablecoin integration against its regulatory and financial constraints, the outcome could become a significant case study for how governments balance access to dollar liquidity with compliance expectations.

On Monday, several Senate Democrats announced that they’d hold a press conference this week to state their opposition to Clarity and what they said is its “failure to rein in President Donald Trump’s corrupt crypto schemes.” Senator Murphy will join senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley at that event on Capitol Hill, which will also highlight their claims that the crypto sector’s Washington influence is causing “growing political corruption.”

One of the lawmakers involved in the ethics discussions, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, recently noted that Trump’s largest single 2025 income stream, $636 million, came from issuing the memecoin that bore his name. She said that she and fellow Democrats have been pushing to make it illegal for presidents to issue or sponsor any digital assets.

“We cannot let self-dealing destroy an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections, crack down on illicit finance and expand economic opportunity for the millions of Americans our financial system has left behind,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “The time to act is now — and that must include ethics reforms that prohibit members of Congress, the president and their spouses from cashing in on their office.”

Though Clarity would need many Democrats to join with Republicans if advocates want to hit the necessary 60-vote threshold for Senate passage, Gillibrand and other Democrats have said that the bill can’t pass until this is addressed.