On Thursday, stablecoin issuer Tether announced that it plans to make USDT, the largest stablecoin by market cap, available at around 24,000 ATMs in Brazil from 3rd November.
Brazilian crypto services provider Smartpay will enable the rollout through TecBan – a local firm that owns and operates 24,000 ATMs under the Banco24Horas brand name.
“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, CTO of Tether.
“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.”
Crypto users in Brazil will be able to convert the local currency, Brazilian real (R$), into USDT and vice versa almost instantaneously and transfer their USDT globally through the ATMs.
The announcement cites a survey carried out in January 2021 by Instituto Locomotiva that revealed the country still has 34 million unbanked adults – people without a regular bank account or people who have a bank account but use it rarely.
Tether believes the USDT integration with Smartpay will create an opportunity for millions of people from the nation to use digital currency and become a part of the new financial revolution.
Cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins, are quite popular in the Latin American markets, having amassed millions of users. According to Tether, Brazilians transacted over $1.4 billion in USDT across 79,836 transactions in August.
The Brazilian economy was reeling under high inflation for most of the year, cooling down to around 8.7% in August. Some in the country believe cryptocurrencies can be a good hedge against inflation.
