Key takeaways:
- Tether CEO says USDT adoption is rising across these countries for payments, trade and savings
- Chainalysis ranked Turkey 14th, Venezuela 18th and Argentina 20th globally for crypto adoption in 2025
- Tether says its products served more than 570 million people worldwide by March 2026, with USDT’s supply reaching a record $188 billion
Tether Chief Executive Officer, Paolo Ardoino, says USDT adoption is growing across Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and Turkey, where people are increasingly using the stablecoin for domestic payments, international trade and dollar-denominated savings.
Ardoino outlined the trend in a post on Monday, tying the growth to conditions in each country’s local financial system.
When local currencies lose value, physical dollars become difficult to access, or traditional cross-border transfers are slow and expensive, USDT offers something close to a digital dollar without requiring a U.S. bank account, according to Ardoino. He noted that people are not necessarily using the stablecoin to trade crypto.
In Venezuela, USDT is reportedly being used by businesses for retail payments and some import and export settlements.
In Bolivia, the central bank now publishes a reference USDT exchange rate based on peer-to-peer activity on Binance, a sign of how visible the stablecoin has become within the country’s local financial system.
What the adoption data shows
Chainalysis ranked Turkey 14th, Venezuela 18th and Argentina 20th globally for crypto adoption in 2025, with Venezuela climbing to ninth when adjusted for population.
Across Latin America, Chainalysis recorded nearly $1.5 trillion in crypto activity between July 2022 and June 2025, underscoring the scale of digital asset use across the region even as individual country rankings vary.
Ardoino was careful to draw a distinction between usage trends and dependency claims. While Tether says these economies rely heavily on USDT, there isn’t a single independent dataset proving that entire national economies depend on the stablecoin. Instead, the evidence points to a broader trend: dollar stablecoins are becoming increasingly useful in places where local financial systems are under pressure, rather than serving as a wholesale replacement for national currencies.
A user base approaching 600 million people
Tether’s own scale continues to expand alongside these regional trends. The company says its products served more than 570 million people worldwide by March 2026, while USDT’s reported supply reached a record $188 billion during the year.
Ardoino framed the broader shift as evidence that stablecoins are moving beyond their original purpose. Stablecoins were designed to make crypto trading easier, but in some countries, they are becoming something more basic: a way to hold dollars, pay someone and move money across borders when the traditional financial system makes all three difficult.
The open question, according to Ardoino, is not whether people in emerging markets are using stablecoins, but whether, in some of these markets, stablecoins are quietly becoming part of the financial system itself.