Tether scales crypto payments in Eastern Europe with new investment

Stablecoin giant Tether is increasing its bets on cryptocurrency adoption in Eastern Europe with additional investment in the Georgia-based crypto payment provider CityPay.io. 

Tether officially announced on May 8 the injection of additional investment into CityPay.io, a payment platform allowing users to pay for services at places like Wendy’s and Radisson Hotels with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).

The investment is designed to further strengthen CityPay.io’s expansion into Eastern Europe, focusing primarily on Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. 

As of May 2024, CityPay.io has more than 600 locations in Georgia and plans to launch its own e-wallet and card solutions in the next two years. The firm also has big ambitions to establish more than 500,000 crypto payment points throughout the designated expansion regions.

The latest funding follows Tether’s 2023 investment into CityPay.io, when Tether became one of the world’s first stablecoin firms to invest in the company.

“Our previous collaboration with CityPay.io yielded exciting results in expanding convenient cryptocurrency use across Georgia,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said, adding:

“With this second investment, we aim to build on those results and drive the adoption of cutting-edge technologies that disrupt traditional payment systems.”

CityPay.io and Tether have been closely cooperating since the stablecoin company announced its initial investment last year.

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In October 2023, CityPay.io launched the integration of Tether for payments on top of Polygon. Tether CEO Ardoino also held meetings with governmental structures in Georgia in September 2023 amid increasing its presence in the country.

In June 2023, Tether signed a memorandum of understanding with the Georgian government to develop Bitcoin and peer-to-peer infrastructure in Georgia.

A former member of the Soviet Union, Georgia has emerged as one of the world’s most crypto-friendly countries, with the local government having ambitions to make the country a major global crypto hub.

Apart from Tether, Georgia has welcomed a number of major cryptocurrency firms, including Binance, which launched a blockchain hub in the country in 2023.

Georgia is widely known for hosting a significant number of Bitcoin ATMs, which allow users to convert crypto into cash and vice versa. According to data from CoinATMRadar, Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, hosts 132 Bitcoin ATMs at the time of writing.

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