On July 16, Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, invested $20 million in Argentine digital bank Ualá, which has over 11 million customers in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, offering services such as accounts, cards, loans, and investments. This investment is part of a $197 million funding round announced by Ualá in March, led by Allianz X, with a post-money valuation of $3.2 billion, which means Tether holds approximately 0.6% of the company. Ualá's CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri stated that current regulatory frameworks in Argentina and Mexico hinder the potential integration of USDT, and Tether is participating in this funding round solely as a financial investor. Recently, Tether has been increasing its presence in South America: in April, it led a $14 million funding round for Argentine payment wallet Belo; it holds about 70% of Adecoagro, an agricultural and energy producer operating in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay; and earlier this month, it invested $20 million in Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin. Tether extracts excess capital for investments from the earnings generated by its USDT reserve assets, which currently has a circulation of $184 billion and achieved a net profit of $1.04 billion in the first quarter of this year.