Tether Backs AI Infrastructure Firm AIsa as Circle Targets 40 Developing Markets Amid Surge in Stablecoin Utility

The intersection of artificial intelligence, blockchain infrastructure, and global payments is undergoing a rapid evolution, marked by significant capital inflows and aggressive global expansion strategies from major industry players. Today in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, enterprise artificial intelligence platform AIsa announced the successful completion of its seed extension funding round, welcoming stablecoin issuer Tether and HIVEN as strategic investors. Simultaneously, stablecoin giant Circle is casting its net wider across the globe, with Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire revealing plans to expand operations into approximately 40 developing markets. These developments run parallel to newly released data highlighting the profound economic efficiencies of stablecoin-powered remittances, which continue to undercut traditional financial rails by staggering margins, particularly in emerging economies.

Tether Backs AIsa as Strategic Investor, Completing Seed Extension Round

AIsa, an enterprise artificial intelligence infrastructure startup, has officially closed its seed extension funding round, securing crucial backing from high-profile strategic investors Tether and HIVEN. This latest capital injection pushes AIsa’s total cumulative funding past the $9 million threshold. The two newly announced participants join an already impressive roster of backers that includes Alibaba, Tribe Capital, Sumitomo Corporation, Draper Associates, and Saison Capital, alongside several other prominent institutional investors.

The rapid maturation of artificial intelligence has shifted industry focus from simple conversational assistants to complex, autonomous agents capable of executing tasks in live production environments. However, scaling these systems presents distinct infrastructural hurdles, particularly regarding how AI agents discover, access, and pay for digital resources securely.

"Enterprise AI agents need trusted information, useful tools and a governed way to transact," said Jordan Liu, founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based AIsa, in a public statement released on Friday. "Our vision is to build the infrastructure that enables agents to discover, access and pay for resources globally, while giving enterprises full control over permissions, spending and transactions. We are excited to welcome Tether and HIVEN as strategic investors as we accelerate the transition from AI assistants to autonomous, production-ready agents."

In the current technological landscape, enterprise AI agents frequently struggle to operate effectively at scale due to fragmented service providers, complex software integrations, and disparate billing systems. AIsa aims to resolve these operational bottlenecks by centralizing resource discovery, access management, and financial transactions into a single, governed, usage-based framework known as the Trusted Resource and Transaction Network for Enterprise AI Agents.

By utilizing this infrastructure, enterprise-grade AI agents can seamlessly connect to external databases, artificial intelligence search engines, foundational machine learning models, application programming interfaces, specialized software tools, and various industry services. Crucially, the platform merges this access with real-time usage metering, automated billing, and secure settlement mechanisms, addressing key enterprise concerns around compliance, security, and cost control. The addition of Tether—the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization—as a strategic investor underscores the growing convergence between automated machine-to-machine transactions and blockchain-based settlement rails.

Circle’s Allaire Says Stablecoin Issuer Looking to Enter 40 Developing Markets: Report

While AI infrastructure networks build the plumbing for autonomous machine transactions, major stablecoin issuers are aggressively scaling their human-facing payment rails to capture surging global demand. Circle, the issuer behind USD Coin, is actively seeking to expand its footprint into approximately 40 developing markets, according to company CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire.

Speaking to reporters on Friday on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings held in Bangkok, Allaire highlighted the structural shift currently occurring within the digital asset ecosystem.

"We’re kind of going through an inflection point…a transition right now, and that transition is essentially moving from the early adopter phase of blockchain technology into the mainstream scaling phase," Allaire told Reuters during the event.

As digital asset adoption matures, emerging economies are experiencing a sharp increase in demand for stablecoins. Businesses and individuals across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East are increasingly turning to dollar-pegged digital assets to bypass local banking limitations, hedge against domestic currency volatility, and gain seamless entry into the broader internet-based economic system. Circle’s strategic push into roughly 40 new developing regions reflects this grassroots demand, positioning the issuer to capture a significant share of the next wave of global blockchain adoption as stablecoins transition from speculative trading instruments to foundational layers of international commerce.

Stablecoin Remittances Cost 84% Less Than Traditional Transfers, Borderless Finds

The macroeconomic utility driving Circle’s global expansion plans is further quantified by new empirical data illustrating the dramatic cost savings and efficiency gains offered by stablecoin-based payment networks. According to a comprehensive third-quarter report published by cross-border payments network Borderless.xyz, stablecoin-funded remittances are roughly 84% cheaper than traditional legacy money transfer methods.

The report reveals that sending a standard $200 remittance through stablecoin payment rails incurs a median cost of just $2, representing approximately 1% of the total transfer value. In stark contrast, traditional remittance methods for the same amount cost a median of $12.72, or roughly 6.36%. These comparative figures were calculated using Borderless proprietary pricing data from the third quarter of 2026, measured against World Bank benchmark datasets from the corresponding period of the previous year.

The financial advantages of utilizing blockchain-based rails were found to be particularly pronounced in developing and emerging markets, where traditional banking infrastructure is often prohibitively expensive or difficult to access. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, stablecoin remittances carried a total cost of 2.9%, compared to a much higher 8.46% for conventional money transfer channels. Similarly, in Latin America, the respective costs stood at 1.25% for stablecoin transfers versus 5.64% for traditional alternatives.

Corporate entities and international businesses also stand to reap substantial rewards from this technological shift. The Borderless report noted that a $10,000 stablecoin-funded transfer directed to the eurozone can cost as little as $26. This is a dramatic reduction when compared to the $135 to $150 typically charged for a standard international bank wire, a figure that heavily factors in hidden foreign-exchange markups and intermediary bank fees.

Beyond direct cost reductions, stablecoin-based payouts demonstrated superior settlement speeds across multiple regional corridors. In Latin American markets such as Brazil and Colombia, stablecoin transactions achieved a median settlement time of just two minutes. In Mexico, settlements were completed in a median time of three minutes. This stands in sharp contrast to traditional SWIFT-based international transfers, which routinely require an entire business day—or longer—to fully clear and settle.

Despite these clear advantages, the report also highlighted existing infrastructural challenges and variances in reliability across different jurisdictions. While payment completion rates reached an impressive 98.6% in Mexico, that figure dropped significantly to 73% in Costa Rica. This disparity underscores the uneven state of local regulatory frameworks, banking integrations, and last-mile payout infrastructure across different developing regions, pointing to both the immense potential and the operational complexities that lie ahead for companies looking to scale blockchain-powered finance globally.