Tether and Georgia to Launch GEL₮ Stablecoin Pegged to Lari

Key insights:

• Tether plans for GELT, a stablecoin pegged to the Georgian lari.
• The project is one of the first joint efforts to place a national currency on digital rails.
• Tether’s USDT market capitalization now sits close to $190 billion.

Tether announced plans on May 25 to launch GELT, a stablecoin pegged to the Georgian lari, through a partnership with the Government of Georgia. The initiative places Georgia among the earliest countries working with a major stablecoin issuer to create regulated blockchain-based versions of national currencies.

The move also arrived as Tether’s USDT circulation approached $190 billion, reinforcing the company’s growing role across global payment infrastructure, tokenized finance, and digital settlement systems.

The GELT initiative follows several years of legislative and regulatory preparation by the Georgian government and the National Bank of Georgia. Authorities have developed digital asset rules covering reserve standards, redemption rights, anti-money-laundering compliance, and issuer oversight.

Officials said the framework was designed to remain compatible with emerging U.S. stablecoin regulation and broader international standards.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the partnership could strengthen Georgia’s financial infrastructure and improve integration with digital payment systems.

National Bank of Georgia President Natia Turnava said cooperation with Tether aligned with the country’s strategy of building internationally compatible financial technology infrastructure.

Authorities have already explored blockchain-linked financial services in previous pilots. Georgia previously enabled tax payments through systems converting digital assets into local currency during settlement.

The GELT stablecoin is designed to support near-instant settlement, lower transaction costs, and programmable financial transactions across digital payment systems.

The GELT partnership comes as Tether’s core USDT token sits at record scale. The company’s Q1 2026 attestation, certified by BDO, reported $191.8 billion in total assets against $183.5 billion in liabilities, with an $8.23 billion reserve buffer above the tokens in circulation.

USDT circulation reached $183 billion by March 2026, with the market capitalization now approaching $190 billion.

The reserves are fully collateralized in liquid assets. Direct and indirect exposure to United States Treasury bills came to approximately $141 billion, with physical gold holdings at around $20 billion and Bitcoin holdings at around $7 billion.

The breakdown puts roughly 74 percent of reserves in Treasuries, 11 percent in gold, 4 percent in Bitcoin, and the remainder in other liquid assets.

Tether reported $1.04 billion in profit for the first quarter of 2026. CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company keeps the structure of USDT simple, liquid, and resilient by design, with the goal of a system that behaves the same way in any market condition.

The GELT launch capped a busy month of stablecoin activity for Tether. On May 14, the T3 Financial Crime Unit, backed by Tether and TRON, froze nearly $450 million in illicit USDT transactions.

Four days later, Tether invested in remittance platform LemFi to expand cross-border USDT payments across emerging markets in Africa and Asia.

By May 20, the company had acquired SoftBank’s stake in Bitcoin miner Twenty One Capital, extending its expansion into mining infrastructure.

The mining push follows the April 2026 release of Tether’s open-source Mining Development Kit, a toolkit that standardizes and automates Bitcoin mining operations.

Tether also issues stablecoins pegged to other currencies, including the euro, Mexican peso, offshore Chinese yuan, and UAE dirham, with GELT adding the Georgian lari to that set.

The GELT rollout also comes as regulators tighten oversight around stablecoins globally.

In the United States, the GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, established the country’s first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law requires issuers to maintain anti-money-laundering compliance and technical controls capable of freezing or burning tokens under legal orders.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework fully took effect on March 31, 2025, forcing several exchanges to halt USDT services for European users.

Meanwhile, regulators in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea continue building separate licensing systems for stablecoin issuers.

Law enforcement agencies have also expanded blockchain surveillance operations. In Feb. 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice seized roughly $61 million in USDT linked to a fraud network, with Tether later confirming cooperation with investigators.

The post Stablecoin News: Tether, Georgia Government to Launch GEL₮ Stablecoin appeared first on The Market Periodical.