In September, we launched USDi with Iris, the financial network telecom operators plug into to earn on the infrastructure they already own. USDi is our AUSD digital dollar under a partner name, issued solely by Agora and backed by the same reserves as AUSD, and it now serves as the native settlement currency on the Iris Network.
The first carrier using USDi is VIVA, a licensed mobile operator that has served Bolivia for more than 25 years and recently expanded into Mexico.
VIVA now settles its network activity and holds operating reserves in USDi, alongside local currency.
The hard part of telecom is the money
Mobile operators run some of the most sophisticated networks in the world, but the friction in their business has always been on the finance side. Revenue comes in through a local currency while international vendors bill in dollars, and reconciling the two with partners can take weeks before anyone gets paid.
That gap is widest in markets like Latin America, where operators manage currency swings on top of slow cross-border settlement. These teams already know dollar settlement well and they require a solution that moves as fast as their network does.
Iris has put numbers to the imbalance: from 2012 through 2025, traffic on operator networks grew more than 50% a year, while operator revenue grew ~1% a year. Iris exists to help operators earn more from the infrastructure they built, and new revenue only moves the needle if it arrives in a dollar their finance teams can actually hold and use.
What Agora brings to the network
For a regulated operator, the first question about any digital dollar is who stands behind it. With USDi, the answer is Agora. We are a digital asset business licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority and the sole issuer of USDi. Agora’s reserves are managed by VanEck and custodied by State Street, institutions that finance teams already know and trust. That lets Iris focus on building the network and working with operators, while we take on issuance, reserves, and redemption behind the dollar they hold.
Operators on Iris can move in and out of USDi through Agora, connecting them to a larger pool of dollar liquidity. Settlement that used to take weeks now happens in seconds, and the operator keeps its existing systems, its customers, and its margin while we take care of the dollar behind it.
One dollar, many products
USDi is a good example of how enterprises are building with Agora. A partner can launch a dollar under its own name, designed around its own network, while we issue it and keep it fully reserved. Iris chose this model so the settlement asset would be part of its network’s economics from the start.
Whether it runs as AUSD or as a partner-branded dollar like USDi, the reserves and the regulated issuer behind it stay the same, and that consistency is what lets us power many products from a single foundation.
Why telecom operators need a regulated stablecoin
Telecom operators have been testing blockchain technology for years, mostly to settle roaming and interconnect charges between carriers. VIVA is going a step further by putting its own operating reserves onchain, while still holding local currency for its domestic business and customer requirements.
For us, the opportunity reaches well beyond settlement. In markets like Bolivia, the mobile carrier is often the main rail people use for everyday transactions, and access to dollars matters most where local currencies are volatile. That’s why Iris is focusing its initial expansion on Latin America, and potentially parts of Africa and Asia, and why we see VIVA as the start of something much larger.
“Latin America is where a fast, regulated dollar solves a real business problem. Operators like VIVA earn in local currency and pay the world in dollars, and they have absorbed weeks of friction just to settle up,” said Nick van Eck, CEO of Agora. “Iris opens up telecom in a way we couldn’t on our own. Jules and her team understand how operators work and what their finance teams need, and they’ve built a network that meets carriers where they are. VIVA is showing what it looks like when a licensed operator puts its own operating reserves on these rails. And with Iris, we expect more operators in the region to follow.”
What’s next
As Iris continues building out its network, USDi will be available to every operator that joins, and Iris is already in conversations with more operators around the world. Iris is backed by a $43 million, three-year commitment from Balesia Group, a family office with telecom businesses across the Americas.
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