MiniPay, the stablecoin wallet developed by the Opera web browser on the Celo network—a network optimized for mobile payments—announced a new feature that will allow users to pay with tether (USDT) directly at merchants in Argentina and Brazil.
The official presentation took place during the Devconnect in Buenos Aires, currently underway, where Opera confirmed that its “Pay like a local” tool is now available to more than 10 million users. The proposal allows you to link balances in digital dollars with the most widespread virtual payment systems in the Southern Cone: PIX, dominant in Brazil, and Mercado Pago, absolute leader in Argentina.
In this way, MiniPay will make it easier to scan local QR codes and pay USDT directly from your walleteliminating the need to go through centralized exchanges or perform manual conversions.
The processing behind the experience is handled by Noah, the infrastructure company responsible for performing the instant conversion to local currency. Thus, businesses receive Argentine pesos or Brazilian reals without having to modify their traditional collection flows.
From Opera, its global communications director, Julia Szyndzielorz, declared that this functionality represents a concrete step towards the real utility of digital assets, moving away from a speculative approach.
Although PIX QR payment is not yet enabled, the company announced that it will arrive in a future update. Besides, the function will not be limited to the southern hemisphere of the continent. According to Szyndzielorz, “Pay like a local” will expand to new markets in the coming months.
On the other hand, the Argentine wallet Takenos also took advantage of Devconnect to enable QR payments. As reported by CriptoNoticias, the functionality was launched after detecting that thousands of foreign visitors could not open local bank accounts and were forced to operate with unfavorable exchange rates.