Tether and Georgia outlined a lari-backed stablecoin plan

Tether announced plans on May 25, 2026 to introduce GEL₮, a stablecoin representing the Georgian lari, with support from the Government of Georgia. The proposal placed a private stablecoin issuer alongside national officials in an effort to build blockchain-based infrastructure around a sovereign currency.

The development mattered because it went beyond another dollar-token deployment. If authorized and launched as described, GEL₮ would test whether a privately issued, locally denominated stablecoin could operate within a national regulatory framework while supporting payments, remittances and cross-border commerce.

It was still a plan, however—not a completed launch. No tokens were shown as issued on May 25, and Tether did not disclose the blockchain networks, reserve custodian, redemption process, launch date or initial supply.

What was established on May 25

Tether described GEL₮ as a digital representation of the Georgian lari and said further information about its structure, rollout and regulatory implementation would come later. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze expressed support for the broader partnership in Tether’s announcement, while National Bank President Natia Turnava endorsed collaboration with digital-finance innovators.

A separate National Bank record confirmed that Turnava met Tether founder Giancarlo Devasini, Chief Executive Paolo Ardoino and Vice President Marco Dal Lago on May 25. According to the bank’s Georgian-language account, the meeting covered Georgia’s regulatory environment for virtual assets and its objective of enabling stable virtual assets to be issued in a secure and transparent setting.

The central bank’s notice did not itself announce that GEL₮ had received approval. Contemporaneous Reuters reporting also found that the officials quoted by Tether supported Tether or financial innovation generally but did not directly describe the token. Reuters reported that the precise nature of the government’s involvement remained unclear.

That distinction limits the event-day claim: Tether announced a government-supported plan, while the surviving public record did not establish a completed authorization or a jointly issued government instrument.

The regulatory framework behind the proposal

Georgia’s framework had taken effect before the announcement. National Bank Order No. 52/04, dated March 6, 2026, created rules for stablecoin offerings by registered virtual-asset service providers.

The order defined a lari stablecoin as one backed principally by Georgian lari. It required prior written consent from the National Bank before a stablecoin offering in Georgia and required an issuer to maintain reserve assets worth at least 100% of the stablecoins in circulation. The rules also assigned the issuer responsibility for managing reserves and redeeming tokens at nominal value on request.

Those requirements supplied a regulatory path, not automatic approval for GEL₮. They also did not independently prove that Tether had deposited lari reserves, completed registration or satisfied the bank’s operating conditions by May 25.

Why the institutional line mattered

Calling GEL₮ an “official” stablecoin risked blurring the difference between a private liability and central-bank money. On the evidence available May 25, GEL₮ was proposed by Tether under a national supervisory framework. The public materials did not establish that it was a central bank digital currency, legal tender or a direct liability of the National Bank of Georgia.

The proposal nevertheless showed how stablecoin policy was moving from general licensing debates toward currency-specific projects. Georgia was positioning regulatory clarity as a way to attract digital-asset infrastructure, while Tether was testing whether its issuance model could extend beyond globally traded dollar tokens into a smaller domestic currency.

The commercial case remained unproven. Demand, liquidity, transaction costs, wallet support and actual use in payments or remittances could only be measured after authorization and issuance.

Later context

On May 27, 2026, Georgian business publication BM.GE reported that the National Bank had confirmed receipt of Tether’s registration application and that review was underway. That later report clarifies the procedural status but does not change the May 25 record: the event-day development was an announced plan awaiting regulatory completion, not a live stablecoin launch.