Sorted Wallet has raised $4.4 million in a seed round co-led by Tether and Gnosis. Movement, Angel Invest and several angel investors, including the founders of RWA.io, also joined the round. The project is focused on a user base that much of crypto has historically ignored: people using low-cost smartphones and feature phones in emerging markets.

Sorted’s core idea is to make Bitcoin and USDt usable where banking access is limited, mobile data is expensive and modern smartphones are not guaranteed. The team says the app is around 10 MB, works across feature phones and smartphones, and has already passed 500,000 downloads in more than 160 countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Bangladesh.

For Tether, the investment fits a broader push to position USDT as a tool for everyday payments and remittances, not only crypto trading. In 2024, Tether had already invested $1.5 million in Sorted Wallet, citing financial inclusion across Africa and Southern Asia as a key goal.

The new funding will support expansion across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, along with deeper integrations with telecom and mobile money operators. For the stablecoin market, the signal is clear: the next phase of adoption may come less from exchanges and more from low-cost transfers, digital-dollar savings and basic financial access on any phone.