Tether Leads Mural's $15M Raise: Stablecoins for AI-Run Finances
Mural's Tether Series A funds AI agents that move money on stablecoin rails. See what it means for payables and what to ask before you sign up.
Photo: Pixabay
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Key takeaways
- Mural sells infrastructure to fintechs, not to merchants, so you'd most likely meet it inside a payroll, payout or payables app. Your due diligence has to reach the layer underneath that app.
- A provider's investors don't tell you which stablecoins or banks it uses. Get those answers in the contract.
- Onchain stablecoin transfers have no chargeback or ACH-style return process. Payee lists, caps and approvals have to be in place before an agent sends any money.
- Lock down changes to a payee's payment details before anything else. Fake payment-detail updates can fool an agent as easily as a person.
Mural, a New York payments infrastructure company, has raised a $15 million Series A led by Tether, the company that issues the USDT stablecoin. The money goes toward accounts that AI agents can use to move money within limits a business sets. The company announced the round on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, and The Paypers reported Mural's Tether-led Series A on Oct. 26. For U.S. merchants, it's an early look at back-office software that pays suppliers and collects from customers over both bank and stablecoin rails. It's also a reason to check who stands behind any provider before it holds your operating cash.
What Mural's Tether Series a Includes
North Island Ventures and existing investors also put money into the round. It brings Mural's total funding to $28 million, according to CoinDesk's report on the announcement. Fortune's reporting, as summarized by CryptoRank, adds three details: the total includes a $5 million seed round in 2022, Mural declined to disclose its valuation, and the company has about 30 employees with offices in New York, Denver and Bogotá. Former Palantir engineers Sinclair Toffa and Chris Fernandes founded it in 2022. According to The Paypers, the money will pay for global expansion and for the regulatory and payments infrastructure needed to scale financial services that AI agents can use.
Mural doesn't process card payments for merchants. It sells infrastructure to fintechs and software platforms, which build their own products on top of it. Citybiz reports that the platform combines accounts, payments, identity checks, permissions and compliance across bank relationships, local payment networks and blockchain rails. The announcement names Deel, Opera and Axexo as customers. They use Mural for payroll, remittances and cross-border transfers from one account that can hold dollars, stablecoins and local currencies.
Mural says it has processed $2.1 billion for end users in 128 countries since launching its API in 2025. It also says its 2026 volume so far is nearly six times its 2025 total. Those are company figures, not audited ones.
The practical point for a business owner is that you probably won't sign a contract with Mural directly. You'd meet it, or a company like it, inside a payroll app, a marketplace payout tool or an accounts-payable product you already use. So your due diligence has to reach past the app to the infrastructure underneath.
What Agentic Finance Means for a Merchant's Back Office
CoinDesk describes agentic finance as AI systems that start and carry out transactions for people or businesses. Its better-known cousin is agentic commerce, where AI shopping agents buy from your store. Agentic finance points the same technology at your payables and receivables.
On the payables side, an agent could read a supplier invoice and match it to the purchase order and receiving record. It could then confirm the vendor is on your approved list and schedule payment on whichever rail meets the due date at the lowest cost. On receivables, it could send reminders, match incoming payments to open invoices, and flag short payments for a person to review.
Stablecoins mostly come into play for cross-border money. A stablecoin transfer can settle outside banking hours and doesn't pass through a chain of correspondent banks. That's why our explainer on how USDC settlement works for merchants focuses on international use. If a domestic supplier is happy with ACH, a stablecoin adds little. The businesses with the most to gain are:
- wholesalers paying overseas manufacturers
- marketplaces paying sellers in other countries
- e-commerce stores with offshore fulfillment partners
AI Business Weekly reports that businesses using Mural can set transaction limits, restrict who they pay and require extra approvals for larger payments. As Causeartist describes the company's argument, agents need those same limits, enforced automatically. Mural also offers a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, a standard connector that lets developers plug AI agents into its platform.
Why a Stablecoin Issuer Backs a Payments Startup
An issuer like Tether earns income on the reserves backing the tokens in circulation. When more tokens are held and moved, the reserve base grows. That makes platforms where businesses keep balances, and where software moves money all day, attractive distribution channels. CoinDesk framed the deal as part of Tether's push into agentic finance. CryptoRank's summary of Fortune says Tether described the investment partly as a bet on payments made by AI agents.
Many people assume a Tether-backed company runs on USDT. That doesn't follow: a provider's investor list doesn't tell you which rails it uses. None of the announcements we reviewed say which stablecoins Mural's customers hold or whether USDT gets any preference. A Tether-backed company might move mostly dollars over bank rails, or several different stablecoins. Ask, and get the answer in the contract.
Counterparty and Compliance Questions to Ask a Stablecoin-Linked Provider
Senators have raised questions about Tether's U.S. activity, which we covered in Senate probes Tether's U.S. payments. Investing in a company is not the same as running it, and nothing in the Mural announcement suggests Tether runs Mural. Still, an issuer's regulatory standing can affect which tokens a provider can offer U.S. customers and how its banks view the relationship. Our GENIUS Act explainer on what stablecoin law means for merchants covers the federal framework. Before any stablecoin-linked tool holds your money, get written answers to these questions:
- Who legally holds each balance? Ask for the name of the bank or licensed company holding dollar balances, and the custodian holding stablecoin balances. A stablecoin is a claim on its issuer, not a bank deposit. Ask plainly whether any part of your balance is a deposit at an FDIC-insured bank.
- Which tokens, and can you opt out? Find out what happens to your balance if a token you hold becomes restricted for U.S. users.
- How fast can you redeem to dollars? Get the cutoff time, the fee and the bank account the dollars land in.
- Whose licenses cover you? Mural says it handles the licenses and bank relationships for the platforms built on it, per CoinMarketCap's report. Ask the app you actually use which company holds the money transmission licenses for your state.
- Who screens counterparties? Agents paying overseas wallets need sanctions screening. Our guide to OFAC sanctions screening for online sellers covers what to check and who is liable.
- What happens if a partner bank or the provider exits? Ask how your balances would be returned and how long it would take.
This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm licensing and tax treatment with a qualified attorney or accountant.
Set Agent Permissions Before an AI Moves Your Money
Card payments come with chargebacks, and ACH payments have a returns process. An onchain stablecoin transfer has neither. Getting a mistaken payment back depends largely on the recipient. That means the controls you set before the agent runs matter more than anything you can do afterward.
Here's an illustrative policy. Assume a wholesale distributor has $180,000 in monthly payables across 40 vendors. Six of those vendors are overseas suppliers who invoice in a stablecoin, and they account for $36,000 a month.
| Control | Illustrative setting | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Approved payees | Only vendors in the AP master file | Payments to made-up vendors |
| New or changed payment details | Human approval plus a callback to a known phone number | Fraudsters swapping bank or wallet details |
| Per-payment cap | $5,000 without a second approval | One large error |
| Daily cap | $15,000 across all rails | A runaway agent emptying the account |
| Rail rule | Stablecoin only for the six overseas vendors | Unnecessary onchain exposure |
| Stablecoin balance cap | Half a month of overseas payables, or $18,000 | Concentration in one token or provider |
The arithmetic: half of $36,000 is $18,000, so this business never keeps more than about two weeks of overseas bills in stablecoins. Because of the daily cap, a hacked or badly configured agent can lose no more than $15,000 in a day, not the whole balance. That's still real money, so pair the caps with same-day alerts on every agent payment.
The payee-change rule matters most. Fake updates to payment details are one of the oldest tricks in accounts payable, and a convincing email can fool an agent just as it fools a tired clerk. Our breakdown of social engineering lessons for merchants shows how those requests arrive.
What Merchants Should Watch Next
Three things will decide whether stablecoin finance run by AI agents reaches small businesses:
- whether infrastructure firms like Mural disclose which tokens and banks sit behind their accounts
- how congressional scrutiny of Tether and the rollout of federal stablecoin rules play out
- how the card networks build their own agent payment programs, such as Mastercard Agent Pay for machine-to-machine payments
For most merchants, cards are still how customers pay today. If you sell to buyers overseas, MannyPay's international payment processing covers multi-currency acceptance and settlement review, and our online payment solutions handle e-commerce checkout. A specialist replies to free quote requests within one business day.
Before you turn on any AI tool that can send money, write your own version of the permissions table above. Then ask the vendor to show you where in the product each limit is enforced. If they can't, the tool isn't ready to hold your money.
Sources
- The Paypers: Mural raises USD 15M Series A led by Tether for agentic finance (Oct. 26, 2026)
- CoinDesk: Tether leads $15 million funding round for AI-focused payment startup Mural (Oct. 21, 2026)
- CryptoRank: Stablecoin payments startup Mural raises $15M Series A led by Tether (summarizing Fortune)
- CoinMarketCap Academy: Tether Leads $15M Series A for Fintech Infrastructure Startup Mural
- Citybiz: Mural Raises $15 Million Series A Led by Tether, Bringing Funding to $28 Million
- AI Business Weekly: Mural Raises $15M Series A Led by Tether for AI Payments
- Causeartist: Mural Raises $28M to Build Rails for Fintechs and AI Agents
This article is for general educational purposes and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Card network rules and state laws change; confirm current requirements for your business.
