Tether, the company behind the world's largest stablecoin, is actively discussing a lari-pegged token informally called GELT. There's no official launch yet — but the talks alone are forcing hard questions in Tbilisi. Georgia already runs a digital lari CBDC pilot through the National Bank of Georgia, and USDT is widely used for crypto trading and cross-border payments. A private lari stablecoin would make it three rails, not two.
The three-rail scenario
If GELT launches, Georgia could end up with a public CBDC (the digital lari), a private lari stablecoin (GELT), and plain USDT for everything else. Each is a different beast. The digital lari is a central bank liability — basically digital cash. GELT and USDT are private instruments backed by commercial reserves. All three have issuer blacklisting and freeze functions, but they differ wildly in access, interoperability, and who controls the money supply. That's a lot of payment rails for a country of 3.7 million people.
Reserves and backing
Tether's existing non-dollar stablecoins — EURt, CNHt, MXNt — give a rough blueprint. A lari token would likely be 1:1 backed, with reserves held in Georgian banks or a mix of GEL and foreign-currency liquid assets. Issuance and redemption would run through banks, with standard KYC and AML checks. On the tech side, it'd probably land on Tron and Ethereum, the chains where Tether already has deep liquidity. That's the easy part.
Policy choices ahead
The harder part is coexistence. Introducing a private lari token while the National Bank is still piloting its own digital currency forces choices about monetary control, consumer protection, and competition. The central bank doesn't need a rival stablecoin eating into its CBDC adoption before the pilot even ends. At the same time, a GEL-pegged token could make remittances and dollar-denominated trade cheaper for Georgians — if the authorities let it breathe. No one's said yes yet. But the fact that Tether is even discussing it means the conversation has started.
