Global payroll company Deel has expanded its DLUSD stablecoin wallet to more than 80 countries, extending a dollar-denominated payment and savings product across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific just weeks after its initial launch in Argentina.

The expansion, announced on August 17, 2026, comes about 11 weeks after Deel first introduced the wallet in Argentina. The United States, the United Kingdom, European Union countries, and Australia remain excluded.

Deel, which processes about $22 billion in annual payroll, is using the wallet to allow contractors in markets where access to dollar bank accounts can be difficult to receive, hold, and potentially earn on dollar-denominated balances within its platform.

“Get paid, then hold, earn, and spend, in DLUSD, a dollar-backed currency,” Deel said, crediting Bridge, embedded-wallet provider Privy, Tempo, Morpho, and Sentora for the product.

Three of those companies are part of Stripe. Bridge issues DLUSD through its Open Issuance platform, Privy provides the embedded wallets, and Tempo handles settlement.

Deel serves more than 35,000 customers and 1.5 million workers across more than 150 countries, according to the company’s Series E announcement, which valued Deel at $17.3 billion following a $300 million funding round led by Ribbit Capital with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Coatue. Stripe separately said in June 2026 that Deel supported more than 40,000 businesses and 1.5 million workers.

Bridge confirmed that DLUSD is issued through its Open Issuance platform.

“After getting paid through Deel, contractors can hold funds as DLUSD, Deel’s custom stablecoin issued through Bridge’s Open Issuance platform,” Bridge said.

Deel describes DLUSD somewhat differently, saying: “DLUSD is not a cryptocurrency” and calling it “a digital dollar voucher that lives inside Deel – always worth $1, always convertible back to USD, and only usable within the platform.”

DLUSD is designed to track the U.S. dollar at a 1:1 value and is redeemable for dollar value within Deel. Transfers are allowlisted at the blockchain level to verified contractors. Neither Deel nor Bridge has reportedly published reserve attestations for DLUSD.

Deel said contractors can move their wallet balance back to their Deel balance instantly with no costs, minimum holding period, or lock-up. The company said the funds remain accessible and can subsequently follow its existing withdrawal process.

The product is aimed particularly at workers in countries where local-currency volatility can materially erode earnings. Deel said salaries paid in local currencies in markets such as Argentina and Turkey can lose 20% to 40% of their value against the dollar in a single year.

In 2025, 85% of Deel contractors in Argentina wanted to be paid in U.S. dollars rather than Argentine pesos.

The wallet also allows contractors to opt into an earn feature with promotional returns of up to 4% annually.

Deel’s initial promotional target was “up to 4% APY,” which the company described as “variable, not guaranteed, and driven by market conditions.” The rewards are generated through Morpho vaults deployed on Tempo rather than directly by DLUSD’s issuer.

The structure is significant because the U.S. GENIUS Act prohibits permitted payment stablecoin issuers from paying holders interest or yield. Regulators have reportedly not yet determined whether an arrangement in which a related third party provides the rewards complies with that prohibition.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) proposed a rule in March 2026 that would create a rebuttable presumption that an issuer is paying interest when a “related third party” pays yield to stablecoin holders. The statutory prohibition is scheduled to take effect on January 18, 2027, while the OCC proposal has not yet become a final rule.

Deel itself describes the rewards as promotional incentives rather than yield, interest, or investment returns and says reward rates are variable and not guaranteed.

Data cited by the Tokenized podcast showed that 74% of payout recipients deposited funds into the earn product, 85% of those deposits remained after 30 days, and about 60% of eligible users were actively earning.

The wallet is built around several components of Stripe’s cryptocurrency infrastructure. When an employer pays Deel, Stripe handles direct-debit collection and fraud screening. Bridge then converts U.S. dollar funds into DLUSD, which is issued through Bridge’s Open Issuance platform and deposited into an embedded Privy wallet inside the Deel application.

Transactions settle on Tempo, a stablecoin-focused blockchain designed for payments, with the expansion giving the blockchain a major enterprise use case only months after its mainnet launch.

“The mechanics of Tempo, Bridge and Privy are invisible to the contractor,” Stripe said when announcing the partnership.

Contractors instead see their earnings arrive in their Deel account and accumulate in a dollar-denominated balance.

“Contractors want dollar-backed pay they can hold, earn on and spend without leaving the platform. Stripe’s stablecoin stack gives us the infrastructure to make that happen, simply and compliantly, at scale,” said Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel.

Henri Stern, CEO of Privy, said: “Deel is at the forefront of stablecoin innovation, using the stack to grow their global capabilities with ease and give contractors new superpowers.”

The product is also intended to eventually allow contractors to spend their DLUSD directly through the Deel Card. Deel said the card is coming later in 2026.

The broader rollout comes as stablecoins increasingly move beyond crypto trading into payroll, payments, and cross-border financial services. The International Monetary Fund estimated that stablecoin transactions in 2024 totaled about $2.019 trillion across roughly 138 million transactions, with Africa and the Middle East accounting for stablecoin flows equivalent to 6.7% of regional GDP.

For Deel, the expansion puts stablecoins directly inside a payroll platform used by workers in more than 80 markets, potentially reducing the need for contractors to move money through exchanges or separate dollar accounts to protect earnings from local-currency volatility.

The bigger significance is that DLUSD is less a conventional crypto product than an attempt to turn a stablecoin into a payroll balance operating largely behind the scenes.