Telecom operators built the roads the digital economy runs on. As they find new ways to earn from those networks, a question lands on the finance team's desk: what happens to the money once it’s earned? Operators collect revenue in local markets, buy goods and services across borders and keep enough local currency on hand to run the business. The currency in which a new revenue line settles affects what the operator can do with it.
When we launched Iris, I wrote about the imbalance behind that image. Operators built the networks and customer relationships while other companies captured more of the value created there. From 2012 through 2025, traffic on operator networks grew more than 50% a year while operator revenue grew about 1% a year1. We want operators to earn on the infrastructure they built. For that to mean something on a balance sheet, the revenue has to arrive in a form they can hold, account for and use.
Iris settles in USDi, a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Agora. It gives Iris members a common dollar for activity on the network. The choice of currency is part of the business model because an operator needs to know what it will receive and who is responsible for the dollar it holds.
The currency is part of the revenue decision
Say an operator turns on an advertising revenue line using the customer relationship and distribution it already runs. A subscriber opens the operator's app and sees an ad on a surface the operator controls. Authorized partners can verify delivery without taking a copy of the operator's customer data, and revenue from the campaign can settle in USDi. The commercial team can judge whether the product earns. Finance can account for the dollar proceeds alongside domestic expenses, international obligations and existing treasury policies.
Operators work across currencies even when most of their customers live in one country. Network equipment, software and other international obligations can be priced in dollars. Domestic wages and customer obligations still call for local currency. Each conversion takes time and has a cost. If you’re trying to make a new revenue line work, the currency it lands in matters as much as the number at the top of the report.
An operator can begin with advertising and add other products as the results justify them. If payments or commerce follow, those uses can settle in USDi too. Finance would see proceeds from each use in the same dollar asset while still keeping local currency for domestic obligations. Adding a product shouldn’t require a new currency arrangement each time the operator finds another way to earn.
A finance team may ultimately want some of those proceeds in a local bank account to meet domestic obligations. Activity on the operator's network can happen outside banking hours. USDi lets that activity settle in dollars on Iris when it occurs, and an operator can hold the resulting dollar asset as part of its reserves. Moving cash into a local bank account still follows banking hours. The finance team can plan the transfer separately from the settlement of the new revenue line.
Who stands behind the dollar
In 2021, I wrote about the way AWS let technology companies use servers without building data centers of their own, and how specialist financial infrastructure was opening similar possibilities for new businesses. The same logic applies to Iris. Issuing a dollar asset means taking responsibility for licensing, reserves and redemption.
Agora issues USDi under a Bermuda Monetary Authority Class F digital asset license. USDi is fully reserved in dollars and attested monthly, and Agora publishes its reserve structure. Agora's infrastructure supports redemption at par for eligible verified customers.
What VIVA is doing today
VIVA, a licensed mobile operator in Bolivia, is the first operator live on Iris. It settles transactions in USDi and holds operating reserves in dollars alongside the local currency it needs for domestic operations.
VIVA shows why the decision can begin with one operator. The carrier settles transactions through Iris without waiting for a wider group of carriers to adopt the same system. Another operator can evaluate the approach against its own business, starting with the revenue line it wants to turn on and the balances it needs to hold.
If you run an operator, you know a promising new revenue line has to survive the trip from the commercial plan to the balance sheet. The operators who built the roads should get to build the city too, and that starts with settling new revenue in a dollar they can hold, account for and use.
Sources
1 McKinsey & Company, Issue Brief: AI infrastructure, February 2026