The world’s largest stablecoin issuer, Tether, is venturing deeper into artificial intelligence with a number of AI applications in development, according to the firm’s chief executive.
Tether’s AI division, Tether Data, is developing a number of AI apps, such as AI Translate, AI Voice Assistant, and AI Bitcoin Wallet Assistant, according to a Feb. 4 announcement from CEO Paolo Ardoino.
“Tether will soon launch its own AI SDK [software development kit] platform, open-source, built upon Bare, working on every hardware, from embedded devices, any mobile phone, any laptop, powerful servers, clusters of servers,” he added.
Further details were thin but Ardoino said that Tether Data’s apps “will focus on working locally on any device, full privacy, self-custodial for both data and money.”
In the demo for the AI Bitcoin Wallet Assistant, a user asked the “Payment Agent” what their BTC wallet address was before querying about the BTC balance.
The demo also showed the user asking what recipients they had in their address book before requesting the agent send a small amount of BTC to one of them.
The entire process was conducted through the AI chatbot interface and carried out autonomously.
Tether’s AI Translate was a simple AI chatbot translation tool and AI Voice Assistant involved the chatbot responding to voice inputs rather than text.
Tether’s AI ambitions were evident back in 2023 when the firm acquired a stake in European crypto miner Northern Data Group, which specializes in cloud computing and generative AI.
In March, Tether further expanded its AI operations with a global recruitment drive for top-tier talent, telling Cointelegraph at the time that it “plans to push the boundaries of AI technology,” and set “new industry standards for innovation and utility.”
In December, Ardoino said he “just got the draft of the site for Tether’s AI platform,” before adding that the firm was targeting a launch at the end of Q1, 2025.
On Jan. 31, Tether announced record-breaking profits of $13 billion in 2024 and revealed having a larger-than-ever stockpile of US government bonds. Tether’s US Treasury portfolio is now worth approximately $113 billion, it stated.
Meanwhile, its stablecoin is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which is at an all-time high of $141 billion, following the issuance of another billion dollars worth on Feb. 5.
