Tether Bets Big on AI—Because Stablecoins Weren’t Controversial Enough

Tether—the company behind crypto’s most-used stablecoin—just jumped into the AI arms race with ’Tether.AI.’ No details yet, but expect a mix of hype, skepticism, and Wall Street eye-rolls.

Why now? Probably because printing digital dollars wasn’t keeping the lawyers busy enough. The move follows BlackRock’s AI pivot—because nothing says ’trust us’ like two volatile industries merging into one.

Prediction: Tokenized GPU rentals by Q3. Bonus points if they ’accidentally’ train an LLM on the blockchain.

Tether AI, according to Ardoino, is a “fully open-source AI runtime, capable of adapting and evolving on any hardware and device, no API keys, no central point of failure, fully modular and composable, WDK-infused to enable USDT and Bitcoin payments.”

WDK is Tether’s Wallet Development Kit, a modular software development kit that enables businesses and developers to integrate non-custodial wallets and user experiences for Bitcoin and USDT across any app, website, or device, Ardoino explained in a November post on X.

On its Tether.ai website, Tether says its AI platform will integrate Keet, a peer-to-peer chat platform. Not much else is known about Tether’s AI initiative.

CoinGecko’s index of AI tokens is trading flat after the announcement.