Tether’s CEO previews AI translate, AI voice assistant, and AI bitcoin wallet assistant features

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino revealed the company is expanding beyond stablecoins to venture into artificial intelligence (AI). According to the CTO, the AI-backed applications will focus on working locally to guarantee full privacy.

Paulo Ardoino, Tether’s CTO, announced the company is developing an open-source AI Software Development Kit (SDK) platform. Ardonio revealed the platform is built on Holepunch’s Bare JavaScript runtime. 

Tether unveils AI SDK platform built on Bare

Paulo Ardonio revealed that Tether’s AI SDK will support an AI voice assistant, an AI Bitcoin wallet assistant, and AI translation. The CTO added that the platform will work on every piece of hardware, including high-performance and budget mobile phones and laptops. 

According to the company, the open-source platform aims to enable the integration of artificial intelligence into cryptocurrency-related applications. 

Tether Data, preview of some of the AI apps we're developing: AI translate, AI voice assistant, AI bitcoin wallet assistant.

Tether will launch soon its own AI SDK platform, open-source, built upon Bare (Holepunch's javascript runtime), working on every hardware, from embedded… pic.twitter.com/W5JFmoVcnh

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖🍐 (@paoloardoino) February 4, 2025

Ardonio’s announcement included a preview of these applications. In the video he shared via his X account, a user requested the Tether AI assistant type out their wallet address. The user proceeds to ask the assistant to reveal the wallet’s Bitcoin balance and list the recipient’s name. 

The user later performed a 0.001 BTC transfer to a recipient using the Tether Payment Agent and then sent the transaction ID to the user. Ardonio revealed the features would work locally and guaranteed users full privacy and self-custody of both data and money, minimizing surveillance and data breach risks.  

Shortly after the announcement, USDT experienced increased trading volumes across major exchanges. On-chain data revealed increased active addresses for USDT, rising by over 60,000 hours after the CTO’s announcement.

According to Coinmarketcap, AI-backed tokens also experienced a price surge. SingularityNET AGIX recorded a 5% increase and is currently trading at $0.36. DOGEAI also recorded a 92% increase in the last 24 hours. 

However, other AI-related cryptocurrencies, such as NEAR and ICP, saw volatility, experiencing drops of about 10% following industry disruptions from DeepSeek. The price shifts reportedly indicate increased interest in AI-driven projects within the cryptocurrency industry. 

Tether reveals continued interest in AI technology

In December 2024, Ardonio announced the company intended to launch its AI platform by April 2025. He also hinted the USDT issuer could expand into other sectors, such as artificial intelligence and Bitcoin mining.

The announcement came a month after Tether launched a Wallet Development Kit (WDK). In the press release, the company stated the WDK was designed to empower businesses and developers to seamlessly integrate non-custodial wallets and user experiences for Bitocin and USDT in any device, application, and website. 

Tether revealed the WDK offered a fully self-custodial toolkit that allowed developers to build advanced wallet experiences while promoting transparency.  The company added the WDK was built to provide users with financial autonomy while allowing AI-driven entities and humans to manage digital assets independently. The issuer also revealed that WDK offered a resilient wallet solution in stable and volatile markets. 

In March 2024, Tether announced it had established a new division to develop open-source AI models. The USDT issuer added the division would partner with other companies to integrate the models into products. 

“This announcement redefines AI boundaries and democratizes privacy-preserving open AI technology.”

~ Paulo Ardonio

The announcement followed Ardoino’s statement in an interview about Tether’s portfolio roadmap on December 5, 2023. The CTO revealed the company had continued its investment in Nothern Data, a cloud computing and AI startup. Ardoino declared he wanted to challenge tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft in the AI industry. 

Meta released a policy document on Tuesday addressing concerns associated with artificial intelligence. In the Frontier AI Framework, Meta categorizes AI-related risks. The company discussed two types of AI systems: high-risk and critical-risk systems that have the potential to aid in chemical, biological, and cybersecurity attacks.

Meta added that once a system is categorized as high-risk, it will limit its internal access and not reveal it to the public until the risks are mitigated.

Cryptopolitan Academy: Are You Making These Web3 Resume Mistakes? - Find Out Here