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Tether’s Ardoino hints at challenging Microsoft and Amazon in AI sector

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Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino hints at challenging tech giants with investments in decentralized AI and brain-computer interfaces.

Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin issuer by market capitalization, seems to want to seize the opportunity in the artificial intelligence race by investing in decentralized technologies and brain-computer interfaces to challenge the dominance of major tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon.

In a recent interview with WIRED, Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino discussed the firm’s evolving strategy, which now includes a big push into venture capital. Ardoino disclosed that Tether’s substantial profits, amounting to billions of dollars over the past two years due to rising interest rates, have prompted the firm to explore new investment opportunities.

“In the last 24 months, Tether has accrued around $11.9 billion profit. With this amount of money, we could have distributed it all to shareholders, to make everyone happy. Instead, part of it is being added to the reserve to further back the stablecoin, and the rest is basically being held in the investment arm.”

Paolo Ardoino

Ardoino emphasized that Tether’s venture capital efforts are guided by principles beyond traditional financial metrics and driven by the “ethos of decentralization,” and financial freedom that originally defined Bitcoin. He also suggested that decentralization could offer crucial independence in AI, which he described as “heavily politicized.”

“We are already seeing how AI is being heavily politicized. We believe that having a player independent of the classic actors — like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — is going to be very, very important.”

Paolo Ardoino

Tether plans to go beyond crypto-only

Tether’s venture investments will not follow a traditional venture capital model of seeking out high-risk, high-reward opportunities, Ardoino said, adding that the firm is more focused on projects that align with its vision of interdependence. He also underscored that over 90% of Tether’s profits will be reinvested in ventures that resonate with these values, rather than being distributed as “dividends.”

In March, Tether announced a new AI division, which Ardoino described as concentrating on “the development of open-source AI models and collaborating with other firms to integrate them into products that could address real-world challenges.” This initiative is part of a broader strategy that began in 2023 with Tether’s investment in Northern Data, a German public company that has expanded from crypto mining to providing computational resources for AI-driven data analysis.

Addressing potential concerns about investment risks, Ardoino assured that Tether’s investment approach involves rigorous due diligence, emphasizing the firm’s commitment to not only invest but also to actively support and, if needed, manage the companies it backs.



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BEAM Foundation launches $40m initiative for AI and crypto computing

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Aethir, Beam Foundation, and MetaStreet have partnered to launch Tactical Compute, a $40 million initiative designed to meet the growing demand for computing power in artificial intelligence and blockchain.

The initiative leverages Aethir’s decentralized GPU network, Beam (BEAM) Investments, and MetaStreet’s DeFi infrastructure to create opportunities for monetizing compute resources.

Tactical Compute will operate under Tactical Compute Holding Limited, focusing on compute-related opportunities such as hardware financing, private yield arbitrage, and network bootstrapping, as detailed in a Beam Medium post.  

These efforts center on meeting the increasing demand for computing resources while integrating crypto-based innovations.

Tactical Compute plans to address this imbalance by finding profitable opportunities within the compute market. One example is “farming” Aethir (ATH) tokens, which is akin to earning credits for using Aethir’s GPUs, much like Microsoft’s Azure credits for its cloud infrastructure.

Industry backing and goals

The Beam Foundation is contributing $5 million to the initiative alongside notable backers, including the Sophon Foundation. 

According to Daniel Wang, CEO of Aethir, the partnership “positions us to unlock new opportunities in compute resource monetization and drive innovation in scalable AI and decentralized technologies.”

MetaStreet, through its development arm Permian Labs, brings its expertise in DeFi tools for financing GPU-powered nodes. Co-founder David Choi noted that Tactical Compute “builds on our foundation by addressing the growing demand for compute infrastructure, driving innovation at the intersection of crypto, AI, and infrastructure.”



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Arbitrum One as the first layer-2 to reached $20 bilion in TVL

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Arbitrum, a cryptocurrency network, has announced on its official account that its layer-2 platform has reached $20 billion in total value locked (TVL).

Arbitrum on X’s post on Dec. 03 claimed that the first layer-2 platform could reach $20 billion in total value locked (TVL) or increase up to double-digit, which specifically rises 14.2%.

“Arbitrum One has just become the first L2 to hit $20 billion in TVL. We did this by inovating together, with the stage 2 horizon and ecosystem growth happening in all verticals, the sky’s the limit for how far we can scale. Accelerate,”

Arbitrum mentioned on the post.

According to L2Beat data, Arbitrum One achieved $20 billion in TVL with $6.64 in canonical, $5.32 billion in external, and $8.12 billion in native. This milestone also leaves the competitors behind, including Base with $12.4 billion, OP Mainnet with $8.56 billion, and Blast with $1.55 billion.

Arbitrum (ARB) is the highest native minted value on this platform, with around $4.3 billion, followed by USD Coin (USDC), with a value of $2.2 billion.

Stage 2 of Arbitrum One is still ongoing, and some issues need to be fixed: fraud-proof submission, upgrade unrelated to on-chain, and the security council’s action, which is not confined to on-chain.

Arbitrum boosting AI growth

Arbitrum Foundation also actively promotes the artificial intelligence (AI) industry; one of the support initiatives is a $1 million grant to Arbitrum Network. The Trailblazer AI Grant is an initiative for developers and creators who are dedicated to building AI agents on Ethereum layer-2.

This artificial intelligence also helps bring thousands of applications to Arbitrum and gives the opportunity to explore projects ranging from non-fungible tokens (NFT) to ERC20 tokens. Projects that are eligible in the process will receive $10,000 as a reward.

Besides that, this initiative to bring artificial intelligence to the Arbitrum would unlock the potential of layer 2.



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AI bot transfers $50k in crypto after user manipulates fund handling

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An AI bot controlling $50,000 in crypto transferred the funds after a user successfully persuaded it to bypass its core directive: to never release the funds.

A user under alias p0pular.eth successfully claimed a $50,000 crypto prize pool after convincing an artificial intelligence bot named Freysa to transfer its funds, bypassing the bot’s primary directive to never release them. The victory, observed by software engineer Jarrod Watts, came after 481 previous attempts, all of which failed to persuade the bot.

The challenge, launched on Nov. 22, tasked participants with sending messages to Freysa in an attempt to convince it to release the funds. Each attempt required a fee. Of the total fee sum, 70% went toward the growing prize pool, 15% was converted from Ethereum (ETH) to the bot’s FAI token, and the remaining 15% went to the bot’s developer.

As the prize increased, the cost to send a message also rose, peaking at $450 per message.

Eventually, p0pular.eth — whose identity remains unknown — exploited a vulnerability in the bot’s internal logic for processing transfers by convincing Freysa that any incoming funds should automatically trigger the release of the prize. Once the message was sent to the bot, p0pular.eth successfully manipulated its logic for handling messages, causing the bot to transfer the entire pool of 13.19 ETH (approximately $47,000 at the time) to the user.

While some praised the emerging use of AI in the crypto space, others raised concerns about the protocol’s transparency, suggesting that p0pular.eth may have had inside knowledge of the trick or been linked to the bot’s development.





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