Author: Curry, Deep Tide TechFlow
Original Title: The AI Industry Welcomes a Cash-Rich Tether
Tether earned $13 billion in 2024.
You might not have a clear idea of this number. Let me put it another way: OpenAI had $3.7 billion in revenue in 2024 but lost $5 billion. Anthropic had $1 billion in revenue and also lost $5 billion.
The combined losses of these two legitimate AI companies are still less than what Tether earned in a year.
Tether has 150 employees, while OpenAI has over 3,000. The per capita output difference is roughly:
60 times.
How does Tether make money? When you buy 1 USDT, they take $1 and use it to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. The interest from the bonds goes to them, not you.
The essence of this business is that Tether doesn't pay interest. Banks pay interest on savings, but Tether doesn't. You hold USDT, and you get zero interest. They use your money to buy U.S. Treasury bonds and earned $7 billion in interest in 2024 alone.
150 people managing over $130 billion in Treasury bonds, doing nothing, and the interest just rolls in.
Who wouldn't want to lie back with a business like this?
But with so much money, it has to be spent. Tether has chosen a direction:
AI.
And they’re not just casually investing in a few projects to tick a box.
First, computing power.
Running AI requires GPUs—the more, the better, and the more expensive, the better. Tether loaned over $600 million to a German company called Northern Data.
What does this company do?
It’s Europe’s largest GPU cloud service provider. They have over 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs—the same ones OpenAI used to train GPT, each costing $20,000 to $30,000.
The cluster formed by these GPUs ranks 26th in the global TOP500 supercomputer list. With this $600 million investment, Tether essentially bought an AI training base in Europe.
Next, data.
Training AI requires feeding it data. Last week, Tether released a dataset called QVAC Genesis, covering 19 disciplines including mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science. They claim it’s the world’s largest open-source AI training dataset.
Keep in mind that OpenAI and Anthropic’s training data are not public. Tether is releasing theirs for free, available to anyone.
Then comes the even more sci-fi part.
In April 2024, Tether spent $200 million to acquire a company called Blackrock Neurotech. The name includes "Blackrock," but it has no relation to the asset management giant BlackRock.
This company works on brain-computer interfaces. They implant chips into human brains, allowing paralyzed individuals to type with their thoughts, control wheelchairs, and operate robotic arms. It sounds like science fiction, but they’ve been doing it since 2008—eight years before Musk’s Neuralink.
How impressive is this company?
Out of the 35 people worldwide who have brain-computer interface chips implanted, 31 use Blackrock’s technology. In 2016, a fully paralyzed patient used their device to control a robotic arm and fist-bump Obama. The chip implanted in the sensory cortex allowed him to "feel" the president’s hand.
Last year, this brain-computer interface company enabled an ALS patient to "speak" again. The chip in his brain translated his thoughts into speech at a rate of 62 words per minute.
Tether spent $200 million to become the majority shareholder of this company.
Combined, Tether has invested nearly $1 billion in AI-related fields. Rumor has it they’re also negotiating with a German robotics company, offering $1.2 billion. If that deal goes through, their total investment could reach $2 billion.
What does this mean?
Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in funding in 2024. Tether’s investment alone is almost half of what a top-tier AI company raised in a year.
OpenAI spent $6.7 billion on R&D in the first half of 2025. Tether, with just a fraction of its profits, can play the role of a major investor in the AI world.
Why is a stablecoin company getting into AI?
We think there are two possibilities.
The first is anxiety. The Fed is cutting interest rates, and Treasury yields are falling. In 2024, they earned $7 billion in interest just by lying back. From 2025 onward, it might not be so easy. Even money-printing machines need new stories.
The second is ambition. The whole world is talking about AI—investors, media, politicians. If you say you’re a stablecoin company, no one pays attention. But if you say you’re working on AI, brain-computer interfaces, and humanoid robots, then you’re:
A tech leader.
The most amusing part?
Tether’s slogan for its AI endeavors is "decentralization," "local operation," and "returning intelligence to individuals."
But Tether itself is the most centralized company in the crypto world.
They decide how many coins to issue, how much reserve capital to hold. In ten years of operation, they’ve never been audited. Only they know where users’ money is.
Now, this company wants to teach the world what "decentralized AI" means.
It’s a bit like a casino owner offering classes on how to quit gambling.
Not that it’s impossible.
After all, OpenAI is still losing money and isn’t expected to break even until 2029. Anthropic is in a similar situation, aiming for 2028. Sam Altman is fundraising everywhere, and Dario Amodei is doing the same. The two companies have lost a combined $10 billion and are still telling stories to investors.
Tether doesn’t need to tell stories. The money is already in their pocket.
What’s the biggest challenge in the entire AI industry? The business model.
How to make money? No one knows. When will it make money? No one knows. Can it make money? No one knows.
Tether doesn’t have this problem. Their business model is:
Not doing AI.
They use the money earned from stablecoins to invest in AI. If the investment succeeds, it’s foresight. If it fails, it’s a learning expense. Either way, it doesn’t affect their core business.
Those doing AI are losing money; those not doing AI are making money. Those doing AI are fundraising; those not doing AI are investing.
The best AI business model in 2026 might just be not doing AI.
First, get your money-printing machine in order.
