Tether Venture Investment Is Being Actively Fueled By Huge Profits

Key Points:

• Tether, led by CEO Paolo Ardoino, is investing in decentralized AI and brain-computer interfaces.
• The Tether venture investment division, Tether Evo, has acquired stakes in Blackrock Neurotech and Northern Data Group.
• The company reported $5.2 billion in profits for 2024 but has faced scrutiny over past transparency issues and alleged illicit activities.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino is steering the company into uncharted territory with a significant shift toward venture capital investments.

Read more: Tether Holdings Workforce Expected to Increase in 2025

Tether Venture Investments Get Boost

After such meteoric profit-making activities—the company made $5.2 billion in the first half of 2024—leading stablecoin issuer Tether is redirecting that wealth into emerging technologies.

Ardoino, who took over as CEO in December after six years as CTO, is largely steering the company toward the new directions of decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) in combination with brain-computer interfaces. And he said he is making plans to go up against the largest companies in tech—Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Using its $118.5 billion in reserves, mostly stored in short-term US government bonds, according to Ardoino, Tether will be generating energy for these new projects.

Tether venture investment arm, Tether Evo, has also been promoted. It has already staked a majority of neural implant startup Blackrock Neurotech and invested in Northern Data Group, which provides infrastructure for AI model training. The goal is to get Tether profitably close to the ground floor on projects that will disrupt AI and foster a decentralized ethos.

Record Profits Amid Ongoing Controversies

The move by Tether comes amid its journey to maximize the utility of its vast cash piles. According to Ardoino, more than 90% of the profits will be reinvested in projects that are in line with Tether venture investments as opposed to distributing it in dividends.

Innovations by Tether continue with controversy, not the least of which was a 2021 settlement for $41 million with US regulators, caused by a lack of transparency about its reserves. It has also been accused of dealing with criminal organizations, although the company denies that.

To Ardoino, though, such an evolution is going to be crucial in democratizing technological advancement and diversifying beyond the core stablecoin business.