Tether CEO says it's 'time to ditch the cloud' amid massive online data leak

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said it's time to move beyond storing passwords in the cloud after 16 billion credentials from Apple, Facebook, Google, government services, and other platforms were leaked in what is believed to be the largest data breach ever.

Online security experts described the leak as a "blueprint for mass exploitation," warning that bad actors could use the data to launch hacks or phishing attacks, including against crypto users.

"The cloud has failed us. Again," Ardoino posted to X on Thursday. "16 billion passwords just leaked. It's time to ditch the cloud."

Ardoino stated that such cloud-based vulnerabilities are why Tether has been developing PearPass — a fully local, open-source password manager that stores all data on users' devices.

"No cloud. No servers. No leaks. Ever," he wrote, adding that PearPass will launch soon.

The stablecoin firm previously launched Pear Credit, a peer-to-peer lending platform, in collaboration with Holepunch and Synonym and is also developing Tether AI, an open-source, offline-capable AI runtime.

Ardoino said his mission is to build "human-first" technology that can operate locally and function in disaster scenarios like World War III.