Organized by: KarenZ, Foresight News
This week, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino engaged in an in-depth dialogue with American entrepreneur and CEO of Professional Capital Management, Anthony Pompliano, discussing Tether's strategy for entering the U.S. market, the plans for launching a U.S. domestic stablecoin, and exploring fields such as AI, gold, and brain-computer interfaces. Paolo Ardoino also issued a warning about over-leveraged Bitcoin treasury companies.
The author has distilled and organized this:
What are Tether's plans in the U.S.?
Paolo Ardoino: The recently passed (Genius Act) drives Tether to explore the U.S. market and creates a fair competitive environment for all other financial institutions. Tether holds over $127 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and has recently surpassed South Korea to become the 18th largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds. It is expected to surpass another country by the end of the year. While this is quite crazy compared to nations, it is a fact. We may be one of the best allies of the U.S. Tether plans to launch a domestic stablecoin in the U.S. By then, U.S. banks and financial institutions will also cooperate with Tether to leverage Tether's global distribution network to expand new customers and revenue sources.
For example, in Nigeria, the efficiency of financial infrastructure is between 10% and 20%, while in the U.S. it is almost perfect at 90%. Therefore, if the quality of financial transmission in Nigeria can improve to 50%, the U.S. can only increase from 90% to 95%. Since the population that lacks access to U.S. banking services is relatively small, Tether's products for the U.S. market must have uniqueness.
What are the differences between USDT and Tether's U.S. domestic stablecoin?
Paolo Ardoino: USDT primarily serves emerging markets (such as Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia) to help local users bypass inefficient financial infrastructure, and it functions more like an international stablecoin. However, USDT may not perform optimally in the U.S. market.
The U.S. domestic stablecoin is designed specifically for the U.S. market, optimizing user experience to fit the mature financial system in the U.S. (such as working with banks, enhancing payment efficiency).
In the future, there may be hundreds of stablecoins emerging in the U.S. market, at which point the user experience of migrating from one stablecoin to another will become crucial, and user experience and distribution capability are Tether's strong advantages.
In what aspects can the stablecoin infrastructure/blockchain be improved or innovated?
Paolo Ardoino: User experience is the biggest limitation. You need a wallet, and the wallet must have enough gas fees to send stablecoins. Of course, account abstraction or other means can be used, but ultimately, you cannot pay gas fees seamlessly with stable value; you need to use volatile assets (like ETH) to pay. This part needs improvement.
Commodity traders are going all in on stablecoins as they realize that stablecoins can enhance the profitability of portfolio efficiency. The (Genius Act) will bring institutional-level adoption. Blockchains focused on stablecoins and settlement, interbank settlement, and inter-company settlement will have significant advantages.
Tether+AI
Paolo Ardoino: QVAC is one of the projects I am quite obsessed with. The idea behind it is to create a local AI inference and fine-tuning platform that can work anywhere, from embedded devices to smartphones, laptops, or servers. The smallest devices can be brain-computer interfaces, cars, drones, robots, and they can even be taken into space or onto other planets.
Therefore, AI must possess characteristics of being lean, precise, modular, and localized. AI will be embedded into the very structure of the universe in 20 years, 30 years, 100 years, or even 10,000 years. In the next five years, mobile GPUs may become ten times more powerful than they are today. We hope to build the first truly decentralized, unstoppable AI platform.
We are trying to mimic the brain, attempting to create infinite, super-powerful data centers. QVAC will allow everyone to create efficient small local models, and connect all these models through peer-to-peer technology without a main server or any central server, allowing you to run queries across these models and obtain the best answers.
Tether will eventually establish its own foundational model, but first, we need to build a platform that can run any model, whether local or remote. Local inference is also a major focus, and we are studying peer-to-peer collaborative inference.
How do you view gold and Bitcoin?
Paolo Ardoino: I have said many times that nothing is better than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is perfect. Bitcoin holders mistakenly believe that gold is a competitor to Bitcoin, but that is not the case. If investors believe Bitcoin is at a market cycle high and want to temporarily exit, it makes more sense to exchange Bitcoin for gold rather than for dollars because gold better retains purchasing power (dollars may be eroded by inflation). If a global financial reset occurs within the next five years (like the collapse of fiat currency systems), gold's $20 trillion market cap (far exceeding Bitcoin's current size) may make it a more traditionally accepted transitional asset, while Bitcoin will take time to scale.
How do you view Bitcoin treasury companies?
Paolo Ardoino confirmed the market role of Bitcoin treasury companies but also expressed concerns about some radical strategies (such as over-leveraging). Ultimately, the industry will experience reshuffling and consolidation.
Tether+ Brain-Computer Interface
Paolo Ardoino: By the end of April 2024, Tether will invest $200 million in Blackrock Neurotech. Blackrock Neurotech has the best brain-computer interface technology, with new chip technology offering a 100-fold performance improvement. Blackrock Neurotech is headquartered in Utah, and the team is very lean.
Blackrock Neurotech is committed to ensuring that brain-computer interface technology benefits humanity and is used for human purposes, while preventing robots from replacing humans.
What are your views on the current macroeconomy?
Paolo Ardoino: The U.S. is currently in a very strong position and optimistic about the globalization trend of dollar stablecoins. The U.S. has achieved self-interests through tariff policies, and while this may have negative impacts on other countries, it has significantly boosted the U.S. economy in the short term. Europe started early in digital asset regulation but did not achieve good results and failed to seize technological opportunities to expand the global influence of the euro. The depreciation of currencies and economic vulnerabilities in poor countries will rise, while tools like USDT provide a 'Plan B' for people in these regions, alleviating the impacts of local currency fluctuations. Tether is not only investing in gold but also venturing into land and agriculture, AI, and brain-computer interfaces.
