Largest stablecoin issuer enters AI race
Pooja Rajkumari
Tue, December 2, 2025 at 2:05 PM EST
2 min read
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Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, has entered the large language model (LLM) arms race with the launch of QVAC Fabric LLM.
Announced on Dec. 2, the system allows full LLM execution, LoRA training and instruction-tuning directly on laptops, desktops, consumer GPUs, and even smartphones.
Tether says it wants to decentralize access to AI development and remove the privacy trade-offs associated with cloud-based models.
Related: Largest private gold holder shuts down Bitcoin mining operations
Shift away from cloud dependence
High-performance LLM inference has traditionally required expensive servers or NVIDIA-grade infrastructure. QVAC Fabric LLM attempts to rewrite those assumptions.
The company said the release eliminates vendor lock-in and allows organizations to build and deploy AI systems using hardware they already own. That includes support for GPUs from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Apple Silicon, as well as mobile GPUs such as Qualcomm’s Adreno and ARM Mali.
A key breakthrough is the ability to fine-tune models directly on smartphone-class hardware. Tether said this unlocks “personalized AI that can learn directly from users,” preserving privacy and enabling offline operation in low-connectivity regions.
QVAC Fabric LLM is available under the Apache 2.0 license, alongside multi-platform binaries and prebuilt adapters on Hugging Face.
Tether said developers can get started with fine-tuning “in only a few commands,” making customization accessible to a far broader audience.
More News:
Tether faces 'insolvency' doubts and S&P downgrades
The LLM launch comes as critics question the company's financial health.
Billionaire and BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes recently argued that the USDT issuer is “in the early innings of running a massive interest rate trade."
Hayes pointed to Tether’s latest attestation, claiming its reserves now lean more heavily on Bitcoin (BTC) and gold — assets he believes could face pressure if interest rates decline. He said a drawdown of about 30% in those holdings “would wipe out their equity,” rendering USDT “theoretically insolvent.”
Story Continues
The critique comes days after S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether to “5 (weak)” on its five-point stablecoin risk scale on Nov. 26. The agency cited limited transparency and what it called rising exposure to higher-risk investments, including Bitcoin, gold, corporate debt, secured loans and other instruments that introduce credit, market, FX and interest-rate risks.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino pushed back on both the downgrade and Hayes’ remarks, publicly criticizing what he characterized as inaccurate assumptions about the company’s reserves.
Related: Exclusive: Tether CEO on stablecoin issuer's ascent to record $13-billion profit
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Dec 2, 2025, where it first appeared in the Technology News section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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