11 May, 2026 – Tether, the largest company in the digital asset ecosystem, announced today that it is launching a grants program to fund developers building on its open technology stack, with no cap on total payouts, tied to specific technical deliverables. The grants program is now open, and developers can apply to active tasks.
The grants pay in USD₮ or Bitcoin for building components such as wallet infrastructure, browser extensions, and e-commerce integrations. Individual payouts currently range from roughly $1,500 to $4,000, based on completed work rather than open-ended funding.
At the centre of the effort is a shift away from cloud-dependent AI and API-based financial infrastructure. Most AI systems still rely on remote servers, requiring data to be sent off-device for processing, which adds latency, cost, and exposure. Tether is funding an alternative platform, QVAC, that runs directly on-device, where inference happens locally and does not depend on external providers.
That same dependency exists in crypto at the application layer. While moving assets on-chain is finally becoming straightforward, building usable products that operate independently from intermediaries is not. Developers still have to assemble wallets, payment rails, and data services, often relying on custodians, exchanges, or third-party APIs to make those systems work. These dependencies introduce points of control and failure that sit outside the application itself.
Tether is directing part of the program toward enhancing its Wallet Development Kit (WDK), an open-source framework that allows developers to embed self-custodial wallets directly into applications. With WDK, developers can generate and manage keys locally, sign transactions, and move funds without relying on custodial services or hosted APIs. The system works across mobile, desktop, and embedded environments, enabling payments and asset transfers to be integrated directly into software rather than routed through external platforms. Because these components run locally and do not depend on third-party infrastructure, they can be integrated into automated systems as easily as user-facing applications.
The grants are structured around four areas: building core libraries for QVAC, MDK, WDK, and Pears; producing technical documentation and onboarding resources; developing applications on top of Tether’s stack; researching decentralization, edge AI, peer-to-peer networking, and cryptography; and tooling, integrations, and open standards. Each grant is tied to a defined task with a fixed payout and deadline.
“Most of today’s infrastructure forces developers into tradeoffs, either depending on centralized and intermediated platforms that control how your product runs, or relying on broken incentives that reward collecting, reusing, and selling people’s data,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “We’re taking a different approach. If you can build something that runs locally, holds value directly, and doesn’t rely on external providers, we’ll fund it. That’s how you get real systems into the market.”
This grant program adds another layer to Tether’s consistent commitment to funding open-source development, Bitcoin education, and decentralized infrastructure through a range of grants and investments. The company has previously awarded $100,000 grants to the BTCPay Server Foundation in consecutive years and donated $250,000 to OpenSats to support Bitcoin and open-source developers. Through its Plan₿ initiative with the City of Lugano, Tether has also distributed over 500 student education grants, funded annual pitch competitions, and committed up to CHF 5 million toward the program’s next phase through 2030.
To learn more or apply for active grants, visit https://tether.dev
