In a complex, multinational deal, Tether is reportedly purchasing thousands of GPU chips for a German cryptocurrency mining firm that wants to lease them to startups — all handled through an Irish shell company.
Stablecoin company Tether is in the process of closing a $420 million deal involving artificial intelligence chips and an overseas Bitcoin crypto mining company, Forbes reported September 20.
Tether has not officially announced the investment. Instead, the Forbes report appears to be based on statements from Northern Data and its executives.
The report shows that Tether has spent $420 million to purchase 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, which is about 2% of the 550,000 GPUs that Nvidia will ship this year. Tether made the acquisition on behalf of German cryptocurrency mining company Northern Data, which intends to rent cloud access to these thousands of specialized chips to artificial intelligence startups. In turn, Tether will receive a 20% stake in Northern Data.
However, Tether reportedly did not make the purchases directly. Instead, it conducted transactions and GPU purchases through an Irish shell company called Damoon, owned by Northern Data.
Northern Data itself will hold a 70% stake in Damoon, a figure that appeared to be confirmed in an earlier announcement in July. Northern Data may acquire the rest of Damoon, Forbes reported, but the total cost of the acquisition is unclear.
Northern Data CEO Aroosh Thillainathan told Forbes that his company cannot buy the chips directly from Nvidia because the company's chip supply is rapidly depleting. Therefore, Tether must purchase the required chips itself.
Controversial corporate marriage
Forbes goes on to highlight the various controversies surrounding Northern Data. The company had previously purchased hardware through shell companies. It also missed certain financial reports, and German regulators had filed criminal charges for false revenue reporting. The latter case was closed with no further action required.
Tether is best known for its $83 billion USDT stablecoin, which has itself been controversial due to a lack of transparency into its reserve assets.
In May, Tether began investing in cryptocurrency mining. This expansion appears to be unrelated to the deal at hand: Northern Data is a German company, while Tether invested in an unnamed Uruguayan mining company a few months ago. #TETHER #人工智能
