Paolo Ardoino wants AI agents to hold Tether, but developers are left on the hook for overspending

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino’s vision of financial autonomy for people and machines puts a practical decision in developers’ hands: how much spending authority should an AI agent receive when a wallet’s owner unlocks it?Tether’s Sept. 3 explanation of WDK CLI, the local command-line wallet built with its Wallet Development Kit, gives a concrete answer for that product. The human opens a timed session. On macOS and Linux, another process running as the wallet owner can request transactions if it can reach the unlocked wallet’s local endpoint. The CLI daemon does not require fresh approval of each payment.That distinction matters for anyone building an assistant that can move money. Keeping wallet keys under the owner’s control establishes custody. Deciding which recipient, amount and operation an automated system may authorize is a separate design choice.Ardoino set out the broader ambition when Tether announced WDK on Nov. 11, 2024. His statement described programmable monetary systems connecting people, machines and AI agents while preserving financial control. The September explanation shows how that longstanding strategy translates into one local wallet interface.It also shows why t...