Tether CEO wants to break Microsoft, AWS, Google’s hold on cloud computing

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of crypto firm Tether, says he wants to use the same technology that broke the music industry in 1999 to break Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s “monopoly” in cloud computing servers.

To do so, the man in charge of the world’s largest stablecoin has launched an open-source software platform called Pear Runtime, which allows developers to build peer-to-peer (P2P) apps. And, he’s bringing crypto’s anti-establishment ethos with him.

“We can prove that the entire model of client server – that has been pushed down the throat of developers for the last 20 years – has been in a way a lie. It has been completely dismissive of the reality that the internet was built to be peer to peer,” he tells Tech in Asia.

The new platform was launched by app developer Holepunch last month as a side project of Ardoino and Tether. Ardoino is the chief strategy officer of Holepunch while Mathias Buus, who has worked on P2P technology for the last 10 years, is the CEO.

Holepunch CEO Mathias Buus (left) with Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and chief strategy officer of Holepunch / Photo credit: Holepunch

Holepunch is backed by Tether Operations Limited – headquartered in the British Virgin Islands – which operates Tether tokens and the Bitfinex crypto exchange. It also has backing from Hypercore, a developer of peer-to-peer systems.

So far, one major app has been released on the Pear Runtime platform. Called Keet Mobile, it’s a texting communication app that uses a P2P network and end-to-end encryption.

The app’s alpha launch on January 30, 2023 was limited to texting, though audio and video calls are planned for future releases, and the app can also be used to send files.

With Pear Runtime, Ardoino expects to spark a wave of development.

“Hordes of developers should start developing on this technology to take down the centralization that exists in AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure that make up 70% of all the services in the world,” he says.

What is P2P and why did it go away?

If you’re struggling to remember how P2P software works or wonder why it was an issue, then you certainly don’t remember the ‘90s.

P2P, unlike client-server networks, allocates the network tasks equally to all the devices – known as peers – on the network. There is no centralized administrative server system.

Napster was probably the best known P2P application. The app was used for trading files, usually movies and music, often illegally. The platform launched in 1999 but was forced to temporarily shut down in 2001 after it settled the lawsuits filed by musicians and recording companies.

Other P2P firms like LimeWire and Kazaa quickly took its place, but by 2009, the legal pressure on companies had effectively turned P2P networks into an internet boogeyman.

Future technology or legal honey pot?

Developing Keet

What’s Tether getting out of this?