Tether Diversifies into Consumer Health with QVAC Wellness App Amid Robotics Investment
Tether, known as the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, is expanding into consumer health technology with the launch of the QVAC Health wellness app. The app is designed to store biometric data locally on users' devices and aggregates information from wearables such as the Oura Ring and Apple Health. It incorporates Tether’s QVAC AI framework, featuring computer vision-based estimation of caloric intake from meals.
This strategic shift follows Tether's recent €70 million ($81 million) funding round for Generative Bionics, an Italian humanoid robotics startup. Over the past year, Tether has broadened its investments into diverse areas including brain-computer interfaces, agricultural technology, and artificial intelligence. These ventures are financed through yields derived from U.S. Treasuries, allowing Tether to maintain a substantial $130 billion digital dollar reserve.
CEO Paolo Ardoino described the QVAC Health project as an ideological effort to dismantle traditional gatekeepers and empower users with control over their personal data. Future updates to the app could enable the extraction of raw biometric metrics via Bluetooth, designed to circumvent dominant Big Tech ecosystems; however, it currently prioritizes local data storage and user privacy.
While entering a competitive decentralized health market featuring companies like Rejuve and CUDIS, the integration of the QVAC Health app within Tether’s long-term corporate strategy remains to be clarified.
