Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino argued that peer-to-peer Lightning channels could handle hypothetical payment traffic from one trillion AI agents, which he said would be difficult for global blockchains that share a single state.
Ardoino made the argument in episode 786 of the Stephan Livera Podcast, dated Nov. 3, 2026. He tied the strain on shared-state systems to latency as globally distributed nodes reach agreement on state. The one trillion figure described a hypothetical scenario involving frequent transactions, not an existing network load.
He pointed to peer-to-peer channels on Lightning as a way to handle the payment activity. In his account, Bitcoin’s main chain would record settlement when a channel closes. Ardoino praised Lightning’s design as a transport layer for transactions that are peer-to-peer.
The interview also revisited criticism from 2017-18 that Lightning could develop into a hub-and-spoke network. Ardoino acknowledged that liquidity could become concentrated, while arguing the protocol would continue operating if Bitfinex disappeared. Routing could be less efficient in that situation.
