Tether Gold (XAUt)

Tether Gold (XAUt) is a stablecoin pegged to the price of gold. Tether, the company behind the stablecoin USDT, issues it through TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V., a registered stablecoin issuer and digital asset service provider under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law. It is an ERC-20 token operating on the Ethereum blockchain, launched for the first time in January 2020. Each unit of Tether Gold represents one troy fine ounce of gold and is supported by physical bars stored in Swiss vaults that adhere to the London Good Delivery (LGD) standard.^[1]​^[5]​^[6]​^[7]​

As of December 31, 2025, XAUt was backed by 520,089.350 fine troy ounces of gold with 520,089.300 XAUt tokens in circulation, for a reported market value of US$2,246,458,120, and accounted for about 60 percent of a gold‑backed stablecoin market exceeding US$4 billion.^[5] Tether and TG Commodities publish periodic reserve attestations for XAUt, including dedicated reports for Q1, Q2, and Q4 2025 confirming 1:1 backing with London Good Delivery gold stored in Switzerland.^[6]​^[7]​^[5]​

Overview

Tether Gold (XAUt) is a blockchain-based token launched in 2020 by TG Commodities to represent ownership of physical gold. TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V. is registered in El Salvador as a Stablecoin Issuer and Digital Asset Service Provider under the country’s Digital Asset Issuance Law, and issues XAUt on that basis.^[5] Each token corresponds to one fine troy ounce of gold stored in secure vaults in Switzerland that comply with London Good Delivery standards, and the allocated bars are recorded with unique serial numbers, purity, and weight.^[6]​^[7] Tokens are divisible up to six decimal places, allowing for fractional ownership.

XAUt enables 24/7 global trading and eliminates the logistical challenges of storing and transporting physical gold. Each on-chain address holding XAUt is linked to specific gold bars identified by serial numbers, with Tether reallocating physical gold when transferring tokens to maintain a one-to-one backing with specific bars. Periodic attestations published by TG Commodities show that in Q1 and Q2 2025 there were about 246,524 XAUt in circulation backed by more than 7.7 tons (246,524.380 fine troy ounces) of gold, while by December 31, 2025 reserves had grown to 520,089.350 fine troy ounces backing 520,089.300 XAUt for a reported market value of US$2,246,458,120.^[6]​^[7]​^[5] Within the broader tokenized gold sector, XAUt accounted for approximately 60 percent of a gold-backed stablecoin market that expanded from about US$1.3 billion to more than US$4 billion in 2025.^[5]​

Token holders can redeem XAUt for physical gold—delivered to a location in Switzerland—or request a sale of the gold and receive the proceeds. Redemption requires meeting minimum thresholds, paying fees, and completing identity verification. XAUt can be acquired directly through Tether or on secondary markets.^[3]​

Utility

Tether Gold (XAU₮) offers several practical advantages over physical gold ownership. Like other cryptocurrencies, the tokens are easy to transport, removing the logistical challenges of moving physical gold. They are divisible to one-millionth of a troy ounce, allowing precise, flexible investments. XAU₮ tokens trade 24/7 on supported exchanges worldwide, unlike physical gold, which is limited by location and market hours. Holders can redeem tokens for physical gold bars delivered in Switzerland. Storage of XAU₮ tokens is simple and avoids the high costs and geopolitical risks of storing physical gold. Additionally, each token's physical gold backing is fully verifiable online, with detailed allocation information. Each token corresponds to ownership of one fine troy ounce of gold, held securely in a Swiss vault, with no custody fees, and is available as ERC-20 on Ethereum and TRC-20 on TRON blockchains.^[3]​

Tether Gold adds the Scudo Unit

On January 6, 2026, Tether introduced a new unit of account for its gold-backed stablecoin, Tether Gold (XAUT), called "Scudo." The move was intended to improve the usability of the token for smaller transactions. A Scudo is defined as one-thousandth (1/1000th) of a fine troy ounce of gold, or 0.001 XAUT.^[4]

The introduction of Scudo was motivated by the rising price of gold, which had reportedly surpassed $4,550 in 2025, making fractional transactions with long decimal places cumbersome.

By introducing a smaller subunit, Tether aims to make XAUT more practical for micro-transactions, drawing an analogy to the relationship between Bitcoin and its satoshi subunit. The update was implemented on Tether's backend and does not affect the underlying structure of XAUT tokens or existing balances, with transactions in Scudo being automatically converted to their gold weight equivalents.

According to the announcement, XAUT was the most-used gold-backed token by market capitalization at the time, representing about half of the total $4.3 billion market for all tokenized gold assets.^[4]

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