Tether Gold

Tether Gold (XAUT) is a gold-backed token issued by the Tether group, the company behind the USDT stablecoin. Each XAUT token represents ownership of one troy fine ounce of physical gold on a specific, identifiable gold bar held in a vault in Switzerland. It launched in early 2020 as a way to hold and transfer exposure to physical gold using blockchain rails.

XAUT was issued as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and has also been available as a TRC-20 token on the TRON blockchain. Because the token lives on public blockchains, it can be transferred to any compatible on-chain address, divided into fractional amounts, and used within the broader crypto ecosystem in ways that physical bullion cannot.

How it works

Tether Gold is an asset-backed token rather than a mined or staked cryptocurrency. Tether issues new tokens when gold is purchased and allocated, and redeems tokens against the underlying metal, so the supply tracks the amount of gold held in custody — there is no fixed maximum supply. Holders can look up the serial number of the specific gold bar associated with their tokens, and Tether states that it charges no ongoing custody fees for holding the token.

Role in the ecosystem

XAUT belongs to the tokenized commodities segment of the real-world asset (RWA) trend. It offers crypto market participants a way to hold a traditional store-of-value asset without leaving the blockchain environment, and it trades on exchanges alongside cryptocurrencies. Its price is intended to track the market price of gold rather than behave like a typical volatile crypto asset, though holders remain exposed to gold's own price movements and to the issuer's custody arrangements.