Tether
Tether Gold
one token, one ounce of vaulted gold
Key facts
- #36by market value
- Rank
- Gold tokenphysical gold backed
- Type
- 2020by Tether
- Launched
- Uncappedtracks vaulted gold
- Supply
XAUT is Tether's gold token. Each full token represents one fine troy ounce of gold on a London Good Delivery bar held in a Swiss vault, with quarterly attestations.
What it is
Tether Gold, ticker XAUT, is a token that puts physical gold on a blockchain. It comes from the Tether group, the company behind USDT, the largest stablecoin, and was launched in 2020 through the issuer TG Commodities. Each full token represents ownership of one fine troy ounce of gold, about 31.1 grams, on a specific, identifiable bar. The memorable point is directness: rather than tracking a gold price feed, the token confers an interest in named bars sitting in a vault, and holders can look up which bar backs their tokens.
How it works
The gold is held in a vault in Switzerland, and every bar meets the London Good Delivery standard, the quality benchmark set by the London Bullion Market Association for the bars that trade in the professional market. The token’s price therefore tracks the spot price of gold, which put it near $4,060 in late July 2026. Tether publishes quarterly attestation reports, opinions from an independent accounting firm confirming that the gold in the vault matches the tokens in circulation, alongside documents identifying the issuing entity, which filings published in 2025 list as TG Commodities S.A. de C.V., a company incorporated in El Salvador, where Tether has moved its corporate base. Redemption for physical gold is offered through the issuer, subject to its terms and minimums.
The story so far
XAUT launched in January 2020 into a small field of gold tokens and settled into a two-horse race with Paxos’s PAXG. For years it was a niche product, useful mainly to crypto traders who wanted a gold position without leaving their exchange account. The sustained rise in the gold price through the mid-2020s changed its standing: as bullion climbed, the value of the vaulted backing climbed with it, carrying XAUT into the upper ranks of crypto assets by market value without any change in what the product does. Tether has also verified and expanded the gold holdings behind the token as circulation has grown.
Where it stands
As of late July 2026, XAUT ranks about 36th among crypto assets at roughly $2.5 billion, with around 613,000 tokens circulating, each representing an ounce of gold, according to CoinGecko. Its fortunes are tied to one variable above all: the gold price. Worth watching from here are the quarterly attestations, which are the token’s core trust mechanism, the competition with PAXG for the tokenised gold market, and whether gold tokens find use as collateral in the same way tokenised Treasury funds have. Our crypto explainers hub covers asset-backed tokens across the crypto section.