A digital currency company holds more gold than most central banks, and this is just the beginning. As of September 2025, Tether's gold reserves have soared to 116 tons, valued at approximately $12.9 billion.
This scale surpasses the gold reserves of several countries' central banks, including Australia, the Czech Republic, and Denmark, placing it among the top 30 gold holders globally.
Even more astonishing is its pace of gold acquisition—over the past year, Tether has averaged more than 1 ton of gold added each week, ranking third in the global central banking system, only behind Kazakhstan and Brazil, and even surpassing the central banks of Turkey and China.
1. The Gold Giant: Scale and Speed
● In the realm of gold reserves, Tether has quietly become a force to be reckoned with. According to a recent report by investment bank Jefferies, Tether currently holds at least 116 tons of gold, with 12 tons backing its XAUt token and approximately 104 tons backing USDT.
● This scale makes it the largest non-sovereign gold holder in the world, comparable in strength to small central banks. The speed at which Tether accumulates gold is equally impressive. In just the third quarter of 2025, it added approximately 26 tons of gold, equivalent to 2% of global gold demand.
This pace of acquisition even exceeds that of most central banks.
2. Strategic Layout: More Than Just Hoarding Gold Bars
● Tether's gold strategy goes far beyond simply hoarding gold bars; it aims to build a complete gold ecosystem. Unlike most central banks that store gold in the Bank of England or the New York Federal Reserve, Tether has chosen to build its own vaults and self-custody.
● CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that Tether has constructed "one of the safest vaults in the world" in Switzerland and is building a second vault in Singapore to serve the Asian market.
● More strategically, Tether is laying out a full gold industry chain. In June 2025, Tether's investment entity announced it had acquired a stake in the Canadian-listed company Elemental Altus Royalties, which focuses on gold and precious metals royalties and revenue sharing.
● Through these operations, Tether could secure over one-third of Elemental Altus's shares, becoming a "cornerstone shareholder" in this gold royalty company.
● Additionally, Tether is tapping talent from the traditional finance sector. Reports indicate that Tether has poached two top global precious metals traders from HSBC: Vincent Domien, the global head of metal trading, and Mathew O’Neill, the head of precious metals financing for the EMEA region.
3. Deep Motivations: Diversified Reserves and Risk Hedging
The large-scale allocation of gold reserves by Tether is backed by a complete asset philosophy and risk hedging strategy.
● Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has mentioned on several occasions that he views gold as "the Bitcoin of nature"—equally scarce and having withstood the test of time, with one existing in the physical world and the other in the digital world. Guided by this philosophy, Tether sees gold as one of the safety foundations of its balance sheet.
● First, gold is an effective tool for hedging against extreme risks in the dollar system. The size of USDT has grown to be comparable to that of small national currencies and regional banking systems.
This compels Tether to consider an extreme scenario: if future U.S. regulations or the banking system pressure or even freeze its assets, relying solely on U.S. Treasuries and bank deposits would be too passive.
Gold does not belong to any sovereign credit and can be completely detached from traditional custody systems through self-built vaults, providing Tether with an important risk barrier.
● Secondly, in the era of RWA (real-world assets), gold is the most easily accepted off-chain asset.
Tether slices this gold through XAU₮ and places it on-chain, transforming it into globally tradable, combinable DeFi collateral and settlement assets, forming a clever closed loop.
4. Two Models: USDT and Gold Tokens
It is important to distinguish that Tether's gold reserves actually support two different product models.
● One is part of the reserves for USDT, where the 104 tons of gold enhance the credit and risk resistance of the dollar stablecoin USDT. The USDT held by users is still pegged to 1 dollar, with gold being just a part of Tether's underlying assets.
● The other is the gold token XAU₮, which is directly pegged to gold. Each XAU₮ token corresponds to one ounce of physical gold, held in a Swiss vault. As of September 30, 2025, Tether's total physical gold reserves reached 375,572.297 troy ounces, compliant with London Good Delivery standards.
This means Tether has two layers of gold exposure: one layer is the gold reserves recorded on its own balance sheet, and the other layer is the reserves behind the gold token XAU₮, which have been restructured into financial products that can circulate on-chain.
5. Market Impact: Reshaping the Gold Supply and Demand Landscape
Tether's large-scale gold acquisition has begun to impact the global gold market's supply and demand dynamics.
● The Jefferies report details that Tether's gold demand may tighten the supply in the gold market in the short term and affect market sentiment, potentially driving speculative funds into the market.
● During the second wave of gold price increases this year (from mid-August to mid-October), gold prices surged by another $1,000, coinciding with a spike in Tether's gold purchases.
● This impact is evident not only in the physical market but also in the digital realm. Tether Gold (XAU₮) has evolved into a key tool for directing digital demand towards physical gold.
● By expanding the utility of XAU₮ across multiple blockchain ecosystems, Tether is democratizing gold investment, allowing investors to trade digital gold without traditional intermediaries, thereby increasing liquidity and reducing friction in the gold market.
6. Regulatory Challenges and Future Outlook
Tether's gold strategy also faces regulatory challenges and uncertainties.
● The GENIUS Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in July 2025, established a new regulatory framework for the stablecoin sector but explicitly prohibits compliant issuers from using gold as a reserve asset. In response, Tether has stated plans to launch a stablecoin compliant with the GENIUS Act, named USAT, which will be completely decoupled from gold.
● However, it is puzzling why Tether has continued to increase its USDT gold reserves after the passage of the GENIUS Act. Some analysts believe this may be because Tether is not a U.S. company; it operates from El Salvador and views USDT as an offshore product while preparing a compliant stablecoin for the U.S. market.
● If U.S. regulators ultimately decide to restrict offshore stablecoins, Tether's gold investment portfolio may not just be an auxiliary project but could become a lifeline.
In the future, if a regulatory storm truly hits, when dollar stablecoins face blockades, Tether's gold reserves will provide the confidence to pivot towards gold-backed stablecoins. The integration of gold and blockchain is no longer just a theoretical discussion but a reality that is happening.
When a new order is established, the winners may not necessarily be the issuers with the loudest marketing, but those who have already mastered diversified and reliable sources of cash flow related to gold and have experience managing billions in tokenized liabilities.
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