What is Tether Gold?
Tether Gold (XAUt) is a gold-backed token. Each token is designed to represent ownership of one troy ounce of physical gold that Tether says is held in a vault. Instead of tracking a dollar like a stablecoin, its value follows the market price of gold, giving holders on-chain exposure to a traditional commodity. It is a real-world-asset token rather than a lending, trading, or yield protocol, even though our directory groups it with DeFi by value locked.
How is it backed?
Backing is custodial: the token's value rests on Tether holding and accounting for the underlying gold, and on the redemption and allocation terms it publishes. This is a trust-based model, closer to a warehouse receipt than to a trustless smart contract.
What did our review measure?
We recorded about $3.3B in value and coverage across 8 chains, alongside a low endpoint latency of 93 ms. Our measured age is roughly 2.1 years for the tracked deployment. Our automated review found 0 smart-contract audits, and we did not find a public status page. We do not independently verify the gold reserves, vault arrangements, or redemption process; those depend on the issuer's own attestations.
What are the risks?
- Issuer and custody trust: the token is only as sound as the custody and accounting of the physical gold behind it.
- Redemption terms: converting tokens back to physical gold or cash follows issuer rules that can carry minimums and fees.
- Price risk: gold prices move, so the token is not a stable-value instrument.
- Smart-contract and bridge risk: the token exists across multiple chains, which adds technical exposure.
Who is it for?
XAUt suits holders who specifically want tokenized gold exposure and are comfortable trusting a centralized issuer for custody. It is a poor fit for anyone seeking a dollar-pegged stablecoin, a yield product, or fully decentralized backing. As always, confirm the current reserve attestations and redemption terms directly with the issuer before relying on them.
Tokenized gold does not pay interest; the only return comes from the gold price itself, minus any storage or transfer costs the issuer applies. That makes it a very different instrument from a lending market or a staking token, even though our directory groups them together by value locked. If your goal is simply commodity price exposure, weigh a token like this against other ways of holding gold, including the trade-offs of custody, liquidity, and on-chain convenience.