Tether Gold Accounts for More Than Half the Entire Gold-Backed Stablecoin Market as XAU₮ Surpasses $4 Billion in Value

26 January 2026 – Tether Gold (XAU₮), the world’s leading tokenized gold product, continues to strengthen its position at the center of the gold-backed stablecoin market as demand for real-world asset tokenization accelerates amid record gold prices and persistent macroeconomic uncertainty.

Gold-backed stablecoins saw rapid expansion in 2025, with total market capitalization growing from approximately $1.3 billion to over $4 billion. This growth was driven by all-time-high gold prices, geopolitical fragmentation, and increasing institutional and digital-native demand for safe-haven assets that remain fully on-chain. As a further highlight of the awakening of global interest and immense demand for physical gold, spot gold surpassed US$5,000 per ounce in the days leading up to the completion of this attestation. Within this market, Tether Gold dominated issuance and circulation, accounting for approximately 60 percent of the total gold-backed stablecoin supply.

As of 31 December 2025 at 11:59 PM UTC, the Management of TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V., an El Salvador Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable and a registered Stablecoin Issuer and Digital Asset Service Provider under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law, confirms the following:

• Key Metrics at the end of Q4 2025
  • Total Physical Gold Reserves: 520,089.350 fine troy ounces
  • Total XAU₮ Tokens in Circulation: 520,089.300000 XAU₮
  • Gold Backing: 1:1, each XAU₮ token is backed by one fine troy ounce of physical gold
  • Total Market Value: US$ 2,246,458,120
  • Tokens Sold: 409,217.640000 XAU₮
  • Tokens Available for Sale: 110,871.660000 XAU₮
• The gold reserves are held in Switzerland in full compliance with London Good Delivery standards set by the London Bullion Market Association.

Tether has emerged as a significant institutional gold accumulator through its gold-backed tokenization strategy. According to IMF data and a late 2025 Jefferies report, Tether now ranks among the top 30 global gold holders, surpassing countries such as Greece, Qatar, and Australia. During the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, Tether Gold Investments, which includes Tether International Limited and TG Commodities Limited, added approximately 27 metric tons of gold to its fund exposure, exceeding the gold purchases of most individual central banks over the same period.

“Through Tether Gold, we are operating at a scale that now places the Tether Gold Investment Fund alongside sovereign gold holders, and that carries real responsibility,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “XAU₮ exists to remove ambiguity at a time when confidence in monetary systems is weakening and it is being put through a pressure test by both institutions and people. Every token represents physically held, vaulted gold that can be verified on-chain, and the market’s growth shows that investors increasingly expect tokenized assets to meet the same standards as national and institutional reserves.”

As asset managers, fintech platforms, and sovereign market participants increasingly adopt blockchain-based issuance and custody models, gold has emerged as a foundational asset within the real-world asset sector. Tether Gold remains at the forefront of this market through strict 1:1 physical backing, daily transparency updates, and regulated issuance under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law. Global markets continue to navigate monetary uncertainty and structural shifts in capital allocation, with XAU₮ providing direct exposure to physical gold ownership while preserving liquidity, portability, and transparency, combining Swiss vaulted reserves, regulated issuance, and open on-chain verification to define responsible gold tokenization at scale.

For further details, please refer to the latest XAU₮ attestation report here.

For full reserve details, regulatory disclosures, and vault transparency, visit https://gold.tether.to.