Is Tether's Gold Token XAUT Worth Buying?

Odaily星球日报Published on 2026-01-10Last updated on 2026-01-10

Abstract

The article "Is Tether's Gold Token XAUT Worth Buying?" analyzes the potential of Tether's gold-backed cryptocurrency, XAUT, as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation. It highlights the strong performance of gold in 2025, with prices reaching record highs (over $4,500/oz) and gaining about 65% for the year, supported by factors like U.S. policy, massive ETF inflows, and geopolitical tensions. Institutions like UBS have raised their 2026 price targets to $5,000/oz. XAUT offers several advantages: it is backed by Tether's substantial gold reserves (116 tons, making it a top 30 global holder), has high liquidity with a market cap around $2.3 billion, and is listed on major exchanges (e.g., Bybit, OKX, Uniswap). Recently, Tether introduced "Scudo," a smaller unit (1/1000 of an XAUT, ~$4.40) to lower the entry barrier and enhance practicality for everyday use. With Tether's dominant position in stablecoins and strong profitability, XAUT is presented as an accessible option for crypto users seeking exposure to gold, especially amid a weakening U.S. dollar.

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010)

2026, survival is paramount.

In the previous article "2026, Survive: A Bear Market Survival and Counterattack Manual for Crypto Enthusiasts", we systematically outlined this year's "survival strategy", emphasizing the allocation of assets such as gold and other precious metals as a major component. For those aspiring to use gold to combat inflation, mitigate fiat currency devaluation, the decline of the US dollar exchange rate, and other issues, how to allocate gold-related assets has become the next challenge.

In this regard, based on the author's personal understanding, XAUT, issued by Tether, might relatively be the best way for crypto users to allocate gold assets. Considering Tether's recent launch of a new unit of account "Scudo" for Tether Gold (XAU₮), the entry barrier for gold token allocation has also sharply dropped to as low as a few dollars.

Odaily Planet Daily will systematically analyze in this article whether XAUT is worth allocating in one's portfolio.

Potential Supports for Gold's Rise: US Policies, ETF Inflows, Bank Ratings

Last September, when the spot gold price was still around $3400-$3500, we introduced five major gold tokens in the article "Gold Price Expected to Continue Surging to $3900/oz, Here's a List of 5 Gold Tokens", with XAUT being one of them. Looking back 3 months later, the spot gold price per ounce once surged to around $4550. It has to be said, impressively so.

Moreover, despite recent phased price corrections, the upward trend of spot gold has not been significantly interrupted. Specifically, the support for gold prices stems from the following aspects:

World Gold Council: US Supreme Court Tariff Decision and Two Other Factors Only Constitute Short-Term Fluctuation Impacts on Gold's Future Trends

The World Gold Council reported that the surge in precious metals (including silver and platinum) in December and the rebalancing of commodity indices might trigger market volatility in the short term. However, aside from short-term fluctuation impacts, gold is expected to continue its own operational logic. The upcoming US Supreme Court ruling on tariff policy could significantly impact US trade policy. Its effect on gold might be more complex but could constitute potential support. Finally, ongoing geopolitical conflicts (with recent US actions in Venezuela being the latest example) also provide support for gold prices.

Gold Price Set 53 Historical Records in 2025, ETFs Saw Unprecedented Inflows

The World Gold Council stated that as the gold price set 53 historical records in 2025, global investors poured unprecedented funds into gold ETFs. North American funds contributed the main part of the global inflows in 2025. Meanwhile, gold holdings in the Asian region nearly doubled, and Europe also showed significant demand.

Gold Rose About 65% in 2025 and Set Over 50 New Highs, Silver Rose About 150%

The 2025 precious metals market showed that spot gold closed down 0.46% on December 31 at $4318.65/oz. Against the backdrop of global "de-dollarization", the Fed restarting its interest rate cut cycle, and continuous gold purchases by central banks, gold became the most dazzling "star asset" of 2025, with a rising trend throughout the year, rising about 65% for the year, once refreshing the historical high to $4549.96/oz, and setting over 50 new highs during the year.

UBS Group: Raises Gold Price Targets for March, June, and September 2026 to $5000 Per Ounce

UBS Group stated it maintains a bullish stance and has raised its gold price targets for March, June, and September 2026 to $5000 per ounce (previously $4500 per ounce). It is expected that by the end of 2026, the gold price will slightly fall to $4800 per ounce.

Based on the above information, the gold market is continuously看好 (viewed optimistically) for the next year. Let's discuss why Tether's gold token XAUT is worth allocating.

4 Major Advantages of XAUT Allocation: High Market Cap, Low Threshold, Good Liquidity, Leverage Available

First, Tether's strong financial support and the gold reserves and sufficient liquidity behind XAUT.

At the beginning of the month, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether purchased 8888 Bitcoins on New Year's Eve 2025, worth about $780 million. This transaction increased the public Bitcoin holdings of the stablecoin issuer to over 96,000. Tether currently allocates 15% of its quarterly profits regularly to Bitcoin. Additionally, Tether purchased 26 tons of gold in the third quarter of 2025, bringing its total gold holdings to 116 tons, ranking among the top 30 gold holders globally. A market cap of around $2.3 billion is also proof of XAUT's sufficient liquidity.

Second, Tether recently launched a new unit of account "Scudo" for XAUT.

According to official news, Tether officially launched the new计价单位 (unit of account) Scudo for Tether Gold (XAUT). This unit aims to reintroduce gold as a means of payment. 1 Scudo is defined as one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold or one-thousandth of an XAUT token (approximately $4.4). This move addresses the issue of users needing to handle long decimals when trading or pricing by introducing a simpler计价方式 (pricing method), making gold more practical in daily economic activities. Tether Gold is currently fully backed by physical gold in secure vaults; the introduction of Scudo does not change the structure or backing of XAUT.

Third, XAUT is listed on major mainstream CEX and DEX platforms and supports spot buying or contract leverage operations.

According to Coingecko information, XAUT supports buying and selling on CEXs like Bybit, OKX, Bitget, and DEXs like Uniswap, Fluid, Curve.

Finally, Tether's dominant position in the stablecoin track and the超高利润 (super high profits) from its business operations also provide strong support for the growth and development of XAUT. Its industry application popularity is expected to further increase in 2026.

According to a Bloomberg report citing Artemis Analytics data, global stablecoin transaction volume surged 72% year-on-year in 2025 to a record $33 trillion. Among them, USDC issued by Circle had a transaction volume of $18.3 trillion, ranking first; Tether's USDT had a transaction volume of $13.3 trillion, also maintaining a high level. Together they account for the vast majority of stablecoin trading activity.

Considering the continuous decline in the US dollar to RMB exchange rate, for most ordinary people with relatively limited liquid funds and lower investment risk appetite, converting some fiat currency into the gold token XAUT might be a relatively better solution.

Related Questions

QWhat are the main factors supporting the potential rise in gold prices according to the article?

AThe main factors supporting gold prices include U.S. policy (such as the Supreme Court's upcoming tariff decision), unprecedented inflows into gold ETFs, ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and banking ratings. Additionally, the 'de-dollarization' trend, the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, and continuous gold purchases by central banks are key drivers.

QWhat is XAUT and what are its advantages for crypto users interested in gold?

AXAUT is a gold-backed token issued by Tether. Its advantages for crypto users include high market capitalization (around $2.3 billion), low entry threshold (due to the new 'Scudo' unit making fractional ownership easier), good liquidity, and the ability to use leverage through supported exchanges.

QWhat is the new 'Scudo' unit for Tether Gold (XAU₮) and what problem does it solve?

AThe 'Scudo' is a new accounting unit for Tether Gold (XAU₮), defined as one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold (approximately $4.4). It solves the problem of users having to deal with long decimal places when transacting or pricing, making gold more practical for everyday economic activities.

QHow much gold does Tether hold to back its XAUT token, and what is its ranking?

AAs of the article's information, Tether holds 116 tons of gold to back its XAUT token, making it one of the top 30 largest gold holders globally. They purchased 26 tons of gold in the third quarter of 2025 alone.

QWhat is the price target for gold set by UBS Group for parts of 2026?

AUBS Group has raised its price target for gold to $5,000 per ounce for March, June, and September of 2026 (up from $4,500). They expect the price to slightly decrease to $4,800 per ounce by the end of 2026.

Related Reads

Silicon Valley 'Startup Guru' Steve Hoffman: Web3 + AI Could Be a Trap

Silicon Valley investor and "Godfather of Startups" Steve Hoffman warns that combining Web3 with AI is likely a trap, not a promising venture. In an interview, Hoffman argues that while AI is a foundational technology touching all industries, Web3 adds complexity, friction, and regulatory risk without solving mainstream consumer or business needs. He advises founders to focus on deep, specialized applications where startups can out-iterate giants, rather than on generic features easily replicated by large tech companies. Hoffman observes that Silicon Valley will lead foundational AI research, while China excels at rapid, large-scale application and commercialization, particularly in robotics. He stresses that AI-driven autonomous agents capable of collaborative, multi-step tasks are 2-4 years away, which will cause significant job displacement. The solution is not to slow AI but to redesign business models around human-AI collaboration and reform social systems like education and retraining. For startups, Hoffman recommends focusing on vertical, expertise-heavy domains to build defensibility. He sees major opportunities in AI fraud detection and cybersecurity. Key founder mindsets include systemic thinking over feature-focus, relentless customer centricity, building adaptive teams, and deeply understanding AI's capabilities and limits. Hoffman is also leading a non-profit initiative to establish university centers aimed at training future leaders in responsible, human-value-aligned AI innovation.

marsbit1h ago

Silicon Valley 'Startup Guru' Steve Hoffman: Web3 + AI Could Be a Trap

marsbit1h ago

Token Inefficient, Economy Tokenless

The article "Tokens Aren't Economical, Economics Aren't Tokenized" analyzes a pivotal shift in the AI industry from a technology-driven narrative to one dominated by capital efficiency. It highlights two concurrent trends: a severe capital shortage due to the exorbitant and recurring costs of compute (e.g., OpenAI's high burn rate) and a wave of corporate spin-offs where major tech companies are separating their AI units (like Kuaishou's Kling and Baidu's Kunlunxin). The core argument is that AI's "anti-internet" business model, where user growth increases costs rather than profits, has created a disconnect between high valuations and actual cash flow. Spin-offs address this by allowing AI assets to be valued independently. Within a parent company, they are seen as cost centers, but as standalone entities, they are priced based on their growth potential and scarcity in the primary market, leading to massive valuation premiums (e.g., Kling's estimated value tripling post-spin-off). The industry is at an inflection point, moving from "model worship" to "value realization." The competition is evolving from a pure compute (GPU) race to a broader focus on systemic efficiency and full-stack engineering (involving CPUs and orchestration) to achieve viable commercialization. The year 2026 is framed as a critical moment where the industry must definitively answer how to economically translate AI capability into tangible business value, reshaping the sector's future power structure.

marsbit1h ago

Token Inefficient, Economy Tokenless

marsbit1h ago

Crossing the 'Memory Wall': The Wafer-Level Revolution and Computing Power Routes in the AI Inference Era

In 2026, a historic shift occurred in AI as major cloud providers' inference spending surpassed training spending for the first time, signaling a move from "building large models" to "using large models." This shifts the core challenge from computing power to the "memory wall"—the bottleneck of data movement (model weights, activations, KV Cache) between external DRAM and processors, where energy and latency from data transfer far exceed computation itself. Companies like Nvidia face GPU idle time due to bandwidth limits. In contrast, Cerebras Systems adopts a radical "wafer-scale" approach with its Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE). Instead of cutting a silicon wafer into many chips, Cerebras uses almost the entire wafer as one massive chip (WSE-3). This design provides 44GB of on-chip SRAM, delivering memory bandwidth thousands of times higher than traditional HBM (e.g., 21 PB/s vs. Nvidia B200). For LLM inference, weights are streamed layer-by-layer from external MemoryX storage to the chip, avoiding HBM bottlenecks. This results in token generation speeds 1.5–5 times faster than Nvidia's B200 in some models and significant advantages in first-token latency and long-context tasks. Additionally, Cerebras's architecture offers much lower interconnect power consumption (0.15 pJ/bit vs. GPU's ~10 pJ/bit). However, Cerebras faces challenges: SRAM scaling has slowed with advanced nodes, limiting future capacity gains; the chip requires specialized liquid cooling and custom software stacks; and its external I/O bandwidth (150 GB/s) is low compared to NVLink, hindering multi-system scaling for very large models. Competition is intensifying. Major players are pursuing three paths: 1) Developing proprietary inference ASICs (e.g., Google TPU, Microsoft Maia), 2) Leveraging advanced packaging (e.g., TSMC's SoW) to democratize wafer-scale-like integration, potentially eroding Cerebras's process advantage within a few years, and 3) Exploring optical interconnects for ultimate bandwidth. Commercially, Cerebras is transitioning from a hardware vendor to a service provider, facing the immense challenge of building high-power, specialized data centers to meet large contracts (e.g., 250MW/year from 2026–2028). In conclusion, the AI inference era presents a fundamental architectural trade-off. Cerebras opts for extreme physical optimization for low-latency, single-task performance, while Nvidia prioritizes versatility and massive cluster throughput. The path forward remains uncertain, with technology and business models still evolving in the race toward advanced AI.

marsbit1h ago

Crossing the 'Memory Wall': The Wafer-Level Revolution and Computing Power Routes in the AI Inference Era

marsbit1h ago

Has Bitcoin's 'Rebound Ended', Officially Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?

**Title: Has Bitcoin's Rebound Ended, Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?** **Summary:** Bitcoin's price has declined by 13% this week, signaling a potential return to late-stage bear market conditions. The price fell to around $67k, positioned between the Realized Price and Realized Cap Weighted Average. For the first time since early 2022, the Short-Term Holder cost basis has dropped below this key average, confirming a hallmark of late-cycle bear markets. Profitability metrics have collapsed sharply. The 7-day average of the Realized Profit/Loss ratio plummeted from a local high of 3.16 to 0.29, mirroring the February panic sell-off. Critically, the 90-day average never breached the threshold of 2, indicating the recent rally to $82k was a bear market bounce, not a structural shift. Realized losses surged to $1.35 billion daily, with $770 million coming from Long-Term Holders selling at a loss. This accelerating redistribution of supply from weak to strong hands is a necessary but ongoing process for a market bottom. The rally stalled almost precisely at the aggregate cost basis (~$83k) of US spot Bitcoin ETF investors, turning that level into strong resistance and leaving the average ETF holder underwater again. Spot market flows have turned decisively negative, showing sellers are dominating order books despite the price drop. While a significant futures long liquidation event cleared over $400 million in leverage, providing a potential reset, sustained spot demand is yet to materialize. Options markets continue to price in higher future volatility (Implied Volatility) than recent price action (Realized Volatility) has shown, with a persistent skew towards put options, indicating ongoing demand for downside protection. In conclusion, multiple metrics point to a fragile market structure. Resistance at the ETF cost basis, accelerating realized losses, dominant spot selling, and cautious options pricing all suggest the bear market trend persists. A sustainable recovery likely requires a resurgence of spot demand, ETF holders returning to profit, and a clear reduction in selling pressure.

marsbit1h ago

Has Bitcoin's 'Rebound Ended', Officially Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?

marsbit1h ago

TechFlow Intelligence Agency: Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development While Preparing for Trillion-Dollar IPO; SpaceX IPO Roadshow Heats Up, But S&P 500 Rejects Fast-Track Inclusion

In today's TechFlow Intelligence Briefing, several major tech stories highlight a growing theme of trust and credibility gaps across AI, crypto, and finance. AI company Anthropic has publicly called for a global pause in AI development, citing risks from Claude's "recursive self-improvement." Ironically, this coincides with reports the company is preparing for a massive IPO targeting a near $1 trillion valuation. This perceived hypocrisy, coupled with widespread user complaints about Claude's declining performance, is sparking debate over whether the safety warning is genuine or a competitive tactic. Meanwhile, in a substantive security move, Anthropic open-sourced a framework for AI-powered vulnerability discovery. In the crypto market, Bitcoin's price drop below $61,000 triggered over $1.16 billion in liquidations, flipping the market into a state where more BTC is held at a loss than at a profit, a historical bearish signal. On the corporate front, SpaceX's highly anticipated IPO is generating immense Wall Street excitement, with Goldman Sachs projecting 100x revenue growth by 2030. However, the S&P 500 has refused to fast-track the company's inclusion post-IPO, potentially limiting immediate institutional demand. Separately, ByteDance's AI app Doubao lost over 6 million monthly active users after introducing a subscription model, highlighting the challenges of AI monetization. Other notable developments include Nvidia certifying HBM4 memory from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron; Cloudflare's acquisition of front-end tooling company VoidZero; and its CEO warning that bot traffic now exceeds human traffic online. The underlying narrative connects these events: a trust crisis. From AI firms' contradictory actions and crypto volatility to the clash between SpaceX's hyped narrative and institutional rules, a pattern is emerging where stated intentions and actual practices are increasingly misaligned.

marsbit1h ago

TechFlow Intelligence Agency: Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development While Preparing for Trillion-Dollar IPO; SpaceX IPO Roadshow Heats Up, But S&P 500 Rejects Fast-Track Inclusion

marsbit1h ago

Trading

Spot
Futures

Hot Articles

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of XAUT (XAUT) are presented below.

活动图片

Top Questions