A private company has become the world's largest holder of gold outside of central banks.
Paolo Ardoino has been very busy lately. He spends $1 billion a month, buys 1 to 2 tons of gold weekly, and says he "won't stop in the coming months."
Paolo is not a central bank governor; he is the CEO of Tether, the world's largest stablecoin company.
The USDT issued by Tether is the world's largest stablecoin, with a circulation of approximately $187 billion. The business model is extremely simple: you give it $1, it gives you 1 USDT token, you use the token for trading, and it uses the dollars to buy government bonds and earn interest.
In 2024, its net profit exceeded $13 billion. This team of about 150 people achieved a profit per capita of approximately $86 million. Based on the net profit of over $10 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, the full-year figure is expected to reach $15 billion, surpassing Goldman Sachs. This year, Tether may achieve a profit per capita of $100 million.
But this company, which relies on the US dollar, has been doing something non-core in recent years: hoarding gold like crazy.
Tether has hoarded about 140 tons, worth approximately $24 billion. This number exceeds the reserves of central banks in countries like South Korea, Hungary, Greece, Qatar, and Australia.
Tether has become the largest holder of gold outside of central banks globally.
At Tether's pace, its monthly gold purchases exceed $1 billion. The gold price has risen from about $2,650 at the end of September 2024 to over $5,100 now, giving Tether a paper profit far exceeding $5 billion.
Ardoino once said, "Gold is logically safer than any national currency."
Many of Tether's users come from countries like Turkey, Argentina, and Nigeria, where currencies have long been depreciating. Their use of USDT is essentially an escape from their own central banks. Ardoino takes this logic a step further: what if the US dollar fails one day?
Selling dollars with the left hand, hoarding gold with the right. He knows better than anyone where the risks lie.
A Vault in a Nuclear Bunker, and Traders Poached from HSBC
The gold bought by Tether is stored in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.
During the Cold War, Switzerland built about 370,000 nuclear bunkers to protect against atomic bombs; most are now abandoned. Tether converted one of them into a gold vault. Ardoino describes the place as "guarded by multiple heavy steel doors, with over 1 ton of gold transported in every week," a "James Bond-style place."
Physical gold is not anyone's liability, does not rely on any government credit, and cannot be frozen, sanctioned, or printed out of thin air. It is the oldest form of security.
But Ardoino's ambition goes beyond hoarding; he also wants to trade.
The global gold trading market is monopolized by large banks like JPMorgan, HSBC, and Citigroup, which control pricing power and liquidity.
In November 2025, Vincent Domien, HSBC's Global Head of Trading for Metals, and Mathew O'Neill, Head of Precious Metals for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, both left. Both are top figures in the industry; Domien has been HSBC's Global Head of Metals Trading since 2022 and is also a board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA); O'Neill has worked at HSBC since 2008.
Their new employer is Tether.
A crypto company poaching the top gold traders from traditional finance caused a stir in the City of London.
Ardoino said he needs "the world's best gold trading platform" to facilitate long-term gold purchases and "take advantage of potential market inefficiencies."
Buying about $1 billion worth of physical gold monthly is actually quite troublesome; it involves solving a series of logistical challenges.
Currently, Tether "procures directly from Swiss refineries and also from large financial institutions. A large order may take months to be delivered." They have no bargaining power in the supply chain; how much they can buy and when it arrives depends on others.
Building their own trading capability is to break free from this passivity. If they can save 0.5% in trading costs, that's $60 million a year. More importantly, it's about gaining initiative.
From Central Banks to Gold Consortium
Tether's attitude towards gold is increasingly resembling that of a central bank.
Central banks like gold for two reasons: it has good liquidity and is recognized worldwide, and it is not anyone's liability and does not rely on another country's credit.
Since Trump took office, constant tariff threats have caused the dollar to fall to a three-year low. Meanwhile, global central banks are increasing their gold holdings. The National Bank of Poland was the largest gold buyer among global central banks in 2024 and 2025, adding about 90 tons in 2024 and maintaining its lead in 2025. China, Russia, Turkey, India, and Brazil are also continuously adding to their holdings.
Tether is pushing this trend to the extreme. It is doing the same thing as central banks, but in a private manner. Jefferies analysts pointed out that Tether, as a "significant new buyer, may drive sustained growth in gold demand." Its purchases in the third quarter of 2025 accounted for about 2% of global gold demand. A stablecoin company has become one of the drivers of rising gold prices.
But the布局 doesn't stop there. Tether is also quietly acquiring shares in gold royalty companies.
Royalty companies are firms that purchase revenue streams from miners. Miners dig for gold, and royalty companies take a share of the proceeds, similar to collecting rent. The benefit is not having to mine themselves, not bearing the extraction risks, and just sitting back and sharing the profits.
According to Bloomberg, Tether has invested over $200 million to acquire about 37.8% of Elemental Altus Royalties, later adding another $100 million investment to support its merger with EMX. It also holds shares in several mid-sized Canadian listed royalty companies like Metalla Royalty, Versamet Royalties, and Gold Royalty.
This is managed by Juan Sartori, Tether's Vice President of Strategic Projects.
He is a former Uruguayan senator, co-owner of the Premier League football club Sunderland, vice-president of AS Monaco Football Club, and founder of Union Group. Politician, businessman, football owner, crypto executive—his identity组合 is very international.
From downstream stablecoin, to midstream physical gold and trading capability, to upstream mining rights, Tether is building a complete gold industry chain, increasingly resembling a gold consortium.
Besides physical gold, Tether also has a gold token called XAUT. Buying 1 XAUT corresponds to physical gold in the Swiss vault; if you want to withdraw, they can actually ship you gold bars. Currently, XAUT holds about 60% of the global gold token market, with a circulating market value of approximately $2.7 billion. By the end of 2025, XAUT was backed by about 16.2 tons of physical gold.
Ardoino predicts it could reach a circulation of $5 billion to $10 billion by the end of 2026. If it really reaches $10 billion, it would require an increase of about 60 tons of gold reserves. Just to support XAUT, they would need to buy over 1 ton per week.
He also made a prediction: "There are some countries buying large amounts of gold. We believe they will soon launch tokenized versions of gold as competing currencies to the dollar."
He didn't say which countries. But everyone has an idea who has been疯狂 buying gold in the past few years.
Some Always Have Their Vault Ready
James Rickards, former financial warfare advisor to the Pentagon, wrote in "Currency Wars": The foundation of currency competition is reserve competition.
In the 1960s, French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing complained that the US enjoyed an "exorbitant privilege," printing a few cents worth of paper in exchange for the world's real gold and silver.
This game has been played for sixty years, relying on the world's belief in the dollar.
Trust can collapse very quickly. This is also the core logic of the reserve war.
The surface trade wars, tariff wars, and exchange rate wars are just external manifestations of monetary credit competition. The foundation of monetary credit lies in the quality of reserves.
As the dollar is repeatedly weaponized—freezing foreign exchange reserves, cutting off SWIFT channels, implementing financial sanctions—the world is forced to rethink: what kind of reserves are truly safe?
Central banks understand this, so they are quietly increasing holdings. Tether also understands this, so it is疯狂 hoarding.
John Reade, Chief Strategist at the World Gold Council, said Tether's purchases have an impact on the gold price, but are only a small part of the reason for the rise. He added, "What's really interesting is that one of the major players in the cryptocurrency space sees gold as the original dollar debasement trade."
In August 2025, Tether hired Bo Hines, former Executive Director of the White House Crypto Asset Committee under the Trump administration, as a US Strategic Advisor. Hines helped push the first US stablecoin regulatory bill, the Genius Act, through Congress during his tenure. In January 2026, Tether launched USAT, a US-specific token compliant with the act.
Hoarding gold in a Swiss nuclear bunker with one hand, lobbying in Washington with the other—both hands are strong.
Gold continues to hit new highs, the dollar falls to a three-year low. In an inconspicuous cave at the foot of the Swiss Alps, another ton-plus of gold is transported in, the heavy steel door slowly closing.
The world is indeed becoming more turbulent, but some always build their vaults提前.
