Tether has announced the launch of its gold-backed token XAUT on BNB Chain, broadening access to what is currently the largest tokenized gold product available on the market. XAUT holds a market capitalization of nearly $2.5 billion, representing close to half of the total tokenized gold market, which stands at approximately $5.3 billion according to data from CoinGecko. The nearest competitor, Paxos‘ PAX Gold, carries a market cap of around $2.3 billion.
XAUT was originally launched on Ethereum, with each token representing one fine troy ounce of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults as London Good Delivery bars. The token maintains a 1:1 backing verified through independent attestations. According to Tether’s most recent attestation report, the company held over 520,000 troy ounces of gold as of the end of 2025.
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which created both the BNB token and the BNB Chain network, has opened spot trading for XAUT pairs. Available trading pairs include USDT, Bitcoin, FDUSD, USDC, and TRY. The move connects BNB Chain’s broad user base directly to the tokenized gold product.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino emphasized the enduring appeal of gold as an asset while highlighting the advantages of its digital form. “People understand gold. They trust it because it has held value for millennia,” Ardoino said in a statement. He added that XAUT does not alter the nature of gold itself but makes it functional within a modern financial system, allowing it to move instantly, settle globally, and integrate with digital markets.
Ardoino further noted that listing on BNB Chain extends that access to hundreds of millions of users, positioning gold as an asset that can be actively used rather than simply held. The expansion comes at a time when gold prices have experienced notable volatility. The price of gold peaked above $5,500 in late January and remained above $5,000 earlier this month before declining to a recent level of $4,442, a drop of nearly 15% over the past month.
Users on prediction market Myriad, operated by Dastan, remain broadly optimistic about gold’s near-term direction. The platform currently assigns a 64% probability that gold will rise to $4,900 before falling to $3,700. This sentiment reflects continued interest in gold-linked assets despite the recent price pullback.
Tether is also the company behind USDT, the leading dollar-pegged stablecoin, which carries a market capitalization of $184 billion and has recently recorded daily trading volumes exceeding $64 billion. Separately, Tether announced earlier this week that it has engaged a so-called “Big Four” accounting firm to conduct a full independent audit of USDT reserves for the first time, though the identity of the firm has not yet been disclosed.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
