Tether Gold (XAUT), the Tether group's tokenised gold, reports 827,418 ounces of fine gold as of 30 September 2026, or about 25.7 tonnes stored in Switzerland. That is what the third-quarter attestation, announced by Tether on 4 November 2026, shows. At the end of 2025, the stock stood at 520,089 ounces.
XAUT is the symbol of a token recorded on a blockchain: each token represents one troy ounce of physical gold. According to Tether's announcement of 4 November 2026, reserves have grown by 59% since the end of the year, and the gold backing the token has reached a record 3.44 billion dollars. The product is a concrete case of asset tokenisation: a real-world asset represented by a token.
What does the third-quarter attestation contain?
The report published on tether.io, detailed by Journal du Coin on 5 November 2026, lists 2,057 bars as of 30 September. There were 1,291 on 31 December 2025.
These are London Good Delivery bars of 12.5 kilos, to the standard of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). In nine months, 766 additional bars entered the vault.
The value of the stock grew less than its weight. It rose from 2.25 to 3.44 billion dollars, an increase of 53%. The attestation uses an ounce price of 4,157 dollars, below its end-2025 level.
Demand, for its part, held up. According to Tether, client holdings have grown by 73% since the start of the year. Journal du Coin puts the tokens sold at 709,324 and net purchases at more than 9 tonnes since January.
Part of the stock is still waiting for buyers. According to the same report, 118,094 tokens have already been minted but not yet placed, representing 491 million dollars of gold.
How does Tether Gold work?
Each XAUT corresponds to one fine ounce on a bar identified by its serial number, according to Journal du Coin. The token is redeemable for physical metal. On its website, Tether Gold offers a lookup by address: holders enter the address that holds their tokens to see the gold allocated to them.
The issuer is not Swiss. It is TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V., a Salvadoran company registered under the local digital assets law. Tether published its first XAUT-specific attestation on 28 April 2025, once the product had come under Salvadoran regulation. At that time it held 246,523 ounces, or more than 7.7 tonnes.
Fees are concentrated on entry and exit. The Tether Gold page announces no custody fees and a one-off commission of 25 basis points on purchase or redemption with TG Commodities. It specifies that other fees may apply on redemption. For small amounts, Tether created the Scudo, worth one thousandth of an XAUT.
A sample check, not a full audit
The quarterly attestation is signed by the management of TG Commodities, reports Journal du Coin. An independent third party tests a sample of the bars. The 2,057 bars are therefore not verified one by one.
Upstream, Tether describes other safeguards in its April 2025 announcement. The purchase of LBMA bars involves a selection of counterparties and verification of certificates. Periodic assays of the metal take place in the presence of auditors.
The online counter moves faster than the attestation. On 6 November 2026, the Tether Gold page showed 2,090 bars and 25,735.58 kilos of gold. These figures, accompanied by a disclaimer, do not replace the quarterly report.
XAUT and PAX Gold: what are the differences?
XAUT's main competitor is PAX Gold (PAXG), issued in New York by Paxos Trust Company. According to CoinGecko, cited by Journal du Coin, XAUT was trading at around 4,114 dollars on 5 November 2026 at 6:00, Paris time. Its market capitalisation reached 3.33 billion dollars, with 809,000 tokens in circulation. PAXG stood at 1.85 billion for 447,700 ounces.
| Tether Gold (XAUT) | PAX Gold (PAXG) | |
|---|---|---|
| Issuer | TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V. (El Salvador) | Paxos Trust Company, NA (New York) |
| Vault location | Switzerland | London, LBMA-accredited vaults |
| One token is worth | one troy ounce of fine gold | one troy ounce of London Good Delivery fine gold |
| Published control | quarterly attestation signed by management, sampling of bars by a third party | monthly reserve reports and attestations from an independent accounting firm |
| Custody fees | none | none |
| Redemption in physical gold | yes, with TG Commodities | yes, with Paxos |
According to Paxos documentation, PAXG gold is held in London on a segregated basis, for the benefit of holders. Tether, for its part, claims more than half of the global market for gold-backed stablecoins since January 2026, according to Journal du Coin.
What this means for an investor in Switzerland
XAUT's gold sits in Switzerland, but its issuer is Salvadoran. A Swiss holder therefore depends on a foreign company to recover their metal.
The token adds intermediaries compared with a bar held directly. Like any tokenised asset, it relies on three links: the issuer, the custodian of the asset and the network on which it circulates. A provider's status can be checked on the website of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), which publishes the list of authorised companies and a warning list.
Before comparing XAUT with physical gold or with a gold exchange-traded fund (ETF), three points can be checked with the issuer:
- fees on purchase, on redemption and, where applicable, for custody;
- the frequency and scope of the reserve checks;
- the conditions for redemption in physical metal.
The token tracks the price of gold, both up and down. According to Journal du Coin, the ounce hit a record of around 5,500 dollars at the end of January 2026, then lost about a quarter of its value. This article does not constitute an investment recommendation.
Gold is not the only real-world asset being turned into tokens. Bank deposits are following the same path with JPM Coin on Ethereum, and so is real estate, as shown on our page on real estate tokenisation in Switzerland. For lending protocols, Chainlink has been broadcasting since 29 October 2026 a continuous price for tokenised assets, commodities included. A company wishing to issue its own tokens will find pointers for choosing a Swiss tokenisation platform.
Tether's gold, a separate stock
The 25.7 tonnes of XAUT belong to the token holders, not to Tether. The group holds its own gold in the reserves of USDT, its dollar-pegged stablecoin. According to the first-quarter attestation cited by Journal du Coin, that stock reached about 130 tonnes at the end of March 2026. Bloomberg valued it at nearly 20 billion dollars in May.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, cites an estimate by the World Gold Council: 700 billion dollars of potential demand for digital gold. XAUT would currently represent 0.5% of it, according to Journal du Coin.
More pointers can be found in our blockchain and tokenisation section.
What we do not know yet
- The Swiss custodian: in its April 2025 announcement, Tether mentions a dedicated vault in facilities in Switzerland, without naming the company or the location.
- The cost of redeeming in metal: the Tether Gold page announces possible additional fees, without putting a figure on them.
