TL;DR
- XAU₮ passed $4B and about 60% share as gold-backed tokens grew from ~$1.3B to $4B+ in 2025.
- Attestation shows 520,089.350 ounces backing 520,089.300 tokens, 1:1, $2.246B value, with Swiss LBMA vaulting and limited tokens for sale.
- Tether added about 27 metric tons in Q4 2025, positioning its gold exposure among top 30 holders; Ardoino stresses on-chain verifiability and responsibility at scale.
Tokenized gold is snapping into focus, and XAU₮ is setting the pace. XAU₮ has pushed past $4 billion in market value and now commands around 60% of gold-backed tokens in circulation. That momentum capped a year when the category’s total market capitalization expanded from roughly $1.3 billion to over $4 billion, as investors leaned into real-world asset exposure that can move and settle on public blockchains. The run also coincided with spot gold breaking above $5,000 per ounce, reinforcing the bid for portable hard-asset exposure, and hedging demand is rising.
Reserves, custody, and the trust stack
An attestation sets out how the structure works. The issuer positions XAU₮ as inventory-grade bullion exposure, with tokens and reserves designed to match one-for-one. TG Commodities, a Digital Asset Service Provider under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law, reported that as of Dec. 31, 2025 it held 520,089.350 fine troy ounces of physical gold versus 520,089.300 XAU₮ tokens in circulation, a 1:1 backing ratio. It listed a market value of $2.246 billion, with 409,217.64 tokens sold and 110,871.66 available for sale today.
Custody and standards do the heavy lifting on trust. The reserves are fully vaulted in Switzerland and adhere to LBMA London Good Delivery specifications for institutional-grade bullion, for auditability and delivery. But scale is the bigger storyline: cited data and analysis place Tether’s aggregate gold exposure among the world’s top 30 gold holders, surpassing national reserves held by Greece, Qatar, and Australia. In Q4 2025, Tether Gold Investments, including Tether International Limited and TG Commodities Limited, added approximately 27 metric tons of gold, a pace the piece says outstripped most individual central bank purchases.
For governance and risk teams, that scale changes expectations. Paolo Ardoino says operating alongside sovereign gold holders carries responsibility, and he frames XAU₮ as a way to remove ambiguity when confidence in monetary systems weakens. He argues every token represents physically held, vaulted gold that can be verified on-chain, and that growth signals investors want tokenized assets to meet national and institutional reserve standards. With the market more than tripling in 2025 and XAU₮ holding the liquidity lead, transparency cadence, custody quality, and verifiable backing become the differentiators as competitors chase the same trade.
