Tether Gold Token XAUT: The preferred allocation after gold rises to $4,500 per ounce

Amid the intensifying global “de-dollarization” trend and continuous central bank gold purchases, gold has become the most dazzling asset class for 2025. As the price of gold per ounce hits new historical highs, allocating part of the funds to gold assets has become a consensus among more and more investors. But the question is—how to efficiently and conveniently allocate gold? Tether’s issued gold token XAUT may be the most worthwhile solution for crypto users to consider.

Behind the New High in Gold per Ounce: Three Driving Forces Supporting the 2026 Upside Expectation

In 2025, the gold market can be described as “stormy.” The entire year’s spot gold price increased by 65%, with over 50 record highs broken within the year, reaching a peak of $4,549.96 per ounce. As 2026 begins, gold remains above $4,300 per ounce, showing no signs of fatigue.

What is driving the continuous rise in gold prices? The latest analysis from the World Gold Council reveals the answer:

Policy Support: The U.S. Supreme Court is about to rule on tariff policies, which will have a profound impact on the global trade landscape. Meanwhile, ongoing geopolitical conflicts worldwide also provide ample reasons for safe-haven capital to flow into gold. The continued depreciation trend of the US dollar further enhances gold’s attractiveness.

Capital Flows: In 2025, global investors injected unprecedented amounts of capital into gold ETFs, with North American funds contributing the most, and gold holdings in Asia nearly doubling. The sustained inflow of funds indicates that institutional investors’ confidence in gold continues to grow.

Institutional Outlook: UBS Group has raised its quarterly gold price targets for 2026 to $5,000 per ounce (from $4,500), expecting a slight retreat to $4,800 by year-end. This forecast reflects professional institutions’ optimistic outlook on gold’s medium-term trend.

Based on these multiple positive factors stacking up, the gold market still has considerable upside potential in the coming year.

Scudo New Unit Launch: Gold Token Allocation Threshold Reduced from Thousands to Single Digits

Traditional gold asset allocation faces a practical challenge—high starting points and complex operations. Tether’s recent innovative move is changing this situation.

XAUT, as Tether’s issued gold token, is fully backed by physical gold stored in secure vaults, ensuring asset authenticity. Each XAUT represents 1 troy ounce of gold, valued at around $4,300—still a relatively high threshold.

The turning point comes with Tether’s new pricing unit “Scudo.” According to the official definition, 1 Scudo equals one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold, i.e., one-thousandth of an XAUT, with a value of about $4.4. This innovative design completely solves the problem of handling long decimal digits for users, reducing the gold allocation threshold from thousands of dollars directly to single digits.

The launch of Scudo does not change the underlying structure of XAUT—it remains fully backed by physical gold, just offering a more user-friendly pricing method. For ordinary investors, this effectively opens a new door to gold allocation.

XAUT Liquidity Is Sufficient and Supports Leverage, Market Recognition Is High

Compared to other gold tokens, XAUT has obvious advantages in liquidity and trading convenience.

Liquidity: XAUT has a market cap of about $2.3 billion, supporting sufficient trading depth. It is supported on major centralized exchanges (CEX) such as Bybit, OKX, Bitget, and decentralized exchanges (DEX) like Uniswap, Curve, Fluid, providing multiple trading channels. Investors can not only buy spot but also use derivatives for leverage, catering to different risk preferences.

Tether’s Advantage: As the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, Tether’s market position is undisputed. According to Bloomberg citing Artemis Analytics data, in 2025, USDT trading volume reached $13.3 trillion, and combined with Circle’s USDC ($18.3 trillion), it accounts for the vast majority of global stablecoin trading activity. This market leadership provides a solid guarantee for the stable operation of XAUT.

Institutional Endorsement: Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino recently stated that the company will continue to allocate 15% of quarterly profits into Bitcoin, and in Q3 2025, purchased 26 tons of gold, bringing total gold holdings to 116 tons, ranking among the top 30 largest gold holders worldwide. This demonstrates Tether’s emphasis on precious metals assets and indirectly affirms the security of XAUT as a gold token.

Allocation Suggestions: How to Use XAUT to Hedge Fiat Currency Depreciation

For ordinary investors with limited liquidity and lower risk appetite, converting part of their fiat funds into gold tokens like XAUT is a worthwhile option. The specific logic is as follows:

Short-term Perspective: Gold per ounce still has upward potential within the year, with institutional forecasts approaching $5,000. Coupled with the current price around $4,300, the short-term profit space is relatively attractive.

Medium-term Perspective: Under the backdrop of a weakening US dollar and accelerating de-dollarization globally, gold’s status as the ultimate safe-haven asset remains unshaken. In a fiat depreciation trend, gold token allocation can effectively hedge against purchasing power risks.

Operational Convenience: The new Scudo unit reduces the allocation threshold to an acceptable level. Investors can flexibly allocate according to their own capital without a one-time investment of thousands of dollars. Multiple trading platforms’ support also ensures sufficient liquidity.

It should be noted that all investments carry risks. Although gold has safe-haven properties, tokenized assets still involve smart contract risks, platform risks, and other factors. Investors are advised to thoroughly assess their risk tolerance before allocation and consider strategies like dollar-cost averaging to reduce risks.

Overall, as gold per ounce continues to hit new highs, Tether’s XAUT tokens indeed provide crypto users with a relatively convenient and cost-controlled path to allocate gold assets. Coupled with the launch of the new Scudo unit and ample market liquidity, XAUT is becoming an increasingly important bridge between traditional gold allocation and digital assets.