Tether Is Buying More Gold: Why USDT Reserve Is Shifting

Ben Graham · 7 horas atrás

Tether reportedly built a massive physical gold reserve position as part of its reserve strategy. The company added roughly 27 metric tons of gold in the final quarter of 2025, bringing its total holdings to around 520,000 ounces. The position is valued at approximately $12.9 billion and represents about 7% of the assets backing USDT’s roughly $187 billion in circulation.

The metal is stored in secure vaults, and this move continues Tether’s shift toward more tangible and traditional collateral after years of heavy reliance on U.S. Treasuries and other short-term instruments.

[ ZOOMER ]
TETHER HAS AMASSED THE LARGEST KNOWN HOARD OF GOLD OUTSIDE OF NATION STATES AND BANKS, EQUALING OVER 140 TONS, WHICH IT KEEPS SAFE IN A NUCLEAR BUNKER: BBG

— zoomer (@zoomerfied) January 28, 2026

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Gold’s Steady Surge vs. Bitcoin’s Rollercoaster

Gold has delivered one of its strongest multi-year runs in decades. From roughly $1,900 per ounce in early 2020, the price climbed past $5,200 by late January 2026: a gain of over 170%. In 2025 alone, the metal rose nearly 70%, repeatedly setting new all-time highs above $4,900 before pushing even higher. Central-bank purchases, persistent inflation concerns, and safe-haven flows have been the main drivers.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, has followed a far more volatile path. After dipping below $30,000 in 2021, it reached a peak near $126,000 in 2025, only to pull back to around $90,000 by early 2026, a 30% retreat from that high. The BTC-to-gold ratio has compressed from earlier peaks, reflecting gold’s growing appeal as a lower-volatility store of value during periods of regulatory pressure and market drawdowns.

The decision by Tether to increase its gold reserve allocation mirrors this broader institutional preference for harder assets that hold up better in uncertain environments.

(Source: TradingView)

Tether Move to Accumulate Gold Is Not Casual – Why Stablecoin Trust is Still a Sensitive Topic

Tether carries history. Regulators fined the company $41 million in 2021 after it overstated how safely backed USDT was. That episode still shapes how users judge every new reserve update.

Since then, Tether shifted into US Treasuries and alternative assets. Gold fits that pattern. It also mirrors what decentralized stablecoins like DAI do by adding real-world assets to steady their value, as regulatory pressure rises across the sector.

It’s not only that. USDT faces mounting legal and compliance challenges, with Europe presenting the toughest environment. Under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, stablecoins classified as e-money tokens must be issued by authorized credit institutions or electronic money institutions and meet strict requirements.

Tether has not obtained full authorization under these rules, leading to warnings, delisting threats on major EU platforms, and elevated redemption activity as the framework took full effect in 2025.

The situation has forced exchanges to phase out non-compliant stablecoins or face penalties, while Tether has introduced jurisdiction-specific alternatives (such as a compliant version for the U.S. market).

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A Precedent for the Next Generation of Stablecoins

By scaling up gold exposure, Tether moves closer to the model of existing gold-pegged tokens such as PAXG and its own XAUT, which provide one-to-one backing with audited physical bars. The difference lies in reach: USDT remains the backbone of payments and liquidity on networks like TRON, processing billions in daily volume.

(Source: DefiLlama)

Even modest reserve adjustments, therefore, send outsize ripples through crypto markets.

More broadly, the gold buildup signals that leading stablecoin issuers are increasingly blending traditional finance tools with blockchain infrastructure rather than resisting integration.

Whether this approach ultimately strengthens confidence in USDT’s peg or attracts additional regulatory attention will depend on how markets and watchdogs respond in the months ahead. For now, it underscores a clear trend: as gold continues its climb and Bitcoin wrestles with volatility, the most-used stablecoin is quietly repositioning itself closer to time-tested hard assets.

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