Tether Gold Dominates as Onchain Gold Trading Activity Surges with Demand
Gold's digital run is heating up—and one token is leading the charge.
Onchain Gold Rush: The Numbers Don't Lie
Forget vaults and safety deposit boxes. The real action in gold is happening on the blockchain. Trading activity for tokenized precious metals is spiking, driven by investors seeking a haven that's both ancient and utterly modern. The surge isn't spread evenly, though. One asset is pulling far ahead of the pack.
Tether Gold's Commanding Lead
In the race to digitize the world's oldest store of value, Tether Gold isn't just winning—it's defining the track. Its dominance in onchain gold trading volume tells a clear story: when crypto-native players want exposure to bullion, they're overwhelmingly choosing the liquidity and infrastructure of the established giant. It's a classic case of network effects meeting a timeless asset.
Demand Fuels the Fire
This isn't just a tech story; it's a demand story. The rise in onchain activity mirrors a broader flight to perceived stability. Whether it's hedge against inflation, geopolitical jitters, or just portfolio diversification, the appetite is real. The blockchain simply provides a faster, borderless pipe to feed it—cutting out traditional custodial middlemen and their associated fees (and paperwork).
A New Chapter for an Old Asset
Gold's journey from buried treasure to ETF ticker was revolutionary. Its leap onto the blockchain might be even more profound. It represents a fusion of the ultimate physical asset with the ultimate digital settlement layer. Sure, some Wall Street veterans might scoff at the idea of 'digital gold'—the same crowd who probably thought paper money was a fad, too.
The bottom line? The barbarous relic just got a software upgrade. And as demand grows, the infrastructure built today will shape who owns gold tomorrow. Just don't expect your traditional gold broker to understand the wallet address you're sending it to.
XAU₮ backing confirms Tether’s gold fund expansion
XAU₮ issuer reported that a stablecoin issuer recognized under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law held 520,089.350 fine troy ounces of physical gold. The gold-backed 520,089.300000 XAU₮ tokens in circulation on a 1:1 basis at the end of quarter four of 2025. The overall market capitalization of XAU₮ tokens was $2.25 billion, with 409,217.640000 XAU₮ tokens sold and 110,871.660000 XAU₮ available for sale.
Following these end-of-year metrics, Tether Gold Investments increased its fund exposure by over 27 metric tons of gold in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone. It surpassed the acquisitions made by the majority of individual central banks during the same time frame.
“Through Tether Gold, we are operating at a scale that now places the Tether Gold Investment Fund alongside sovereign gold holders, and that carries real responsibility. XAU₮ exists to remove ambiguity at a time when confidence in monetary systems is weakening, and it is being put through a pressure test by both institutions and people.”
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether.
Ardoino also said the market’s growth indicates that investors now expect tokenized assets to meet standards comparable to those of national and institutional reserves. He added that each token is backed by physical, vaulted gold and can be verified on-chain
Stablecoins and gold market trends drive institutional investor activity
Recent on-chain activity shows the rising use of stablecoins to access gold-backed tokens. On January 23, a blockchain analytics platform, Lookonchain, revealed that a trader by the username 0x0a5e purchased 843 Tether Gold tokens, valued at roughly $4.17 million, after submitting over $7 million in USDT to the Bybit exchange. This effectively converted stablecoins into tokenized gold.
This growing demand and tokenized gold coincide with a broader surge in gold prices. In 2025, gold prices rose sharply, marking one of the metal’s best yearly results in decades.
The rise in gold prices persisted this year, with the metal hitting an all-time high of $4,966 per ounce on Friday due to increased macroeconomic volatility and strong demand from institutional investors. Central bank accumulation further reinforced this rally, reinforcing the upward momentum in global gold markets.
According to the World Gold Council’s 2025 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey, 95% of surveyed central banks said they expect global gold reserves to either increase or stay the same over the course of the next 12 months.
In the NEAR term, market analysts also project a further rise in gold prices. In September of last year, Goldman Sachs projected the price of gold to increase by roughly 6% by the middle of 2026 due to ongoing demand from financial institutions. The firm also revealed that gold increased by more than 40% in 2025 and is on track for its third straight “year of double-digit gains.”
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