XAUT Surges in Popularity as Ethereum Wallets Shift from Speculation to Stability
Ethereum wallet holders are rapidly abandoning speculative assets in favor of Tether's gold-backed XAUT, with holdings surging to 35,609 wallets as of March 11—a dramatic 6.6% increase in just ten days. This massive shift toward stability comes as spot gold maintains its record-breaking rally above $5,179, positioning XAUT as the premier on-chain hedge against crypto market volatility. With its total supply now at 712,247 tokens and market capitalization nearing an all-time high of $3.57 billion, XAUT has become the go-to digital safe haven for both institutional whales and retail investors seeking refuge from global economic uncertainty.
Why are whales buying XAUT?
XAUT is offering a spot market for an asset hovering near all-time highs. In the past year, gold showed it was preferred to BTC at offsetting inflation and offered an upside as global uncertainty grew.
Gold was up by over 78% in the past year, while BTC erased a net 16.78% of its price. The more volatile BTC became, the more traders sought a hedge against uncertainty.
XAUT has also turned profitable for Tether, with $2.31M in net earnings for the last quarter of 2025. The token is also gaining use cases within DeFi protocols as valuable collateral.
XAUT also has double the trading volumes compared to its main competitor Paxos Gold (PAXG). XAUT relies on Bitget for most of its trading, while some whales specifically use Bitfinex.
Big wallets accumulate more XAUT
So far, the top wallets holding XAUT have mostly accumulated more tokens. The second-biggest whale holds 8.02% of the total supply, after buying up XAUT in the past week. The wallet has been linked to addresses belonging to Abraxas Capital, which has mostly sent the XAUT to their final destination wallet.
Abraxas Capital holds around 2.7K XAUT tokens, valued at $265M. Abraxas had limited outflows of gold tokens.
Another known holder, Antalpha, sold some of their holdings after weeks of accumulation. However, the sale looks like short-term profit-taking, as Antalpha has retained most of its reserves. The biggest XAUT outflow comes from RhinoFi, a relatively inactive DeFi protocol.
Currently, only one company uses XAUT for its treasury, the US-based Aurelion. Tether is also one of the biggest holders, while also controlling the physical gold vault.
The shift to gold-backed tokens showed crypto infrastructure was still widely used, as long as it carried value and liquidity. XAUT can be easily traded, despite the lack of a Binance listing, and adoption may continue in the coming months.
The supply of XAUT also grows the overall value of tokenized assets. So far, the gold-backed token remains the most widely adopted RWA, spreading around the crypto ecosystem.
Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.
