Tether Pushes Tokenized Gold Toward Payments With Scudo Rollout

Tether has launched Scudo, a new unit of account for Tether Gold (XAUT), intended to make gold easier to price, transfer, and use in everyday economic activity.

In a press release, the firm said the launch comes as global gold prices and demand sit at record highs, driven by inflation concerns, interest-rate uncertainty, and aggressive central bank buying.

Tether Introduces Scudo, Redefining Fractional Gold Ownership Onchain

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— Tether (@Tether_to) January 6, 2026

Gold’s Comeback Meets Digital Infrastructure

Gold surged through 2025 as investors sought protection against eroding purchasing power and macro volatility. While confidence in gold’s long-term value remains strong, its usability as a medium of exchange has steadily declined since the global shift to fiat currencies.

Tether argues that this transition, combined with unchecked money creation, has reintroduced inflationary pressures that are renewing interest in gold as a neutral store of value.

XAUT was designed to bridge that gap by tokenizing physical gold and making it transferable over blockchain rails. Each token is backed one-to-one by gold bars held in secure vaults with ownership verifiable on-chain. Yet practical challenges remained, particularly when pricing or transacting in small fractions of an ounce.

Solving the Decimal Problem With Scudo

Scudo addresses that final usability hurdle. One Scudo represents one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold, effectively creating a smaller, intuitive denomination for XAUT. The approach mirrors Bitcoin’s use of satoshis, which allowed the network to scale payments without relying on long decimal values.

By transacting in Scudo rather than fractional ounces, users can price goods and services more naturally, improving gold’s viability not just as a store of value but also as a medium of exchange. The unit simplifies transfers, accounting, and everyday use cases as gold prices continue to rise.

Building a Broader Gold Payments Stack

The introduction of Scudo builds on Tether’s wider infrastructure push. The company has also released a developer-focused technology layer that allows firms, developers, and AI agents to deploy self-custodial wallets supporting XAU₮, other stablecoins, and Bitcoin across devices and operating systems.

“Gold is once again proving its role as the ultimate store of value alongside Bitcoin,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. He added that Scudo lowers barriers to entry by making gold easier to own, price, and transact, noting that user experience remains one of the digital asset industry’s biggest challenges.

Adoption Grows as Gold Goes Onchain

Scudo does not alter the backing or structure of XAUT, which remains fully collateralized by physical gold. Instead, it provides a more accessible measurement layer as adoption grows.

By December 2025, Tether Gold’s market capitalization had doubled within months, reflecting demand for gold exposure without traditional storage or custodial complexity.

The launch of Scudo is part of Tether’s broader strategy: modernizing access to legacy assets through blockchain technology and making historically exclusive stores of value more divisible, transparent, and usable in a digital-first economy.