Tether Gold launches on BNB Chain as tokenized gold market tops $4B

Tether has launched XAU₮ on BNB Chain and Binance, extending its 60% share of a $4b tokenized gold market across 12+ networks via the USDt0 cross-chain system.

Tether on March 26 announced that Tether Gold (XAU₮) is now live on BNB Chain, placing the dominant tokenized gold product directly into the ecosystem of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and its hundreds of millions of users. Each XAU₮ token represents one fine troy ounce of physical gold — London Good Delivery standard — held in Swiss vaults and independently attested on a 1:1 basis.

The launch is timed to a market that has moved sharply in tokenized gold’s favor. Gold surged 64% in 2025 — its largest annual gain in 40 years — setting more than 50 all-time highs as geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainty pushed investors toward safe-haven assets. The gold-backed stablecoin market nearly tripled over the same period, climbing from roughly $1.3 billion to over $4 billion, with XAU₮ holding approximately 60% of total supply.

The BNB Chain deployment is backed by Tether’s USDt0 cross-chain network, which gives XAU₮ unified liquidity across more than 12 blockchains. The architecture is designed to improve the efficiency of issuance, transfer, and settlement, and eliminates the need for users to navigate traditional custody logistics, counterparty premiums, or settlement delays associated with physical gold markets.

What Tether and BNB Chain executives said

“With XAU₮, we are not changing what gold is; we are making it usable in a modern financial system,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, in the official announcement. “You still have direct exposure to physical gold, but now it can move instantly, settle globally, and integrate seamlessly with digital markets. Listing on BNB Chain expands that access to hundreds of millions of users, bringing gold into a system where it can actually be used, not just held.”

Nina Rong, Executive Director of Growth at BNB Chain, added: “XAU₮ on BNB Chain extends what is already the second-largest RWA ecosystem by TVL. It gives users a trusted, gold-backed asset they can use across DeFi without friction.”

BNB Chain doubles down on real-world assets

The Tether Gold deployment deepens BNB Chain’s position in tokenized real-world assets. As reported in a previous crypto.news story, the network’s RWA value surged 555% year over year in Q4 2024, making it the second-largest RWA blockchain behind Ethereum. The addition of XAU₮ — already the largest gold-backed token by market cap — reinforces that trajectory as institutions accelerate tokenized commodity adoption.

XAU₮ is issued by TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V., a registered Digital Asset Service Provider under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law. Reserve details and vault attestation reports are publicly accessible at gold.tether.to. Binance also listed XAUt on March 26 with perpetual futures, leveraged trading pairs, and principal-protected yield products — though the launch was briefly delayed from 21:30 to 22:00 UTC+8.

The move follows Tether’s January launch of Scudo, a fractional unit for XAU₮ equal to one-thousandth of a troy ounce, detailed in a previous crypto.news story, which was aimed at making tokenized gold viable for payments and everyday on-chain use.