Tether Adds Scudo Unit to Expand On-Chain Use of Gold

• Tether introduced Scudo, a new unit equal to 0.001 troy ounce.
• XAU₮ with Scudo lowers barriers to owning and transacting digital gold.
• Scudo does not change XAUT’s backing, custody, or fees and adds no new token supply.

Tether rolled out a new unit for Tether Gold on January 6. The unit is called Scudo. One Scudo equals one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold. It also equals one-thousandth of one XAUT token.

According to the official post, nothing about the backing changed. The gold still sits in vaults, and the XAUT token still tracks physical supply on-chain.

The change targets a simple problem. Gold prices are high. Sending small values with long decimals makes pricing clumsy.

Tether’s Scudo removes that friction. Users can now price, send, and receive gold value in clean whole numbers instead of fractions. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said, “XAU₮ makes gold digital, and now with Scudo, we are lowering the barrier to entry so that anyone can own, easily price, and transact even the smallest fraction of the historical world’s most trusted asset.” 

No Change to Custody or Fees

It is important to note that Scudo is not a new token. It is only a unit of account. XAUT issuance stays the same. Redemption rules stay the same. Custody stays the same.

There are no new fees tied to Scudo. XAUT still carries a one-time cost at mint or burn, and nothing after that.

Ownership remains verifiable on-chain through Tether’s reporting tools. Each XAUT token still maps directly to physical gold bars held in secure storage.

Gold Price Action Drives Demand

Gold hit a record high of $4,058.98 per ounce in October 2025. Not long after, in December, gold pushed to a new peak of around $4,550. It pulled back slightly and is trading near $4,460.

On the other hand, Bitcoin peaked above $126,000 in October. It fell below $85,000 in November. A bounce to $94,000 on January 5 failed, with BTC trading near $92,000 at press time.

This contrast matters, showing that gold held its trend while Bitcoin stayed volatile. The shift pushed demand toward stable value assets. Gold-backed tokens gained traction as traders cut risk.

XAUT Supply on the Rise

XAUT’s market cap doubled in late 2025. Supply reached about $2.3 billion. It is now the largest gold-backed token on the market.

Scudo targets payments, lending, and settlement. Smaller units remove sizing limits that block daily use. The design is like how Bitcoin uses satoshis instead of whole coins.

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