Tether pushes gold payments with new ‘Scudo’ unit of account

Stablecoin issuer Tether has introduced “Scudo” as a new unit of account for gold to simplify its use in everyday digital payments.

Under Tether’s definition, one Scudo represents one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold and an equivalent fraction of its gold-backed token XAUT.

Tether said denominating transactions in Scudo could help restore gold’s role as a practical medium of exchange in digital finance.

The firm noted that gold demand has been driven by inflation concerns, interest-rate uncertainty, central bank buying and demand for safe-haven assets.

Tether compared Scudo to the use of a satoshi in Bitcoin, which represents the smallest unit of the cryptocurrency.

One Scudo would currently be worth about $4.48, compared with roughly $0.001 for a single satoshi.

XAUT has a market capitalisation of around $2.3 billion and has nearly quadrupled over the past year, according to CoinGecko.

Tether said the gold backing XAUT is held in secure vaults and can be redeemed for physical bars delivered to Switzerland.

The company disclosed that XAUT is backed by more than 1,300 gold bars, equivalent to 16.2 metric tonnes.

Tether added that it held 116 tonnes of gold as of the end of the third quarter of 2025, valued at nearly $17 billion.

Paxos also offers a gold-backed token, PAXG, which has grown rapidly and is issued under US federal regulatory oversight.