Tether Teams Up With Ledn to Roll Out XAUT Gold-Backed Loans

BlockBeats reported that on June 28, Tether said it is deepening the deployment of its roughly $23 billion gold holdings through a partnership with crypto lending platform Ledn, aiming to broaden use cases for its tokenized gold product, Tether Gold (XAUT). Ledn has announced support for XAUT and plans to introduce XAUT-backed lending later this year, adding to its existing Bitcoin- and USDT-backed loan offerings. Each XAUT token is backed by one troy ounce of physical gold stored in a Swiss vault. Tether says it holds about $23 billion in gold reserves to maintain 1:1 backing for XAUT. Under the planned model, users will be able to raise liquidity by pledging XAUT as collateral without selling their gold exposure, similar to Bitcoin-backed lending. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said that as digital assets gain weight in the global economy, demand is increasing for financial instruments that combine long-term holding with access to liquidity. In recent years, Tether has expanded its footprint using profits generated by USDT, including accumulating around 140 metric tons of physical gold, investing in precious metals trading platform Gold.com, and working with crypto finance firm Antalpha to advance XAUT use in lending and physical redemption. Tether has also moved into Bitcoin mining, renewable energy, AI infrastructure, and computing power.