Tether Buys 1-2 Tons of Gold Weekly, Holds $24B in Swiss Bunker

In a bold strategy to fortify its financial backbone, Tether is systematically converting its substantial resources into one of humanity’s oldest stores of value: gold. CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed to Bloomberg that the company is acquiring between 1 and 2 tons of the precious metal every week. This relentless pace has built a stockpile of approximately 140 tons, valued at a staggering $24 billion following gold’s recent record-breaking price surge. Ardoino stated the firm intends to maintain this aggressive acquisition tempo “at least for the next few months,” with quarterly assessments to guide future strategy.

This accumulation is not merely speculative. The gold serves a critical dual purpose within Tether’s ecosystem. A significant portion acts as partial backing for its flagship USDT stablecoin, the largest by market capitalization. According to a September attestation by Italian bank BDO Italia, Tether’s precious metal reserves, predominantly gold bars, were valued at $12.9 billion, constituting about 7% of its total stablecoin reserves. Furthermore, the gold directly backs XAUT, Tether’s gold-pegged stablecoin, which has seen explosive demand. Last quarter, XAUT’s growth even outpaced that of USDT, propelling it into the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

The physical manifestation of this strategy is as dramatic as the numbers themselves. Tether stores its weekly gold acquisitions in a high-security vault in Switzerland, a facility once designed as a nuclear bunker. Ardoino described it to Bloomberg as a “James Bond kind of place,” hidden behind multiple layers of steel doors. This ultra-secure storage underscores the tangible, offline reality of Tether’s digital asset empire.

The timing of this build-up is particularly astute, coinciding with a historic bull run for gold. The metal’s price eclipsed $5,000 per ounce for the first time recently and has since climbed further, trading around $5,320 at the time of the report—a nearly 4% jump in a single day. This surge has dramatically increased the value of Tether’s holdings, making its Swiss bunker “only been getting more valuable of late.” The firm’s scale is now such that Ardoino boasted, “We are soon becoming basically one of the biggest, let’s say, gold central banks in the world.” This positions Tether not just as a participant but as a behemoth influencing the physical gold market.

Tether’s gold offensive occurs against a backdrop of both opportunity and scrutiny. On one hand, market sentiment, as gauged by prediction markets like Myriad, is overwhelmingly bullish on gold’s continued rise, giving an 85% chance it will climb to $5,400 rather than fall back to $4,700. This aligns with Tether’s apparent confidence in the asset. The rapid growth of XAUT also signals strong investor appetite for crypto assets directly tethered to physical gold, validating this strategic branch.

On the other hand, the move can be seen as a reinforcing response to external critiques of its reserve composition. In November, S&P Global downgraded its assessment of USDT’s stability to “weak,” citing concerns over “risky assets” like Bitcoin (BTC) within its reserves. By dramatically scaling its allocation to gold—a traditional, high-liquidity safe-haven asset—Tether may be seeking to bolster perceived reserve strength and provide a counterbalance to volatility. The firm’s transformation into a major gold holder represents a profound convergence of cryptocurrency innovation with the bedrock principles of traditional commodity-based finance.