Tether Launches Scudo to Make Gold Payments Practical Again

Tether has introduced Scudo, a new unit of account for Tether Gold (XAU₮) designed to restore gold as a practical payment method. The announcement arrives as gold prices reach historic highs in 2025.

Scudo defines one unit as one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold. This smaller denomination eliminates the need to work with complex decimal fractions when transacting in gold-backed digital assets.

Introducing Scudo.
A new way to measure the value of gold on-chain. Scudo is a simple, intuitive unit that makes Tether Gold ( XAU₮) easier to use, track, and transact.

1 Scudo = 1/1000 of an XAU₮ (Gold Ounce), giving you a practical and accessible way to send and receive gold… pic.twitter.com/JLbhuUYTk2

— Tether Gold (@tethergold) January 6, 2026

The move addresses a key usability barrier that has prevented gold from functioning effectively as a medium of exchange. Pricing goods in fractions of an ounce often requires unintuitive long decimal values.

Gold’s 2025 surge stems from persistent inflation concerns, interest-rate uncertainty, record central bank purchases, and growing demand for safe-haven assets. These market conditions have renewed interest in gold as a store of value.

Tether Transforms Gold from Store of Value to Daily Currency

Tether Gold has already digitized physical gold ownership through blockchain technology. The company’s WDK technology layer enables developers and companies to build self-custodial wallets supporting XAU₮.

These wallets function across any device and operating system. AI agents can also utilize the infrastructure to deploy and distribute wallet solutions.

The Scudo unit mirrors how Bitcoin uses “Satoshi” to represent smaller denominations. For Bitcoin users, this concept of fractional units for practical transactions is already familiar.

Users can now transact in whole or partial Scudo units instead of complex XAU₮ decimals. This makes gold-backed value more intuitive for everyday economic activity.

Gold is once again proving its role as the ultimate store of value alongside Bitcoin.

said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether.

He emphasized that user experience remains the digital asset industry’s most significant weakness.

Ardoino noted Tether serves more than 500 million users across emerging markets. He called the company “the biggest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity.”

Tether Gold remains fully backed by physical gold held in secure vaults. Ownership verification is available on-chain through Tether’s asset-tracking tools.

Scudo does not alter the structure or backing of XAU₮. It simply provides a simpler measurement and transaction method as gold prices continue climbing.

Growing Adoption and Expanding Operations

As of December 2025, XAU₮ adoption continues to expand among individuals seeking wealth preservation and portfolio diversification. The token’s market cap has doubled in just a few months.

XAU₮ offers direct physical gold exposure without ongoing custodial fees. A one-time transaction fee applies only at issuance or redemption.

Meanwhile, Tether continues expanding its broader ecosystem. In November 2025, the company partnered with Parfin to accelerate USDT adoption across Latin American institutional use cases.

Tether Invests in Parfin to Accelerate Institutional Use Cases of Digital Assets in LATAM
Learn more: https://t.co/a6e0HvlYTt

— Tether (@Tether_to) November 20, 2025

Financial institutions will access USD₮ as a core settlement asset through Parfin’s infrastructure. Target applications include global transactions and real-world asset tokenization.

The collaboration extends to yield-bearing credit markets, encompassing trade finance and commercial receivables. Parfin provides institutional-grade tools for exploring digital assets within regulatory frameworks.

Tether has also acquired approximately 9,850 Bitcoin worth $876 million during Q4 2025. This purchase follows the company’s policy of allocating 15% of quarterly profits to Bitcoin reserves.

A second transfer of 8,888.8 BTC worth $778 million occurred on January 1, 2026. Tether’s Bitcoin reserve address now holds 96,185 BTC valued at $8.42 billion.

This positions Tether as the operator of the fifth-largest Bitcoin wallet globally. The company’s average acquisition price stands at approximately $51,117 per coin.

Based on current market prices, Tether’s holdings represent an unrealized profit of $3.524 billion. The company initiated its Bitcoin reserve strategy in May 2023.

The Scudo introduction reflects Tether’s strategy of modernizing access to traditional assets through blockchain infrastructure. The company aims to make historically exclusive stores of value more inclusive and usable in the digital economy.