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Investing.com -- Tether Holdings SA, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has established its own vault in Switzerland to store an $8 billion gold stockpile, with plans to expand these holdings.
The El Salvador-based crypto company now possesses nearly 80 tons of gold, according to the company. The majority of this gold is directly owned by Tether, positioning it among the largest gold holders globally outside of banks and national governments.
"We have our own vault. I believe it’s the most secure vault in the world," said Chief Executive Paolo Ardoino in an interview. While the company confirmed the facility is located in Switzerland, it declined to reveal its exact location for security reasons or disclose when it was established.
Tether issues the stablecoin USDT, which aims to maintain a one-to-one value with the US dollar and currently has $159 billion in circulation. The company receives dollars in exchange for issued tokens and generates revenue by investing this collateral in assets such as US Treasuries. According to Tether’s latest report released in March, precious metals constitute nearly 5% of the company’s reserves.
In addition to USDT, Tether offers a gold-backed token called XAUT, with each coin backed one-to-one by an ounce of gold. Token holders can redeem these for physical gold, which can be collected directly in Switzerland.
"Gold, I think should be logically a safer asset than any national currency," Ardoino said. "So eventually I think that if people start to get concerned about the potential increase of the debt of United States, they might look at alternatives."
Ardoino also noted that "Every single central bank in the BRICS countries is buying gold," adding that "so that is why gold price went up in our opinion."
The decision to establish their own vault rather than use common precious metals industry vault operators was primarily driven by cost considerations, according to Ardoino.
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