TL;DR:
- Tether will discontinue aUSDT and shut down the Alloy by Tether platform; holders have till September 17, 2026 to redeem their tokens.
- The gold-backed artificial stablecoin by no means managed to scale: its market capitalization stands at roughly $1.2 million.
- The corporate will deal with XAU₮ and USDT, higher-liquidity and extra broadly adopted merchandise, aligning with the expansion of the tokenized gold market.
Tether introduced the scheduled shutdown of its Alloy by Tether platform and the discontinuation of aUSDT, its dollar-denominated artificial stablecoin backed by way of overcollateralization in XAUT. This choice marks the top of one of many few gold-pegged stablecoin experiments out there. Holders of aUSDT could have till September 17, 2026 to return their tokens and recuperate the collateral in XAU₮. After that date, the platform will cease processing redemptions.
The corporate defined that the choice stems from a complete overview of consumer exercise, liquidity situations, and strategic priorities. The adoption of aUSDT by no means reached a significant quantity: on the time of the announcement, its market capitalization stood at roughly $1.2 million, backed by 14.73 kilograms of gold valued at $2.2 million. The minting of latest tokens has already been deactivated as a primary step within the orderly wind-down.
Tether Will Concentrate on XAUT Development and Tokenized Gold
The closure of aUSDT doesn’t suggest a retreat by the corporate from the valuable metals-backed asset market — fairly the alternative. XAUT stays one of the related belongings inside the firm’s ecosystem, with greater than 22,000 kilograms of bodily gold as backing and an estimated market capitalization of $3 billion. Between late 2025 and March 31, 2026, Tether‘s gold reserves grew from 520,089 to 707,747 troy ounces, elevating their worth from $2.25 billion to $3.3 billion.
CEO Paolo Ardoino acknowledged that tokenized gold demonstrates “seriousness, scale, and reserve self-discipline” similar to institutional holdings. Bybit launched choices on XAUT on June 12, in what may very well be the primary by-product instrument tied to a tokenized commodity listed on a reference alternate. As well as, Tether signed a memorandum of understanding with the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre to tokenize different commodities, drawing on a neighborhood of greater than 26,000 member organizations.
This closure follows the sample of the CNHT withdrawal in February 2026, the offshore yuan stablecoin that was additionally discontinued on account of low utilization. The technique goals to consolidate Tether’s mannequin round high-liquidity merchandise and real-world belongings, discarding artificial layers constructed on prime of present collateral buildings.
