Tether plans to allocate a portion of its investment portfolio to physical gold, CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an interview with Reuters. Ardoino indicated the firm is targeting roughly 10% to 15% of its portfolio in bullion, alongside a target of about 10% in bitcoin for its own holdings.
The company currently holds approximately 130 metric tons of physical gold backing some of its products, having added 27 tons during the fourth quarter. Ardoino said the group has been buying around two tons of gold each week.
"For our own portfolio, it's reasonable that we are going to have around 10% in bitcoin and 10% to 15% in gold,"
The CEO did not disclose the total value of Tether's investment portfolio nor how much of it is already held in physical gold. He used a personal analogy to describe the choice between bitcoin and gold: "It's hard to decide which one I like the most. It is almost like you have two children and have to decide which one is more beautiful."
Tether said it intends to retain ownership of the physical gold stored in Switzerland. The company does not have a fixed target for future bullion purchases and will revisit its allocation decisions on a quarterly basis.
Ardoino said the company began buying material amounts of gold with profits in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has continued purchases as geopolitical tensions have risen. He commented on market conditions driving demand:
"The world is not in a happy place at this moment. Gold is making all-time highs every single day. Why? Because everyone is scared,"and the article notes that gold prices rose 64% last year.
Tether purchased significant volumes of gold last year to help back its USDT stablecoin and its XAUT gold token. The company reported USDT as a digital dollar with $186 billion worth of tokens in circulation and XAUT with $2.7 billion in circulation.
Separately, Tether continues to invest the reserves backing USDT in U.S. Treasury bills and other assets, maintaining a mix of short-term government instruments and other holdings to support the stablecoin's reserves.
Reporting note: The company confirmed weekly buying rates, total metric tonnage, recent quarterly additions, and circulation figures for USDT and XAUT as summarized above. Specific portfolio valuation and the current proportion held in physical gold were not disclosed.