As Gold Slid More Than 11% From Its Peak, Tether Released 96,500 Ounces of Tokenized Gold — Its Biggest Month of 2026

Revised October 2, 2026: figures corrected.

Tether released 96,500 ounces of tokenized gold onto Ethereum in September, more than in any other month this year, during a month in which the metal retreated. Gold had set an August high of US$4,696 an ounce and traded near US$4,150 on Sept. 30, a drop of more than 11%. Over the same weeks, the number of XAUT tokens in circulation on Ethereum rose 15.7%, and Tether had to mint a fresh block of 119,671 tokens to restock a reserve the releases had nearly emptied.

Two quiet months, then the largest release of the year

XAUT is issued in blocks. Tether mints a batch of tokens, each backed by one troy ounce of gold, into a treasury wallet it controls, then releases tokens from that wallet as it sells them. Tokens sitting in the treasury are not in anyone else’s hands, so the supply that matters is total supply minus that reserve. The model, and its contrast with PAX Gold’s mint-on-demand design, is set out in the July comparison of the two gold tokens.

Through July and August, that reserve did not move. It held 94,923 ounces at the end of June and the same 94,923 ounces on Aug. 31. In September it released tokens on three days: 10,000 on Sept. 13, 66,500 on Sept. 26 and 20,000 on Sept. 29. Those 96,500 ounces are worth roughly US$400 million at the Sept. 30 gold price, and they exceed every earlier monthly total in 2026, including January’s 80,608.

The reserve ran down to 18,423 ounces before Tether minted again

The Sept. 26 release took the reserve to 18,423 ounces, down 76,500 ounces in under two weeks. Two days later, at 17:08 UTC on Sept. 28, Tether minted 119,671 new XAUT directly into the treasury wallet. Total XAUT supply on Ethereum rose from 707,747 to 827,418 ounces in a single transaction. One more release of 20,000 followed the next day, leaving 118,094 ounces in reserve on Oct. 1.

The mint is not new demand in itself. A token minted into the issuer’s own wallet is inventory, and adding it to circulating supply would overstate the September increase by more than double. The signal is the 96,500 ounces that left the reserve; the mint restocks it for further releases.

Every release went to an exchange first

Each of the four September releases passed through an intermediate wallet and reached the address Etherscan labels as Bitfinex’s hot wallet within about six minutes. The onchain record therefore establishes that 96,500 ounces moved from the issuer’s reserve into exchange inventory. It does not identify the final buyers, and some of those tokens may still be held by the exchange.

The other large gold token moved far less. PAXG, which Paxos mints and redeems on demand, fell 3.0% in August, from 441,938 to 428,830 ounces, and recovered only 0.9% in September to 432,506. Because PAXG has no reserve of pre-minted tokens, its supply responds directly to buyers and sellers. XAUT’s September increase, by contrast, was delivered in three batches into one exchange.

That leaves the question the next few weeks will answer. A fresh 119,671-ounce block suggests Tether expects exchange demand for tokenized gold to keep absorbing supply while the metal trades below its peak. If the new reserve drains as quickly as the last one, the buying in September was more than a single exchange restocking. If it sits untouched, as the old reserve did through July and August, September will look like a one-time event.