Tether Launches Scudo to Make Gold-Backed Tokens Easier to Use

Key Highlights

Tether launched Scudo, a new unit for its gold-backed token XAU₮, which makes small gold transactions easier.
One Scudo is 0.001 troy ounce of gold, making paying or pricing things with gold simple.
Tether Gold (XAU₮) is backed by physical gold, and more people are starting to use it because it is easier and safer.

Tether, the issuer of USDT, has announced the launch of Scudo, a new unit of account for its gold-backed token XAU₮, designed to make gold more practical for everyday use. The update, announced on Tuesday, allows users to buy, hold, and transfer small portions of gold digitally, without needing complicated calculations.

In its announcement, Tether pointed out that gold reached record highs in 2025. As of December 29, the matter was trading for $4,945, its highest level to date.

This growth was driven by the worries of inflation and uncertain interest rate cuts, which had made investors invest their money into safer assets like gold. In short, they see gold as a safe haven, a way to preserve purchasing power. Tether said this environment creates an opportunity to restore gold as a trusted, transparent form of money that has been used throughout history.

Tether Gold (XAU₮) has already made physical gold digital, which has led people to own, transfer, and redeem gold securely on blockchain networks. To make it even easier to access, the company introduced WDK, a technology layer enabling developers, companies, and AI agents to build self-custodial wallets for XAU₮ and other digital assets across devices and operating systems.

Problem Scudo aims to solve

The problem before was that sending or pricing small amounts of gold could be hard. XAU₮ uses decimals for fractions of an ounce, which can be confusing. Scudo solves this problem.

One Scudo is equal to one-thousandth of a troy ounce of gold, making it simple to price items or send gold in smaller amounts without dealing with long decimal numbers. Users can now use whole or partial Scudo units for payments, which makes gold easy to use like regular money.

“Gold is once again proving its role as the ultimate store of value alongside Bitcoin. XAU₮ makes gold digital, and now with Scudo, we are lowering the barrier to entry so that anyone can own, easily price, and transact even the smallest fraction of the historical world’s most trusted asset,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.

He added that improving user experience remains a priority for the company, which already serves more than 500 million users across emerging markets.

Tether Gold remains fully backed by physical gold stored in secure vaults. Ownership can be verified on-chain using Tether’s asset-tracking tools. Scudo does not change the backing of XAU₮ but provides a simpler way to measure and transact gold value as prices continue to climb.