Tether partners with Ledn to offer gold-backed loans

Tether, the company behind the world's largest stablecoin, is expanding the financial utility of its massive gold reserves through a new partnership with crypto lending platform Ledn. The collaboration will allow holders of Tether Gold (XAUT) to use their tokenized bullion as collateral for loans, a service expected to launch later this year.

The integration adds XAUT to Ledn's platform alongside Bitcoin and Tether's USDT stablecoin. Each XAUT token represents one troy ounce of physical gold, with the company stating its total reserve of approximately $23 billion worth of bullion is stored in Swiss vaults. The planned lending service will enable users to access liquidity without having to sell their underlying gold assets.

This move mirrors the bitcoin-backed lending model Ledn has operated for several years. The company states it holds client collateral on a one-to-one basis, meaning the assets are not lent out or used to generate additional yield. By applying this structure to tokenized gold, the partners aim to bring a service traditionally dominated by central banks and major financial institutions into the digital asset ecosystem.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the initiative...