Tether introduces Scudo unit to simplify fractional gold transactions

Tether has launched Scudo, a new unit of account for its Tether Gold token, XAU₮, aimed at making fractional gold pricing and transfers easier to use in everyday transactions.

The company said Scudo is designed to address the practical difficulty of transacting in long decimal fractions of a troy ounce, a common friction point when using tokenised gold for payments or transfers. Scudo follows XAU₮’s digitisation of physical gold and is intended to improve usability without altering the underlying structure of the product.

Under the new system, one Scudo is defined as one thousandth of a troy ounce of gold, or one thousandth of an XAU₮. This allows prices and transfers to be expressed in whole or partial Scudo units rather than complex decimal values. Tether said the change does not affect XAU₮’s backing, with each token remaining fully backed by physical gold held in secure vaults.

Ownership of the underlying gold continues to be verifiable on-chain using Tether’s asset-tracking tools, the company said. Scudo functions purely as a unit of account, rather than a new token or financial product.

Tether also highlighted its Wallet Development Kit technology, which it said enables developers, companies or artificial intelligence agents to build and distribute self-custodial wallets supporting XAU₮ alongside other stablecoins. The company positioned this as part of a broader effort to improve user experience and accessibility across digital asset products.

“Gold is once again proving its role as the ultimate store of value alongside Bitcoin,” said Paolo Ardoino. “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. User experience is still the most crucial weakness of the digital asset industry today. Being Tether, the biggest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity, with more than 500 million users across emerging markets, we make accessibility one of our utmost priorities.”

The company said Tether Gold has seen growing adoption, with its market capitalisation doubling over a period of a few months by December 2025. XAU₮ provides direct exposure to physical gold with no ongoing custodial fees, aside from a one-time transaction fee applied at issuance or redemption.

Tether said the announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy XAU₮, and that TG Commodities S.A. de C.V. will only sell or redeem the token in accordance with its published terms of sale and service.

The Recap

• Tether launched Scudo as a unit for Tether Gold (XAU₮).
• One Scudo equals one thousandth of a troy ounce.
• TG Commodities S.A. de C.V. will only sell or redeem XAU₮.