It's not news that Tether likes gold. The world’s largest stablecoin issuer has spent more than $300mn this year buying stakes in precious metals producers, CEO Paolo Ardoino having talked about “natural bitcoin” as a way to diversify reserves. Tether also issues the XAUt token, launched in 2020, which is advertised as being backed by bullion held in a Swiss vault.

[...] So what’s the plan? Jefferies’ team thinks Tether is betting on tokenised physical gold finally catching on.