Tether Gold is now live on BNB Chain, according to on-chain news from The Defiant. XAU?, representing one troy ounce of gold stored in Swiss vaults, expands to the third-largest DeFi ecosystem by TVL. Market news shows the tokenized gold sector passed $4 billion in January, with XAU? and PAXG holding over 95% of the market. BNB Chain aims to boost real-world asset activity through the integration. Tether also launched XAU? on other chains via USDT0. New players like Theo’s thGOLD are emerging amid rising competition and regulatory focus.

Tether announced Wednesday that its tokenized gold product, XAU?, is now available on BNB Chain, expanding the token's reach to the third-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem by total value locked (TVL).

Each XAU? token represents one fine troy ounce of physical gold held in Swiss vaults as a London Good Delivery bar. The token is issued by TG Commodities under El Salvador's Digital Asset Issuance Law.

The move comes at a turbulent moment for gold markets. Spot gold is trading at roughly $4,400 per ounce, well below its all-time high of approximately $5,589 hit in January but still sharply higher year-over-year. Gold surged 64% in 2025, its largest annual gain in 40 years, as investors piled into safe-haven assets amid geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainty.

That rally fueled explosive growth in tokenized gold. The sector crossed $4 billion in market value in January, though the sector remains dominated by just two products, XAU? and PAXG, which control more than 95% of the market.

BNB Chain's RWA Play

The expansion positions BNB Chain to capture more real-world asset activity.

Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, said the integration "extends what is already the second-largest RWA ecosystem by TVL" and gives users "a trusted, gold-backed asset they can use across DeFi without friction."

Tether also said it has integrated XAU? via the USDT0 network, a cross-chain infrastructure layer that enables unified liquidity across blockchains.

Growing Competition

The listing comes as the tokenized gold sector faces growing scrutiny over its concentrated structure. The World Gold Council recently proposed shared infrastructure for tokenized gold products, arguing that the high barriers to entry, including the need to independently build custody relationships, compliance pipelines, audit frameworks, and redemption logistics, limit competition and hamper fungibility.

New entrants are also challenging the duopoly. In January, DeFi protocol Theo launched a yield-bearing tokenized gold product called thGOLD, designed to generate returns on idle gold exposure, something neither XAU? nor PAXG currently offers natively.

“People understand gold. They trust it because it has held value for millennia,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. “With XAU?, we are not changing what gold is; we are making it usable in a modern financial system.”

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