Tether Introduces Scudo: New Fractional Unit for Tokenized Gold Payments

Source: Coinspaidmedia Original Title: Tether Introduces New Minimum Unit of Account for Gold Payments Original Link: Tether announced the introduction of Scudo, a new unit of account for XAUT (Tether Gold). This innovation aims to simplify the use of gold as a means of payment, particularly as precious metal prices reach record highs and market interest grows.

Background: Gold’s Rising Significance

At the beginning of 2026, gold reached new all-time highs, driven by high inflation, interest rate uncertainty, record purchases by central banks, and increased demand for safe haven assets. Investors are increasingly viewing gold as a tool for preserving purchasing power.

XAUT: Tokenized Gold Infrastructure

Each XAUT token represents one troy ounce of gold stored in Swiss vaults, backed on a 1:1 basis. The asset’s market cap exceeds $2.3 billion, having grown over 60% in the past three months. This growth reflects demand from private investors interested in portfolio diversification and long-term capital preservation without physical storage costs.

The Scudo Solution

Practical use of XAUT faced challenges due to settlements requiring complex decimal calculations for fractional troy ounce amounts. Scudo addresses this issue:

• 1 Scudo = 0.001 XAUT (one thousandth of a troy ounce)
• Enables pricing in whole or fractional units without complex calculations
• Comparable to satoshis (sats) on the Bitcoin network
• Doesn’t affect XAUT’s structure or backing

Expanding Access

According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, gold remains a key asset for value preservation alongside Bitcoin. With over 500 million users in the Tether ecosystem—primarily in developing countries—Scudo lowers the entry barrier and makes fractional gold ownership accessible to a broader audience.

This launch reflects Tether’s strategy of adapting traditional assets to the digital economy. Previously, the company introduced the Wallet Development Kit (WDK) in November 2024, enabling developers to create non-custodial wallets for XAUT, BTC, and stablecoins across any device and operating system.