Tether launches token 'supported' by Swiss-stored gold as part of new line of synthetic crypto

Tether, the world's biggest supplier of dollar-pegged stablecoins, announced it is unveiling a new category of crypto called "tethered assets."

It's kicking off the launch of the line of digital assets by introducing of a new token "supported by real physical gold stored in Switzerland," according to a statement released Monday.

The first token Tether is launching, dubbed "Alloy by Tether," is being called aUSDT, the statement said.

"Alloy by Tether is an open platform that allows [users] to create collateralized synthetic digital assets and will soon be part of the new Tether digital assets tokenization platform, launching later this year," the company's CEO Paolo Ardoino posted to X .

Tether described aUSDT as a cryptocurrency "designed to track the value of one U.S. dollar" but "is over-collateralized by Tether Gold (XAUT)," again emphasizing the token is "supported" by actual gold. "Users can create aUSDT tokens using XAUT as collateral," the company also said.

XAUT, with a market cap of $573 million, is not nearly as popular as the company's dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDT, which has a market cap of over $100 billion. 

Tether also said the new aUSDT token was developed with the help of Moon Gold NA, S.A. de C.V. and Moon Gold El Salvador, S.A. de C.V., which are members of the "Tether Group."