Tether's Scudo wants to make gold as accessible as Bitcoin

Tether has just launched “Scudo”, a tiny unit indexed to its tokenized gold XAUT. The ambition is summed up in one sentence: to make gold as manageable as Bitcoin. Not by changing the nature of the metal, but by changing its mental format.

Scudo, or the art of cutting gold into pixels

Scudo represents one thousandth of a troy ounce of gold. In practice, it is also 1/1,000 of an XAUT token. Tether presents this as an ergonomic solution. Instead of displaying prices in XAUT with endless decimals, we speak in more readable units. The nod is deliberate: “like the sats” for Bitcoin.

This vocabulary detail is not without importance. In finance, units count as much as assets. An asset can be solid but seem reserved for an elite if the base unit seems too expensive. Bitcoin has gained much ground thanks to divisibility and the simplicity of the narrative. You can buy “a bit” of Bitcoin without even saying the word “thousandth”.

Tether relies on a concrete argument. XAUT is said to be backed by more than 1,300 bars held in custody, with a capitalization estimated around 2.3 billion dollars. Gold is already divisible with a token. Scudo pushes the cursor toward even smaller transactions, designed for onchain life.

At heart, it’s an interface approach. You don’t change the engine, you change the dashboard. And in the crypto world, the interface often ends up deciding who prevails. Stablecoins have proven this. They are not “nicer” than wire transfers. They are just more convenient to plug in everywhere.

A tense gold market, and a demand that professionalizes

If Tether is accelerating, it is also because gold has changed its appearance. 2025 was a breakthrough year, with a rise around 64% and a record near 4,549.71 dollars per ounce. Morgan Stanley even forecasts a trajectory toward 4,800 dollars in the fourth quarter of 2026. Gold no longer just plays the role of a discreet refuge. It has become a trending asset again.

The macro narrative is fed by several ingredients. De-dollarization announced by some states. Aggressive purchases by central banks. And persistent concern about inflation, even when indicators calm down at times. Investopedia noted at the end of 2025 that investment demand could remain strong in 2026 if the global economy slows down.

Alongside, silver also surged. Reuters speaks of a jump of about 147% in 2025, with prices around 80 dollars an ounce at the beginning of January. When the whole metals complex heats up, tokenization stops being a marginal theme. It becomes a way to manage, move, and “program” exposure, as is already done with Bitcoin and stablecoins.

This professionalization also changes expectations. Institutional investors want simple products to integrate. They want clear accounting units. They want rails compatible with their systems. Scudo fits exactly into this logic: to make gold “cuttable” without hassle, for amounts resembling digital use cases.

Bitcoin as the benchmark and the limits of “payment in gold”

Paolo Ardoino, the head of Tether, presented gold as the “ultimate store of value” alongside Bitcoin. The parallel is clever. Bitcoin is digital by nature. Gold must be translated to circulate on modern rails. Scudo looks like a translator, with a language calibrated for applications and wallets.

But the match is not played only on philosophy. It is played on friction. Bitcoin transfers without a custodian. Tokenized gold relies on a promise of custody, transparency, and redemption. Even if the blockchain provides traceability, the user still has to trust the issuer and the actors linking the token to the bar.

This is where Scudo can surprise or disappoint. Surprise, if apps use it as a unit of account for small tranche payments, DeFi collateral, or cross-border settlements. Disappoint, if network costs, compliance, and access to fiat exits limit the use to a niche of already convinced investors.

One interesting point remains for Bitcoin observers. When a stablecoin giant borrows the vocabulary of sats, it implicitly admits that Bitcoin serves as a cultural standard. The “gold” product dresses itself in crypto code to stay in the race. And if Scudo finds its audience, it will not be because gold is new. It will be because its format finally becomes as fluid as Bitcoin.