Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, is storing gold in a Chilly Conflict-era nuclear bunker in Switzerland. The corporate is stockpiling greater than a ton of the valuable metallic each week within the Swiss mountains to again its gold-pegged XAUT Token—an attention-grabbing safety measure as soon as employed by a Bitcoin agency from crypto’s early days.
Tether at present owns an estimated $24 billion in gold, essentially the most of any holder exterior of governments, central banks, and main ETFs. As a brand new Fortune journal function reveals, the gold hoarding displays a perception on the a part of Tether’s CEO that Western economies are unraveling and that his agency could be an anchor of stability in an unstable world.
The corporate’s use of Swiss vaults to carry its roughly 140 tons of gold—which backs its gold token but in addition kinds a part of its personal treasury—coincides with a file treasured metals rally.
This isn’t the primary time the crypto world has flocked to Switzerland. One of many first crypto custody companies, Xapo, would retailer clients’ Bitcoin in a bunker underneath a Swiss mountain. The corporate was based by Argentine Wences Casares, who rubbed elbows with the unique Bitcoin crowd, in 2013. He offered the custody portion of the enterprise to Coinbase in 2019.
Throughout this rally, gold has climbed 83% within the final yr, whilst Bitcoin—the so-called “digital gold—posted a 20% decline. The valuable metallic has even crushed the unique cryptocurrency over the long run, as gold is up 174% within the final 5 years, whereas Bitcoin is up 142% since then.
Buyers are betting in opposition to the greenback, which is meant to be a recipe for fulfillment for these within the crypto world. As a substitute, merchants are pouring cash into gold and leaving Bitcoin behind. Youthful buyers have touted cryptocurrency as the way forward for finance and a pathway to get richer, faster. To their disgust, consumers of gold, usually related to older generations, are cashing in winnings.
Final yr was a letdown for crypto fanatics, and 2026 isn’t trying significantly better. Bitcoin is down almost 35% since October to its present value of about $83,000 based on Binance. Different cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana are additionally down 30% and 37%, respectively, within the final three months.
One analyst argues that Bitcoin might sink much more, given the turbulent macroeconomic atmosphere. “I do not think that low 70s is out of the question in Bitcoin – not today specifically, going to depend a lot on what happens with Iran and general overall sentiment,” mentioned Russell Thompson, CIO of Hilbert Group.
