Tether's gold-backed stablecoin, Tether Gold (XAUT), has completed its first full audit by KPMG, which found the token fully backed by physical gold, the company announced on Thursday.
KPMG issued an unqualified opinion on the financial statements of TG Commodities, which issues XAUT, for the year ended December 31, 2025. An unqualified, or "clean," opinion means the auditor found that the statements fairly present the company's financial position, without reservations.
As of the end of 2025, TG Commodities held 520,089.350 troy ounces of allocated gold, valued at $2.246 billion, against 520,089.300 XAUT tokens in issue, according to Tether. The gold is held in vaults in Switzerland, and each token represents an ownership interest in gold on specific bars.
As part of the audit, KPMG physically counted and inspected every gold bar backing the token, rather than relying only on confirmations from custodians, Tether said.
"KPMG counted every single bar as part of its Tether Gold audit," Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said, adding that he believes XAUT "is on track to become the first true competitor to the gold ETF market."
The XAUT audit is Tether's second by a Big Four firm. In August, KPMG issued a clean opinion on Tether International, the issuer of its flagship USDT stablecoin, in what the company called the largest inaugural audit in history, Decrypt reported at the time.
For years, Tether faced criticism for relying on quarterly attestations, which offer a snapshot of reserves at a single point in time, rather than a full audit of its finances. The company first said earlier this year that it was being audited by a Big Four firm without naming it, before confirming KPMG.
Tether still publishes quarterly attestations for USDT. Its latest, prepared by accounting firm BDO and covering the period to September 30, showed total reserve assets of $191.5 billion against $183.5 billion in liabilities, giving it an excess reserve buffer of almost $8 billion, according to the report. Tether said it made $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter.
"These milestones advance the progress towards audits across the whole of Tether," said chief financial officer Simon McWilliams.
Separately from the gold backing XAUT, Tether has also built up its own large gold reserves, and Ardoino has said it will keep adding to its stash, which it stores in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.