In brief
- Stablecoin giant Tether has spoken of the importance of having gold in a portfolio.
- The El Salvador-based firm bought a substantial stake in a Canadian gold royalty firm.
- Tether also has a massive stash of Bitcoin, valued at approximately $10.7 billion.
Stablecoin issuer Tether has acquired a stake in a gold company as the crypto giant continues to advocate for the safe-haven asset along with Bitcoin, aka “digital gold.”
The El Salvador-based firm said Thursday that it had bought 78,421,780 common shares of Canada-based Elemental Altus Royalties Corp., a Toronto Stock Exchange-listed gold royalty company, via investment advisor La Mancha Investments S.à.r.l.
Tether said it paid $121.5 million Canadian dollars (over $89 million U.S. dollars) for the shares, which represent 31.9% of Elemental’s issued and outstanding shares. Elemental’s stock (ELEMF) is currently priced at $1.14 a share per OTC Markets data, up about 1% on the day.
“Tether’s growing investments in gold and Bitcoin reflect our forward-looking strategy to build a more resilient and transparent financial system,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement.
“Just as Bitcoin provides the ultimate decentralized hedge against monetary inflation,” he added, “gold continues to be a time-tested store of value.”
In the statement, Tether referred to its approach to stockpiling both Bitcoin and physical gold as a “dual pillar strategy.”
Tether mints USDT, the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap and typically the most-traded digital asset. Its main crypto product is a stablecoin: a digital token that runs on a number of crypto networks and is pegged to the value of the US dollar.
The firm keeps the value of the digital tokens in line with the dollar by holding a vault of dollar reserves. As a stablecoin, the USDT was previously used exclusively by crypto traders that wanted to enter and exit transactions seamlessly without using a traditional bank. But Tether says USDT is now also used by people in emerging markets with weak currencies who want exposure to U.S. dollars.
Tether has also said it holds over 100,000 BTC worth $10.7 billion, and nearly 80 tons of physical gold. Last month, at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Ardoino that having gold in a portfolio was a good idea.
The company also has a stablecoin backed by gold reserves—XAUT—with a market cap of over $833 million, according to CoinGecko. Tether in April said it had over 7.7 tons of gold backing XAUT.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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