Tether's gold-backed stablecoin, Tether Gold (XAUT), has completed its first full audit by Big Four accounting firm KPMG, which found the token fully backed by physical gold, the company announced on Thursday.

KPMG issued an unqualified opinion on the 2025 financial statements of TG Commodities, the entity that issues XAUT, for the year ended December 31, 2025. An unqualified, or "clean," opinion means the auditor found that the financial 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 — effectively matching each token in circulation with an equivalent quantity of metal. The gold is stored in vaults in Switzerland, and each token represents an ownership interest in gold held on specific bars.

Launched in 2020, Tether Gold is designed to give holders blockchain-based exposure to physical gold, with each token corresponding to one troy ounce of the metal.

As part of the audit, KPMG physically counted and inspected every gold bar backing the token, rather than relying solely 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." Gold ETFs are exchange-traded funds that track the price of gold, giving investors exposure to the metal through traditional brokerage accounts.

Tether confirmed the completion of the audit in a post on its official X account:

Tether Gold (XAU₮) Becomes Tether's Second Stablecoin to Complete a Big Four Audit Learn more: — Tether (@tether) November 12, 2026

From attestations to audits

The XAUT audit is the second completed by a Big Four firm for a Tether product. In August, KPMG issued a clean opinion on Tether International, the issuer of the company's flagship USDT stablecoin, in what Tether described at the time as the largest inaugural audit in history, as Decrypt reported.

The milestone follows years of criticism directed at Tether over its reliance on quarterly attestations, which offer only a snapshot of reserves at a single point in time, rather than a full audit of its finances. A full audit, by contrast, involves direct examination of a company's financial records and — as in XAUT's case — physical verification of the underlying assets. Full audits have been rare across the stablecoin industry, where most issuers have published attestations of reserves instead. The company first said earlier this year that it was being audited by a Big Four firm without naming the auditor, before later confirming KPMG.

Tether still publishes quarterly attestations for USDT. Its most recent, 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 the company an excess reserve buffer of almost $8 billion, according to the report. Tether also said it generated $1.5 billion in net operating profit during the third quarter.

"These milestones advance the progress towards audits across the whole of Tether," said Simon McWilliams, Tether's chief financial officer. The remarks point to further audits across Tether's product lineup as the company pursues that stated goal.

Separately from the gold backing XAUT, Tether has built up its own large gold reserves, and Ardoino has said the company will keep adding to its stash, which is stored in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.

This article was originally reported by Decrypt.