Tether has said that XAU₮, its gold-backed digital asset, has been certified as Sharia-compliant by Amanah Advisors, an Islamic finance advisory firm headed by Mufti Faraz Adam.

The company said the certification validates XAU₮’s adherence to Islamic financial principles and could open the token to Islamic banks, institutions, and investors seeking compliant digital gold exposure.

Each XAU₮ token represents 1 troy ounce of physical gold held in secure vaults in Switzerland. Tether said the asset is backed by allocated bullion with serial numbers and can be exchanged for bullion gold under the terms set by the platform.

According to Tether, the certification confirms several operational features, including actual ownership of physical gold, transparent reserves, and the absence of interest-based structures, interest-based operations, and speculative derivatives.

Expanding Digital Gold in Islamic Finance

Islamic finance is a multi-trillion dollar industry, but relatively few blockchain products have fully met Islamic financial standards. Tether said the Shariah certification is intended to help broaden the use of blockchain in traditional finance while making digital gold more accessible to Muslim users.

The company said XAU₮ could support institutional use cases including Islamic banking, Islamic savings, takaful insurance, collateral management, tokenized trade financing, and long-term wealth preservation strategies. Those use cases also highlight why certification can matter for market access: products that align with established financial principles are generally easier to evaluate for institutions operating under those rules.

Tether also said the token provides exposure to gold through blockchain infrastructure, while remaining tied to the underlying physical asset.

Amanah Advisors will continue working with Tether to develop governance standards and practical guidelines to support wider adoption, including secondary market transactions.

Adoption Across Regions

Tether said the certification could help expand XAU₮ adoption in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), South Asia, and other parts of Africa, as well as in financial centers active in Islamic finance.

The company also framed the development as part of the broader tokenization of real-world assets. It said financial institutions are showing greater interest in blockchain infrastructure because of its transparency, faster settlement cycles, and cross-border accessibility, which have increased attention on tokenized commodity assets such as gold. In that context, XAU₮ sits at the intersection of two already active trends: digital representation of physical assets and the search for compliant products that can fit existing financial workflows.