Tether’s gold-backed digital asset XAUt has received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors, a designation that may broaden access to the token for Islamic financial institutions and investors seeking Shariah-compliant exposure to physical gold.

According to Tether’s official announcement, the certification concluded that XAUt’s structure aligns with key Islamic finance principles. These include full backing by physical gold, the absence of interest and leverage, and transparent reserves.

Tether says each XAUt token represents one troy ounce of physical gold held in Swiss vaults. The certification gives the company a clearer route to offer XAUt to Islamic financial institutions and investors that require Shariah-compliant investment products. In Islamic finance, external Shariah review is often an important step for banks, asset managers and platforms before they list or distribute a product to clients.

Tether said it expects the certification to support adoption in markets where Islamic finance is widely used, including the Gulf Cooperation Council, South Asia and parts of Africa.

XAUt is among the largest tokenized gold products in the cryptocurrency market. Tether’s latest reserves report showed that the token was backed by more than 707,000 troy ounces of physical gold valued at over $3.3 billion as of March 31.

Data from RWA.xyz showed that XAUt’s onchain asset value rose from about $700 million in July 2025 to roughly $2.5 billion. The growth places XAUt within the broader tokenized real-world asset market, where issuers are using blockchain rails to represent claims on traditional assets such as commodities, cash-like instruments and private credit.

Shariah-compliant crypto products continue to emerge

Cryptocurrencies have long been debated among Islamic scholars, with discussions focused on whether digital assets comply with Shariah principles that prohibit excessive uncertainty, speculation and interest. As companies seek to address those concerns, Shariah-compliant digital asset products have begun to appear.

One earlier example came in 2025, when Bahrain-based AlAbraaj Restaurants Group adopted a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy and said it planned to develop Shariah-compliant financial instruments to expand access to Bitcoin across the Islamic world.

In April, Palm Azgar Finance expanded its Shariah-compliant PUSD stablecoin to ADI Chain, targeting the Islamic finance market, which is valued at more than $3 trillion. PUSD became the second stablecoin available on the network, enabling institutions to settle transactions using either a dollar-linked asset or a dirham-denominated token on the same infrastructure.

Dubai has also continued to develop its regulated digital asset market and has become a major crypto hub in the Middle East. Earlier this month, the emirate’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) issued its 50th virtual asset service provider license, surpassing the number of licensed crypto firms in Hong Kong and Singapore.