While Crypto Chases Bitcoin, this Stablecoin Company Is Hoarding More Gold then Many Central Banks

“The world’s largest stablecoin issuer is no longer just a dollar middleman. As crypto traders focus on the next Bitcoin rally and regulators sharpen their knives for stablecoins, Tether has been building a gold empire that few people were watching.

Since June, the company behind roughly $100 billion in circulating USDT has pushed more than $300 million into gold royalty stocks, the kinds of assets that rarely appear on a fintech balance sheet. It now owns nearly a third of Elemental Altus Royalties, holds significant stakes in Versamet Royalties and Metalla Royalty & Streaming, and controls claims on hundreds of gold mines spanning four continents.

This is more than portfolio tinkering. Tether is making a calculated bet that the future of money will involve gold, and it is building infrastructure that could power the next generation of stablecoins or give the company an escape hatch if regulators shut the door on the traditional dollar-backed model.

Why a Stablecoin Giant Is Betting on Gold Mines

To understand what Tether is doing, you need to appreciate the scale of its profit engine. With more than $100 billion in USDT backed primarily by short-term U.S. Treasuries, Tether rakes in an estimated $5–6 billion a year in interest income. That is more profit than most blue-chip financial institutions and multiple times what the largest listed gold royalty company earns.

But every Treasury bill Tether buys also increases its vulnerability. If the U.S. government decides it does not like offshore stablecoins, it can freeze or restrict access to those assets with a phone call. The 2022 Russian sanctions showed how quickly that can happen. Reserves inside the Western financial system are not as safe as they once seemed, especially for companies operating in regulatory gray zones.

Gold royalties offer a different way to solve that problem. Instead of owning and running mines, royalty companies finance mining projects in exchange for a percentage of future revenue or the right to buy metal at a discount. Once production starts, they collect cash without dealing with labor disputes, equipment failures or environmental lawsuits. The miner takes the risk and the royalty holder gets paid.

Elemental Altus, where Tether now holds about 32 percent of the shares, manages more than 200 royalty and streaming contracts, most of them tied to precious metals. In the current year the company has reported that revenue more than doubled and operating cash flow jumped nearly tenfold as several projects moved from development into full production. Versamet, Tether’s second-largest position at 12.7 percent, is targeting more than 20,000 gold-equivalent ounces of annual production by next year. Metalla brings another 100-plus royalties, including exposure to some of the world’s longest-life gold projects.

For Tether, these investments do more than diversify the portfolio. They convert a chunk of dollar-denominated interest income into inflation-sensitive, gold-linked cash flows that sit outside the reach of U.S. regulators.”