Tether recently announced the launch of its new token, Tether Gold (XAUt)

Cryptocurrency company Tether, known for its
stablecoin going by the same name — Tether (USDT) — has recently announced
plans to launch a new digital currency that would be backed by gold. The new
coin, known as Tether Gold (XAUt), supposedly keeps its physical gold stored
somewhere in a Swiss vault.

Tether Gold, the digital asset pegged to physical gold is officially live!

Find full details about the only product among the competition that offers zero custody fees and has direct control over the physical gold storage.https://t.co/8RjDpUQQWO pic.twitter.com/arTgN5n0fs

— Tether Gold (@tethergold) January 23, 2020

With that said, Tether is known for the lack
of transparency, which has sparked a number of controversies over the years.
Many have theorized that, unless Tether changes its approach and becomes more
transparent, investors may not be interested in supporting even a gold-backed
coin.

Details about Tether Gold

The project has already published a whitepaper which claims that each XAUt token
represents one ounce of London Good Delivery gold, which is, as mentioned,
stored in a Swiss vault. However, the token will still be divisible, meaning
that investors can choose the size of their positions. The lowest amount of
Tether Gold that anyone can possess is 0.000001 XAUt.

Even so, Tether has set up a minimum purchase
amount, which will obligate buyers to buy at least 50 tokens (approximately
$75,000) at once. Further, the whitepaper also claims that token holders will
be able to redeem their coins and obtain physical gold in return. This can be
done at a location that the holder chooses in Switzerland, as the whitepaper
states.

If they do not want physical gold, however,
the token holders can always request that the asset is sold on their behalf.
For now, the token is only available on TRON and Ethereum networks, although
the company plans to introduce it to other networks as well, at some point in
the future.

Tether Gold also stated that the goal is to
bring increased transactional utility to gold, and it describes its token as a
safe-haven asset that is highly mobile.

And here it begins @tethergold
Direct control over gold physical storage is a key factor, same as having control over your #bitcoin private keys.
Competitors usually use 3rd party custodians, but that is an additional opaque layer for customers.
Tether XAUt does it better 🦁 https://t.co/BYY2gGCcV6

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) January 23, 2020

As mentioned, Tether was a center of numerous
controversies in the past few years. It kept changing banking agreements, it
was accused of not having enough money to back all of its coins, and even that
it was a part of Bitcoin price manipulation. It was investigated by the
Department of Justice, and more. Despite this, the coin is still around, and
still among the largest cryptos by market cap (around $4,6 billion).

With that in mind, many are likely to trust
its token, even though the company’s suspicious practices have been making
headlines for years, now.