Elemental Royalty becomes the first publicly traded gold company to pay dividends in tokenized gold via Tether Gold (XAUt).
The gold-backed token possesses a market cap of $2.66 billion.

Tether is achieving a new milestone with Tether Gold. Elemental Royalty Corporation, a publicly traded gold company, announced it would pay dividends using the gold-backed stablecoin.

Tokenized Gold Dividends From Elemental Royalty

Elemental Royalty’s move marks the first time a publicly listed gold company will offer tokenized gold as dividends to shareholders. Tether highlighted that it also introduces a new model for shareholder distributions by connecting traditional ownership of the precious metal with blockchain-based infrastructure.

According to Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, gold is one of the most trusted stores of value, but its integration into modern financial distribution channels has been challenging. XAUt presents a step forward for the gold industry in expanding its reach into these financial frameworks.

ADVERTISEMENTArdoino sees Elemental Royalty’s initiative as a game-changer for dividend dynamics, which could signal further merging of traditional and onchain models. The publicly traded gold company has a market capitalization of $1.69 billion.

Tether Gold (XAUt) Features

XAUt is by far the world’s largest tokenized commodity by market cap. It has a total asset value of $2.66 billion to date, per RWA.xyz. The token accounts for 37% of the $7.03 billion tokenized commodity market.

The commodity token is as good as its physical counterpart because each unit represents a direct ownership of one fine troy ounce of physical gold on a London Good Delivery bar stored in Tether’s secure vaults in Switzerland. However, the gold-backed token stands out against its physical counterpart for its 24/7 market access, deep liquidity, and the absence of storage fees and other burdens associated with physical gold ownership.

ADVERTISEMENTThe company mints Tether Gold mostly on the Ethereum (ETH) chain with additional support from Tron (TRX). Meanwhile, its redemption is open daily, with a 0.25% fee and a minimum redemption amount of 430 XAUt.

At gold’s valuation of around $4,968, Tether Gold’s Net Asset Value (NAV) currently sits at $5,019, indicating it trades at a slight premium to its underlying asset. As of mid-February 2026, XAUt often trades at a roughly 1% premium compared to the spot gold price on the London Metal Exchange (LME).

BDO Malta serves as auditor for Tether’s gold reserves in relation to XAUt. The company’s attestation for the fourth quarter of 2025 revealed that the stablecoin giant has 520,089.350 fine troy ounces of gold reserves, which were all tokenized for easy value transfer.

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