Average Earnings per Person $90 Million, Earth's Biggest Private Buyer of Gold

Original Title: "Per Capita Earnings of $90 Million, Earth's Largest Private Gold Buyer"

Original Author: Lin Wanwan, Dynamic Observing Beating

A private company has become the world's largest gold holder outside of central banks.

Paolo Ardoino has been busy lately. He spends $1 billion every month, buys 1 to 2 tons of gold every week, and says "it won't stop in the coming months."

Paolo is not a central bank governor of any country; he is the CEO of the world's largest stablecoin company, Tether.

The USDT issued by Tether is the world's largest stablecoin, with a circulation of about $187 billion. The business model is extremely simple: you give it $1, and it gives you 1 USDT token. You take the token to trade, and it takes the dollar to buy government bonds to earn interest.

In 2024, the net profit exceeded $13 billion, with an average profit per person of about $86 million in this team of about 150 people. According to the net profit in the first three quarters of 2025, which has already exceeded $10 billion, the full-year estimate is $15 billion, surpassing Goldman Sachs. This year, Tether may achieve an average profit per person of $100 million.

However, this company that feeds on the dollar has been doing something unrelated to its main business in recent years: hoarding gold like crazy.

Tether has hoarded about 140 tons of gold, worth about $24 billion. This number exceeds the reserves of central banks in countries such as South Korea, Hungary, Greece, Qatar, Australia, and others.

Tether has become the world's largest gold holder outside of central banks.

At Tether's current pace, the monthly gold purchase scale exceeds $1 billion. The price of gold has risen from around $2,650 at the end of September 2024 to over $5,100 now, and Tether's unrealized gains far exceed $5 billion.

Ardoino once said, "Gold is logically safer than any national currency."

Tether's users come mainly from countries such as Turkey, Argentina, and Nigeria, where the local currencies have been depreciating in the long term. They use USDT, essentially fleeing from their central bank. Ardoino takes this logic a step further: what if one day the US dollar also fails?

Sell dollars with one hand, hoard gold with the other. He understands where the risks lie better than anyone.

The Vault in a Nuclear Bunker, and Traders Poached from HSBC

The gold bought by Tether is held in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.

During the Cold War, Switzerland built around 370,000 nuclear bunkers to protect against atomic bombs, with most of them now abandoned. Tether has converted one of them into a gold vault. Ardoino described the place as "protected by multi-layered heavy steel doors, with over 1 ton of gold being transported in every week," a "James Bond-style place."

Physical gold is not anyone's liability, does not rely on any government credit, and cannot be frozen, sanctioned, or created out of thin air. This is the oldest form of security.

But Ardoino's ambition goes beyond hoarding; he also wants to enable trading.

The global gold trading market is monopolized by large banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Citigroup, controlling pricing power and liquidity.

In November 2025, Vincent Domien, Global Head of Metals Trading at HSBC, and Mathew O'Neill, Head of Precious Metals Business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, both resigned. Both were top figures in the industry, with Domien serving as Global Head of Metals Trading at HSBC since 2022 and also a board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA); O'Neill had been with HSBC since 2008.

Their new employer is Tether.

A cryptocurrency company poaching top traditional finance gold traders has sent shockwaves through the City of London.

Ardoino said he needed the "best gold trading platform in the world" to make long-term gold purchases and "take advantage of potential market inefficiencies."

Purchasing around $1 billion worth of physical gold monthly is actually quite a hassle, as it involves a series of logistical challenges.

Currently, Tether "both purchases directly from Swiss refineries and from large financial institutions, with a large order taking months to be fulfilled." They have no bargaining power in the supply chain; how much to buy and when it arrives depends on others.

Building in-house trading capabilities is to break free from this passivity. If they can save 0.5% in costs per trade, that's $60 million a year. More importantly, it's about having control.

From Central Bank to Gold Consortium

Tether's approach to gold is becoming more like that of a central bank.

The central bank likes gold for two reasons: it is highly liquid and universally recognized, and it is not anyone's liability and does not depend on any country's credit.

Since Trump took office, the threat of tariffs has been constant, and the US dollar has fallen to a three-year low. At the same time, central banks around the world have been increasing their gold holdings. The National Bank of Poland was the largest gold buyer among global central banks in 2024 and 2025, increasing its holdings by about 90 tons in 2024 and maintaining its lead in 2025. China, Russia, Turkey, India, and Brazil are also continuing to increase their holdings.

Tether has taken this trend to the extreme. It is doing what central banks do in a private way. Jefferies analysts pointed out that Tether, as an "important new buyer, may drive continued growth in gold demand," with its purchase volume in the third quarter of 2025 accounting for about 2% of global gold demand. A stablecoin company has become one of the drivers of the rise in the price of gold.

But the strategy does not stop there. Tether is also quietly acquiring stakes in gold royalty companies.

Royalty companies purchase income streams from miners. Miners mine gold, and royalty companies take a portion of the income, similar to collecting rent. The benefit is that they don't have to mine themselves, don't take on mining risks, and just sit back and collect money.

According to Bloomberg, Tether has invested over $200 million to acquire about 37.8% of Elemental Altus Royalties and then added another $100 million investment to support its merger with EMX. It also holds stakes in several mid-sized Canadian-listed royalty companies, including Metalla Royalty, Versamet Royalties, and Gold Royalty.

Leading this initiative is Juan Sartori, Tether's Vice President of Strategic Projects.

He was a former Uruguayan senator, a co-owner of the English Premier League team Sunderland, Vice President of AS Monaco Football Club, and founder of the Union Group. A combination of politician, businessman, football club owner, and crypto executive, his identity mix is very international.

From downstream stablecoins to midstream physical gold and trading capabilities, to upstream mining interests, Tether is building a complete gold industry chain and increasingly resembles a gold consortium.

In addition to physical gold, Tether also has a gold token called XAUT. Buy 1 XAUT, and behind it is physical gold in a Swiss vault. If you want delivery, they can actually send you gold bars. Currently, XAUT holds about 60% of the global gold token market share, with a circulating market cap of about $2.7 billion. By the end of 2025, XAUT will be backed by approximately 16.2 tons of physical gold.

Ardoino predicts that it could reach a circulating supply of $5 billion to $10 billion by the end of 2026. If it reaches $10 billion, it would require adding approximately 60 tons of gold reserves. Just to support XAUT, over 1 ton would need to be purchased weekly.

He also made a prophecy, stating, "There are some countries buying large amounts of gold, and we believe they will soon launch a tokenized version of gold as a competing currency to the dollar."

He did not mention which countries. But those who have been frantically buying gold in the past few years are well known.

There's Always Someone Ready with Their Gold Vault

James Rickards, former Pentagon financial war advisor, wrote in "Currency Wars": The underlying aspect of currency competition is reserve competition.

In the 1960s, French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing complained about the US enjoying the "exorbitant privilege," printing a few cents' worth of paper and exchanging it for real gold and silver from around the world.

This game has been going on for sixty years, relying on the world's trust in the dollar.

Trust, when it collapses, does so quickly. This is also the core logic of reserve wars.

The apparent trade wars, tariff wars, exchange rate wars are nothing but the external manifestations of currency credit competition. The foundation of currency credit lies in the quality of reserves.

As the dollar is repeatedly weaponized, freezing foreign exchange reserves, cutting off SWIFT channels, imposing financial sanctions, the world has to rethink: What kind of reserve is truly secure?

Central banks understand this, so they are quietly increasing holdings. Tether understands this too, so they are hoarding like crazy.

John Reade, Chief Strategist at the World Gold Council, said that Tether's purchases have an impact on the gold price, but are only a small part of the reason for the rise. He added, "What is really interesting is that one of the major players in the cryptocurrency space sees gold as a prime trade for dollar debasement."

In August 2025, Tether hired former White House cryptocurrency advisor to the Trump administration Bo Hines as a US strategic advisor. During his tenure, Hines helped push through the first stablecoin regulatory bill in the US, the Genius Act. In January 2026, Tether launched the US-specific token USAT in compliance with the act.

Hoarding gold in a Swiss nuclear bunker on one hand and lobbying in Washington, they play hard on both fronts.

Gold Hits Consecutive All-Time Highs, US Dollar Falls to Three-Year Low. In an unremarkable cave at the foot of the Swiss Alps, over a ton of gold has once again been delivered and the heavy steel door slowly shuts.

This world is indeed becoming increasingly turbulent, but there are always those who have prepared their own vaults in advance.

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