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Stablecoin giant Tether confirmed the hiring of two senior HSBC executives - Vincent Domien and Mathew O’Neill to double up its gold strategy
Author: Sahil Thakur
12th November 2025 – Stablecoin giant Tether confirmed the hiring of two senior HSBC executives – Vincent Domien and Mathew O’Neill. Domien was HSBC’s global head of metals trading. O’Neill ran precious metals for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Both will join Tether in the coming months. Their new mandate: aggressively scale Tether’s gold operations, which already include over $12 billion in physical bullion holdings.
Tether’s gold strategy isn’t new. But this is the most aggressive signal yet. The firm holds physical gold as part of its USDT reserves — and backs the Tether Gold ($XAUT) token with 100% allocated bullion.
As of October, $XAUT had a market cap of $1.56 billion. It’s now the largest tokenized gold product in the market. Tether says it’s been adding around 1 metric ton of gold per week to its reserves.
That pace makes it one of the world’s largest non-state buyers of gold, according to Bloomberg.
HSBC isn’t just any bank. It operates one of the biggest private gold vaults in the world, located in London. It also dominates global markets in gold spot trading, futures, options, and swaps.
So hiring two of its top people isn’t just headline-grabbing. It gives Tether deep access to market expertise, clearing channels, and possibly the next edge in tokenized commodities.
It also sends a clear message to competitors like Paxos, and even HSBC itself – which launched its own tokenized gold product in 2024.
Gold prices are climbing again, driven by inflation fears, geopolitical risk, and global uncertainty. That macro setup benefits both physical gold buyers and digital alternatives like $XAUT.
Tether is betting big that more users will demand hard-asset-backed tokens, not just fiat-pegged stablecoins.
Meanwhile, competition is heating up. HSBC’s Gold Token has processed over 100,000 transactions and crossed $1 billion in volume. But it’s still behind $XAUT in supply, adoption, and on-chain liquidity.
Tether hasn’t commented on future token launches or vault locations. But with two of the world’s top bullion traders now on its side, a more aggressive phase of expansion is likely.
And in a market where trust and transparency are under pressure, Tether’s move into physical assets may not just be strategic, it could be existential.
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