Tether's first-quarter gold purchases slowed to 6 tons <br /> As of March 31, the cryptocurrency company held $19.8 billion worth of gold in reserves used to back Tether USDT, equivalent to about 132 tons at market prices at the time, compared with 126 tons at the end of December last year. <br /> Tether currently has $189.5 billion worth of USDT tokens in circulation, as well as $3.3 billion worth of Tether XAUT gold tokens in circulation. Each USD token represents one dollar held in the reserve, and when users provide USD in exchange for USDT, the company holds the equivalent value of the asset. <br /> The reserves supporting Tether USDT are mainly composed of US Treasury bonds worth US$117 billion, with gold accounting for 10% as of March 31. Bitcoin accounts for $7 billion in reserves. <br /> For Tether’s gold token XAUT, which is fully backed by gold, separate data shows that Tether holds 22 tons of gold, an increase of 6 tons from December 31 last year. </p>