Full story
XAU₮ gets Shariah OK
Tether announced that XAU₮, its gold-backed digital asset, received Shariah compliance certification from Amanah Advisors, led by Mufti Faraz Adam, on July 27, 2026.
The certification followed a review of XAU₮’s ownership model, reserve transparency, physical backing, and compliance with Islamic rules governing gold transactions, including whether the product involved interest, leverage, or speculative derivatives.
Tether said each XAU₮ token represents one troy fine ounce of physical gold held in Swiss vaults, and that the certification found XAU₮ meets the main requirements of Islamic finance, including clear ownership of a real asset and the absence of riba.
Tether also described the move as a bridge between demand for gold and blockchain-based financial infrastructure, with CEO Paolo Ardoino saying, “Gold has always represented stability and trust across cultures and generations.”
Abu Dhabi commodity status
The Shariah certification followed another regulatory development for XAU₮ in the Middle East, after Abu Dhabi Global Market recognized the token as an Accepted Spot Commodity.
The ADGM designation, as described in the source, allows firms within the financial center to support it only when they hold the required regulatory permissions, and eligible firms must still obtain approval to use Accepted Spot Commodities and hold permissions covering the relevant services.
The source also said ADGM had previously recognized Tether’s USDT as an Accepted Fiat Referenced Token, with the two assets under separate regulatory categories but both recognized as routes to place Tether’s dollar-backed stablecoin and gold-backed token within the Abu Dhabi financial center.
Tether Gold’s locked value, the source added, has more than tripled to about $2.86 billion over the past year, and data cited by crypto.news showed locked value rising from about $826 million to roughly $2.86 billion over the past year.
What it means for users
Tether said the Shariah certification could widen XAU₮’s potential use among Islamic banks, institutions, and individual investors by enabling access to Islamic finance markets and products such as halal savings, institutional gold allocations, takaful services, trade finance, and collateralized lending.
The source also framed XAU₮ as a way to provide blockchain-based gold exposure without replacing the underlying physical asset with a synthetic contract, because each token represents ownership of one troy fine ounce of gold on a London Good Delivery bar stored in a Swiss vault.
It also stated that Shariah certification does not change XAU₮’s legal or regulatory status in the United States, and that it instead confirms Amanah Advisors considers the token’s structure compatible with Islamic finance principles.
Bitcoin World similarly described the certification as aligning XAUT with Islamic finance principles that prohibit interest (riba), excessive uncertainty (gharar), and speculation (maysir), and said the token is a digital representation of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults.
