Points of Focus
- XAUt received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors led by Mufti Faraz Adam.
- Tether’s gold-backed token now has a clearer path into Islamic financial institutions.
- The announcement follows XAUt’s recognition by Abu Dhabi Global Market last week.
Tether’s gold-backed token, XAUt, has received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors, giving the company an entry point into the rapidly growing Islamic finance market as demand for tokenized real-world assets continues to rise.
The certification confirms that XAUt complies with core Islamic finance principles after a review by Amanah Advisors, the Shariah advisory firm led by Islamic finance scholar Mufti Faraz Adam. The review concluded that the token meets key requirements, including direct ownership of physical gold, transparent reserves, and the absence of interest, leverage, and speculative derivatives.
Each XAUt token represents ownership of one troy ounce of physical gold allocated on London Good Delivery bars stored in Swiss vaults. According to Tether, holders can verify the serial number, purity, and weight of the underlying gold, while eligible investors can redeem tokens for physical bullion.
The announcement comes as XAUt continues to expand. Tether’s latest attestation showed the token was backed by more than 707,000 troy ounces of gold worth over $3.3 billion, making it one of the largest tokenized gold products in the digital asset market. Onchain data from RWA.xyz shows XAUt’s asset value has grown from roughly $700 million a year ago to around $2.5 billion today.
Certification targets Islamic finance market
Islamic finance manages more than $3 trillion in assets globally, but investment products must comply with religious rules that prohibit interest-based lending, excessive uncertainty, and speculative transactions.
By obtaining Shariah certification, Tether can market XAUt to Islamic banks, Islamic insurance providers, wealth managers, and institutions that require certified investment products before allocating capital. The company said the certification should support expansion across Gulf Cooperation Council countries, South Asia, Africa, and international financial centers serving Islamic investors.
Amanah Advisors said it would continue working with Tether on governance standards covering secondary-market trading and institutional adoption of XAUt.
Follows Abu Dhabi recognition
The certification arrives only days after Abu Dhabi Global Market recognized XAUt as an Accepted Spot Commodity, allowing authorized firms operating within the financial center to offer services tied to the token under existing regulatory approvals. The decision marked another step in Tether’s expansion across the United Arab Emirates, one of the Middle East’s fastest-growing digital asset markets.
The latest approval strengthens Tether’s position in tokenized commodities at a time when issuers are competing to bring traditional assets such as gold, government bonds, and money market funds onto blockchain networks.
Unlike synthetic gold products, XAUt’s structure links each token directly to allocated physical bullion. Amanah Advisors concluded that this ownership model, together with verifiable reserves and the absence of prohibited financing structures, satisfies the requirements for Shariah-compliant investment.
For Tether, the certification extends XAUt’s reach beyond crypto-native investors and into a segment of global finance where religious compliance is a prerequisite for institutional participation.
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