Prestige Wealth Inc. closed a $150 million financing deal on October 10, 2025, to create the first Nasdaq-listed company holding Tether Gold as its main treasury asset.
This move represents a shift in how public companies think about reserve assets. Rather than holding cash or traditional investments, Aurelion will hold tokenized gold—digital tokens where each one represents one ounce of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults.
How the Financing Works
The financing package includes two main parts. Antalpha Platform Holding Company led a $100 million private investment, with Tether and Kiara Capital joining as investors. Antalpha put in $43 million, Tether invested $15 million, and Kiara Capital contributed $6 million. The second part is a $50 million loan with a three-year term and a 6% annual interest rate.
The company plans to use $280 million from this financing and future warrant exercises to buy Tether Gold tokens. The loan is secured against $67 million worth of the company’s gold holdings, which will be kept in a controlled account. Aurelion can pay back the loan early without penalties.
After the transaction, Antalpha owns 32.4% of Aurelion’s shares but controls 73.1% of the voting power. This gives them significant influence over company decisions.
Understanding Tether Gold
Tether Gold (XAU₮) works differently from regular cryptocurrency. Each token represents one troy ounce of gold on a London Good Delivery bar. The gold is 100% physically backed and stored in Switzerland, meeting London Bullion Market Association standards.
Since Tether Gold launched in 2020, about seven tons of physical gold have been acquired to back the tokens. Each gold bar has a unique serial number, weight, and purity specification that holders can verify. The tokens run on the Ethereum blockchain as ERC-20 tokens, making them easy to trade around the clock.
Users can redeem their tokens for physical gold, though they need at least 430 tokens to get one full gold bar. The current gold market has reached record highs, with prices climbing above $3,800 per ounce—a 48% increase since January 2025.
New Leadership and Strategy
Björn Schmidtke takes over as CEO of Aurelion. He previously served as chairman and co-founder of Penguin Group, a Bitcoin mining company in South America. Schmidtke worked at McKinsey before entering the crypto industry.
Schmidtke views Tether Gold as “the real digital gold” and believes it can fight inflation while remaining stable enough for everyday use. He stated that Aurelion sets “a new standard: a publicly listed, fully backed gold digital reserve that can be verified on-chain every day.”
The company underwent several leadership changes. The previous CEO, Kazuho Komoda, resigned along with his board seat. The chief financial officer moved to chief accounting officer, and the former CTO now leads private wealth management.
Antalpha gained two board seats as part of the deal. A new Strategic Advisory Committee was formed, including Rohan Chauhan, Director of Strategy at Gemini, to guide treasury decisions.
The Reserve 2.0 Initiative
This investment represents the next phase of Antalpha’s Reserve 2.0 strategy. Earlier in 2025, Antalpha bought $20 million worth of Tether Gold in a pilot program. In early October, the company partnered with Tether to launch the Antalpha RWA Hub, a platform focused on real-world asset services for gold.
The RWA Hub currently supports custody, purchase, and lending services backed by Tether Gold. Holders can borrow money using their gold tokens as collateral. Antalpha plans to open physical vaults in major financial centers worldwide where people can exchange tokens for actual gold bars.
Paul Liang, CFO of Antalpha, explained the vision: “When people walk into a jewelry store and can exchange Tether Gold for gold bars, digital assets will become more ‘tangible’ for many.”
Gold has served as a store of value for thousands of years. Its price typically moves opposite to the U.S. dollar during economic uncertainty, making it attractive when other investments become risky. Currently, digital gold (mostly in ETF format) has a market value over $200 billion, but only about 1% exists on blockchain technology.
Making Money from Gold Holdings
Aurelion plans to generate returns differently from traditional gold investments. Gold ETFs and physical bullion typically come with expense ratios, custody fees, and high transaction costs. Aurelion will lend its unencumbered gold holdings through Antalpha’s lending platform to earn 50 to 100 basis points annually—that’s 0.5% to 1% per year.
The company will also launch a Digital Treasury Dashboard showing its gold holdings, net asset value, and daily blockchain verification metrics. This transparency allows investors to see exactly what the company owns at any time.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, emphasized the partnership’s importance: “Working with Antalpha allows us to expand the reach of XAU₮ and build stronger market infrastructure around it.”
Market Response and Competition
Prestige Wealth’s stock jumped 19% on October 10 following the announcement. Shares opened at $1.40 and reached a high of $1.46 before settling at $1.19, representing a 14.4% gain.
Tether Gold faces competition from Paxos Gold (PAXG), which crossed $1 billion in value in September 2025. PAXG is regulated by New York’s Department of Financial Services and provides monthly audited reports. It only operates on Ethereum and has over 74,000 holders.
Tether Gold operates from El Salvador with different regulatory oversight. It provides quarterly reports through BDO Italia but works across six blockchains: Ethereum, Tron, TON, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Hyperliquid. With about 12,000 holders and $23 million in daily trading volume, Tether Gold appears to attract larger institutional investors rather than many small holders.
More than 80 digital asset treasury companies launched in 2025, following the model created by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which holds Bitcoin as its treasury asset. Aurelion’s focus on gold rather than cryptocurrency sets it apart.
The Digital Gold Opportunity
Aurelion becomes the first Nasdaq-listed company to hold tokenized gold as its core treasury asset. This combines the security of physical commodities with blockchain technology’s speed and transparency. The company aims to make digital assets feel more real by enabling physical redemption through the Antalpha network.
Central banks worldwide bought over 1,000 metric tons of gold in 2024 for the third consecutive year, showing continued institutional demand. Gold’s recent rally—its strongest since the late 1970s—reflects growing concerns about inflation and currency stability.
The tokenized gold market represents a small fraction of the total gold market but is growing rapidly. As blockchain technology matures and regulatory frameworks develop, more investors may seek exposure to physical assets through digital tokens.