Tether Buys 31.9% Stake in Gold Royalties Company Elemental Altus (ELE)

Tether has acquired a 31.9% stake in Elemental Altus Royalties Corp (ELE), a Canadian publicly listed gold royalties company. Tether is well known for creating the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT. In recent months, Tether has been bolstering its gold and Bitcoin reserves, as part of a broader strategy to back up its stablecoin with hard assets. Tether obtained 78,421,780 common shares of Elemental Altus. The deal was reportedly made offshore to secure such a large transaction. Tether made an options trade, with AlphaStream mediating the agreement, to obtain 34,444,580 additional shares from Elemental Altus. The trade marks a pivotal moment for the stablecoin issuer, with a significant investment in the gold royalties market.

Tether invested in the gold royalties company Elemental Altus for around $89.2 million, branching out into precious metals and tangible asset markets. The stablecoin USDT, operated by Tether, has a market capitalization of $155 billion. Elemental Altus is a publicly listed company that is traded on the Toronto-based exchange.

The share price of ELE jumped around 23% on the news that Tether had purchased a third of the shares. Tether purchased the common shares from La Mancha, a Luxembourg-based mining and investment firm. When the announcement was made to the general public, the price of ELE jumped to around $1.30. Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO, commented that the investment reflects Tether’s confidence in the gold market and its fundamentals at this moment in time. 

Elemental Altus is a gold royalty company, which means it finances mining operations and receives a royalty in return for the gold revenues. For this reason, gold royalty companies are considered low-risk because they merely finance operations and have very little overhead to concern themselves with.

Gold royalty companies spend considerable time investigating whether a client would make a profit for the company. From an investor’s perspective, gold royalty companies are attractive because they can potentially continue to make profits even after a gold price boom. Tether commented that such an investment reflected their interest in low-risk exposure to real-world assets. Tether plans to enhance its financial products’ stability and transparency by diversifying into the gold royalties market. Ardoino commented that Tether was increasing in Gold and Bitcoin as part of a forward-looking strategy to build a more transparent financial system. Ardoino argued that Bitcoin was a proven hedge against inflation, and Gold was a time-tested long-term value store. Ardoino reiterated that gold investment was about profits and creating a resilient financial infrastructure for the next century. 

Tether’s complex asset strategy includes over 100,000 BTC, 80 tons of physical gold, and stablecoin Tether Gold XAUT. Tether has been slowly building a new financial infrastructure to replace the existing systems. However, Tether is creating an economic system built from blockchain technology, making it a more transparent and fair system for investors. A portfolio combining Gold and Bitcoin allows investors to couple the two assets into one portfolio.

Bitcoin already symbolises Gold through its language, such as proof-of-work and mining. It makes sense to further associate the two assets with one another. Tether has consistently built its gold stablecoin XAUT, which is further validated by having gold investments. Tether may also wish to invest in commodity-backed digital assets, requiring expertise in various business models such as gold royalties. Tether may create a gold-based backbone for the Tether USDT ecosystem by associating Gold with Bitcoin. Tether could also collaborate with the Elemental Altus management board to develop financial products further. 

Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO, stated that the core strategy for Tether was to create a financial system backed by tangible assets. In Q1 2025, Tether bought around $735 million worth of Bitcoin. This formed part of the company’s strategy to back up their financial instruments with real-world assets. Tether bought 8,888 BTC when the price was valued at around $82k. This massive buy-in ranked Tether as the sixth-largest holder of Bitcoin worldwide. At the time, the buy-in added to Tether’s accumulation treasury of 92,647 BTC.

However, the stablecoin issuer now owns over 100,000 BTC. Tether, moreover, owns around 80 tons of gold, showing its commitment to amassing real-world assets to its portfolio. It would be convenient for Tether to amass Bitcoin reserves because the digital asset is stored online. Still, Tether has also aimed to accumulate gold reserves to back up its gold stablecoin. The TRON network recently minted around 1 billion USDT, coinciding with an upward movement in Bitcoin’s price.