Tether’s XAU₮ receives Shariah certification, expanding access for Islamic finance

Tether’s gold-backed digital asset, XAU₮, has received Shariah certification, a move that could open the door to one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing financial sectors. Each XAU₮ token represents one troy ounce of physical, LBMA-certified gold stored in Swiss vaults. The token is issued by TG Commodities Limited and trades as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, making it accessible across major crypto platforms including Swyftx and Blockchain.com. What Shariah compliance actually means here Islamic finance prohibits interest (riba), excessive uncertainty (gharar), and speculation (maysir). For a digital asset to qualify as Shariah-compliant, it needs to be backed by a real, tangible asset and structured in a way that avoids these red lines. Major Shariah screening services Sharlife and CoinStudy have classified XAU₮ as halal, with CoinStudy assigning it a score of 81 out of 100. Halalscreener, another compliance evaluator, rates XAU₮ as “Doubtful” with a score of 50 out of 100 under AAOIFI criteria as of late July 2026. The concerns appear to center on issuer-level and operational elements rather than the underlying gold itself. Abu Dhabi rolls out the regulatory carpet On July ...