XGLD relies on XAUt to achieve exposure to gold and earn income, and the on-chain address data shows the characteristics of its user composition.

Written by: Unitas Team

We analyzed all the holding addresses of XGLD since its launch, totaling 856 valid addresses, close to 15 million dollars in TVL. Before the data was released, we did not have a very clear answer to "who is using this product." After the data was revealed, the picture became much clearer than expected.

Who is buying?

The sample started from 920 XGLD holding addresses, filtering out exchange hot wallets, LP addresses, contract addresses, and other non-individual addresses, and further removing addresses with holdings lower than $100, resulting in 856 valid analysis addresses, with total holdings of $14,096,488.57. The identifiable on-chain gold-like assets include all gold tokens such as XGLD, XAUt, PAXG, etc. Based on this, we categorized the holding addresses into ten types according to the proportion of gold assets in the portfolio, on-chain interaction frequency, and the combinations with stablecoins or mainstream crypto assets:

The conclusion is clear: the 239 addresses with high concentration of gold holdings contributed 73.5% of the total TVL. Although the high-frequency on-chain interaction accounts for 21.4% of the number of addresses, the actual contribution to the TVL is only 0.3%. Those who spent money are not the ones chasing APY across different protocols, but rather those who intended to allocate gold in the first place.

What are these people thinking?

The logic of the high concentration of gold holdings is straightforward: they originally intended to hold gold, and XGLD is not a "new opportunity" for them, but a "better execution of the same decision" — obtaining additional income while holding gold, with unchanged exposure to gold. It is worth noting that stablecoin-dominant users contributed 18% of the TVL — they use XGLD for portfolio rebalancing or hedging, making it the second largest source of TVL. This indicates that the appeal of XGLD is not limited to hardcore gold holders; there is also a place for users holding large amounts of stablecoins who are looking for yield options.

The bigger context: What's happening in the ecology of XAUt holders

We also analyzed 654 valid holding addresses of XAUt (after filtering out exchange hot wallets), and compared to the XGLD group, the overall structure is similar, but with some differentiation:

Note: There is overlap between the various types of portraits for XAUt, as the same address can meet multiple identity criteria, hence the sum of addresses is greater than the total sample size.

In the XAUt group, there are 42 addresses holding tokenized stocks/ETFs — these users hold both on-chain stock-type assets and gold, representing a group that is seriously making multi-asset portfolio configurations. Their presence signifies a direction: the logic of on-chain asset allocation is moving closer to traditional multi-asset portfolios. Additionally, 90% of the existing supply of XAUt is concentrated in three exchange hot wallets on Binance; the users who truly hold XAUt on-chain are a relatively precise group, with a clear conversion path.

What is XGLD and how does it work?

The background is that Tether Gold has officially confirmed the integration with Unitas Labs, and XGLD is officially connected to the XAUt ecosystem. XAUt is the tokenized gold issued by Tether, with each token corresponding to one ounce of physical gold stored in a Swiss vault. In recent years, the concept of "putting gold on-chain" has been made actionable: verifiable, transferable, redeemable. However, gold itself does not generate interest, which is the old problem. XGLD solves this issue without altering gold allocation: users deposit XAUt to mint XGLD on a 1:1 basis; the protocol uses XAUt as collateral to borrow stablecoins through leading centralized exchanges or compliant lenders; these stablecoins are invested in Delta neutral strategies to capture funding fee incomes; your gold allocation remains the same, just enhanced with a continuous earning attribute; upon exit, XGLD is destroyed through a redemption contract to retrieve XAUt, with no mandatory lock-up period. The historical performance of the strategy is within a double-digit annualized range, but funding rates fluctuate with the market, and returns are not guaranteed. Reserve verification is provided by Primus Labs with real-time Proof of Reserves, with on-chain data available for checks. Users holding XAUt can deposit directly to mint at unitas.so/xgld.

The next question for tokenized gold

In the past few years, the industry has succeeded in "putting gold on-chain." The next question to address is "what can be done after it's on-chain." The 856 addresses and nearly 15 million dollars in TVL represent a real answer supported by actual users and real data. It indicates that when on-chain gold can truly generate income, the first to enter are those who originally intended to hold gold; they are not chasing APY but are looking to make their allocation more efficient. This marks the starting point for tokenized gold to transition from "on-chain holding" to "on-chain financial application." XGLD is one of them and will not be the last.

Risk warning: Returns are not guaranteed and may fluctuate with market changes. Strategies carry counterparty and execution risks, and past performance does not guarantee future returns.