Tether announced Wednesday that its tokenized gold product, XAU₮, is now available on BNB Chain, expanding the token’s reach to the third-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem by total value locked (TVL).

Each XAU₮ token represents one fine troy ounce of physical gold held in Swiss vaults as a London Good Delivery bar. The token is issued by TG Commodities under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law.

The move comes at a turbulent moment for gold markets. Spot gold is trading at roughly $4,400 per ounce, well below its all-time high of approximately $5,589 hit in January but still sharply higher year-over-year. Gold surged 64% in 2025, its largest annual gain in 40 years, as investors piled into safe-haven assets amid geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainty.

That rally fueled explosive growth in tokenized gold. The sector crossed $4 billion in market value in January, though the sector remains dominated by just two products, XAU₮ and PAXG, which control more than 95% of the market.

BNB Chain’s RWA Play

The expansion positions BNB Chain to capture more real-world asset activity.

Nina Rong, executive director of growth at BNB Chain, said the integration “extends what is already the second-largest RWA ecosystem by TVL” and gives users “a trusted, gold-backed asset they can use across DeFi without friction.”

Tether also said it has integrated XAU₮ via the USDT0 network, a cross-chain infrastructure layer that enables unified liquidity across blockchains.

Growing Competition

The listing comes as the tokenized gold sector faces growing scrutiny over its concentrated structure. The World Gold Council recently proposed shared infrastructure for tokenized gold products, arguing that the high barriers to entry, including the need to independently build custody relationships, compliance pipelines, audit frameworks, and redemption logistics, limit competition and hamper fungibility.

New entrants are also challenging the duopoly. In January, DeFi protocol Theo launched a yield-bearing tokenized gold product called thGOLD, designed to generate returns on idle gold exposure, something neither XAU₮ nor PAXG currently offers natively.

“People understand gold. They trust it because it has held value for millennia,” said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. “With XAU₮, we are not changing what gold is; we are making it usable in a modern financial system.”

The UK has sanctioned the operator of one of Cambodia’s largest scam compounds, and a major crypto-based Southeast Asia marketplace that sells stolen personal data to traffickers.

The measures are part of a wider international effort and seeks to protect UK residents from being scammed, aid Cambodia in its crackdown, and help stop human rights abuses.

The newly sanctioned firm Legend Innovation Co, and its director, Eang Soklim, ran a compound called #8 Park. The facility is believed to be the country’s largest such compound and can house up to 20,000 trafficking victims. 

This compund is connected to the South Asian conglomerate Prince Group and its head, Chen Zi, who was arrested and extradited to China earlier this year. 

The sanctions also targeted two of Chen’s allies, Thet Li, and Hu Xiaowei.

Read more: Cambodia has deported 48K foreigners since scam center crackdown began

One of the largest crypto-based criminal marketplaces, Xinbi, was also sanctioned.

Xinbi sells stolen personal data and satellite equipment to traffickers and has helped launder crypto assets stolen by North Korea. 

The UK said the sanctions “will isolate the platform from the legitimate crypto ecosystem, significantly disrupting its operations by affecting its ability to send and receive cryptocurrency transactions.”

Crypto analytics firm Elliptic claims that Xinbi’s inflows have reached over $19.7 billion.

BSquare Technology, the sister firm of a Prince-linked crypto exchange BYEX, was also sanctioned today, alongside a Myanmar-based triad leader, and the wife of a Prince Group operator.

As a result of the latest sanctions, a number of London properties will be frozen. They join assets frozen as a result of previous action against the network, including a £100 million ($133 million) office block, two mansions, and a helicopter.  

Joint effort to stop human trafficking scam networks

According to a UK government press release, “Across Southeast Asia, scam centers are using sophisticated schemes, including scams in which people are lured into fake romantic relationships, to defraud victims on an industrial scale, including in the UK.”

It added, “Today’s sanctions will have an immediate effect, further immobilising this scam network and its financial enablers, who have profited from the exploitation of vulnerable people.”

Crypto markets sold off sharply on Thursday as oil surged back above $93 per barrel after U.S.-Iran peace talks stalled, dragging risk assets lower across the board.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $68,400, down 3.5% over the past 24 hours. ETH and SOL slipped 5% to $2,050 and $87, respectively. Meanwhile, Ripple (XRP) dropped 4.5%.

Total crypto market capitalization decreased 3.2% to $2.43 trillion, according to Coingecko.

ETF Flows

Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows of $7.8 million on Wednesday, with Fidelity’s FBTC leading the charge with $83 million. However, that was mostly offset by $70 million in outflows from BlackRock’s IBIT, according to SoSoValue.

Ethereum ETFs continued to underperform, recording net outflows of $8 million, led by BlackRock’s ETHA, with $33 million in withdrawals.

Big Movers

All of the Top 100 digital assets posted gains over the last 24 hours.

SIREN and MemeCore (M) are today’s biggest losers, plunging 30% and 13%, respectively.

Around 97,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for $305 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin accounted for $93 million, while ETH made up $104 million.

Looking ahead, two catalysts loom on Friday: the PCE inflation report and the expiration of Trump’s five-day window for diplomacy with Iran.

The latest 160% rally in Bittensor (TAO) shows signs of exhaustion as it forms a golden-cross pattern on the chart that previously preceded steep corrections.

Key takeaways:

• TAO prints a golden cross that has preceded 40% drawdown on average in the past.

• Social volume for Bittensor is high, but retail euphoria remains muted.

TAO price risks 40% drawdown in the coming weeks

As of Thursday, March 26, TAO’s 20-day exponential moving average (20-day EMA, the green line) was crossing above its 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA, the blue wave).

Traders typically view a short-term average moving above a long-term one as a bullish signal. In TAO’s case, however, the pattern has often appeared near local tops, sometimes triggering brief upside follow-through before reversing sharply.

In the last three similar crossovers, TAO dropped by roughly 38.50%, 32.50%, and 45.50% within five-six weeks. That amounts to an average drawdown of about 40%, raising Bittensor’s odds of falling to $200 by early May if the pattern repeats.

TAO’s downside risk is rising further as its relative strength index (RSI) has stayed above the 70 overbought threshold for weeks. The reading suggests the recent rally may have gone too far, too fast, raising the risk of profit-taking or a short-term cooldown.

Broader macro conditions add to the bearish case, as the escalating US–Iran war lifts oil prices, fuels inflation risks, and weakens the case for near-term Federal Reserve easing.

TAO rally still lacks euphoric retail sentiment

TAO’s rally has triggered a sharp increase in online discussion without the kind of euphoric sentiment that typically marks local tops, according to data resource Santiment.

Social volume across X, Reddit, Telegram, and other platforms has climbed to its second-highest level in six months, trailing only the frenzy seen near TAO’s $529 peak in November.

At the same time, sentiment remains relatively subdued, with only 1.5 positive comments for every negative one.

“This is generally a good sign that the rally can continue, with little interference from greedy traders that typically signal forming tops,” Santiment said.

Related: AI and stablecoins are winning despite 2026 crypto market slump

Still, TAO’s golden cross fractal suggests that even rallies driven by improving sentiment can turn into bull traps.

In the last three similar golden-cross setups, TAO still rallied by roughly 15.6%, 5.7%, and 42.6% before reversing lower.

That puts the average post-cross upside at around 21.30%, hinting at a short-term Bittensor price rally toward $420 or higher before exhaustion sets in.