On-chain data shows $50 million at risk as Tether’s Alloy shutdown deadline boils down to 5 forgotten gold vaults
Tether is winding down Alloy by Tether, the platform that lets users mint dollar-linked aUSDT against Tether Gold (XAUT). From Sept. 17, customers who have not returned their aUSDT will lose the ability to recover XAUT through the platform. The relevant exposure is much smaller than the token’s headline supply. On Aug. 10, Alloy’s vault data showed five open positions with 399,088.74 aUSDT of debt backed by 194.41497 XAUT, down from 907,994.8205 aUSDT and 470.4215 XAUT on June 30 — declines of about 56% and 58.7%. Total supply figures and holder counts are misleading because unissued aUSDT can sit in the contract and a single customer may use multiple whitelisted addresses. Alloy says a user must fully repay outstanding aUSDT to release all collateral, and buying aUSDT on the secondary market does not grant rights to a specific vault. No alternative recovery process is described after the Sept. 17 cutoff.
