Gold has been humanity’s favorite store of value for roughly 5,000 years. Its biggest knock for roughly the same amount of time: it doesn’t pay you anything to hold it. Unitas Labs is betting that wrapping physical gold exposure in a yield-generating DeFi layer might finally change that equation.

The protocol launched XGLD on BNB Chain on June 3, a token fully collateralized 1:1 by Tether Gold (XAUt). Each XGLD unit is backed by the equivalent of one troy ounce of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults, but unlike simply holding XAUt in a wallet, XGLD generates yield through on-chain strategies built by Unitas.

How XGLD actually works

XAUt can be used to borrow stablecoins at up to 70% loan-to-value ratios. Those borrowed stablecoins are then deployed into yield-generating DeFi strategies. The returns flow back to XGLD holders, meaning investors get gold price exposure plus yield, without selling their gold position.

The BNB Chain pipeline

Unitas Labs natively deployed on BNB Chain at the end of February 2026. A month later, Tether Gold debuted on BNB Chain on March 26, giving Unitas the foundational building block it needed. XGLD is essentially the product that connects those two earlier milestones.

Unitas already had a track record before touching gold. The team previously built USDu, a synthetic dollar token, and sUSDu, its yield-bearing counterpart. That architecture, collateralizing one asset to generate yield on a wrapped version, maps directly onto the XGLD model.

Unitas has indicated plans to bring XGLD to Base using LayerZero’s interoperability framework, though no specific timeline has been confirmed.

What this means for investors

XGLD carries multiple layers of counterparty and smart contract exposure. You’re trusting Tether to maintain XAUt’s gold backing. You’re trusting Unitas Labs’ smart contracts to manage collateralized borrowing without liquidation events that could impair the peg. And you’re trusting that the DeFi strategies generating yield won’t suffer losses that eat into principal.

The 70% LTV ratio on borrowing is worth noting. That’s relatively aggressive for a collateralized lending product. If gold prices dropped sharply, positions could approach liquidation thresholds faster than they would with a more conservative ratio. Unitas hasn’t publicly detailed how it manages liquidation risk across its strategies.

There’s no trading volume or adoption data available to gauge early market reception. The actual yield rates XGLD delivers have not been publicly specified.