Tether Is Shaking Up the Gold Market With Massive Metal Hoard

Gold during the refining process at a precious metal refinery.

Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg

There are roughly 370,000 nuclear bunkers in Switzerland, a legacy of the Cold War that are now rarely used. One of them, though, is a hive of activity.

Every week, more than a ton of gold is hauled in to the high-security vault, owned by crypto giant Tether Holdings SA, which is now the world’s largest known hoard of bullion outside of banks and nation states.