After a massive gold purchase, "Stablecoin Giant" Tether suddenly dismisses two gold traders, just a few months after hiring them from HSBC

“stablecoin” giant Tether cuts ties with its gold trading team poached from HSBC.

On March 31, citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that “stablecoin” giant Tether has laid off senior metals trader Vincent Domien and Mathew O’Neill, who both jumped from HSBC Holdings to the company a few months earlier.

The reasons for their departures are still unclear. When the two joined Tether, the company was in the middle of a record year of gold purchases, with its buying volume nearly exceeding that of all central banks combined. In response to Bloomberg’s inquiry, Tether said:

The company is always committed to maintaining a lean team and continuously optimizing operations.

This personnel change comes as Tether faces downward pressure on gold prices. In March this year, affected by the situation in the Middle East, crude oil surged, while the gold market suffered its worst monthly performance since 2008. Against this backdrop, the gold-priced crude oil this month rose sharply, breaking a long-standing downward trend.

(Crude oil priced in gold surged significantly in March)

Poaching HSBC with the aim to dominate the gold market

Domien and O’Neill’s arrival initially drew widespread attention in the gold market.

Both previously held senior positions at HSBC. Domien was responsible for global metals trading, while O’Neill was a top-tier salesperson.

Tether brought the two in with the goal of professionalizing gold reserves management and generating returns for the company through active management of gold assets—its public remarks even said it wanted to build a “global best-in-class gold trading desk.”

When the two above joined, Tether had just completed a record year of gold purchases, with procurement volume exceeding that of nearly all central banks.

However, as the gold price was hit in March by multiple pressures—including a sell-off wave triggered by the Iran war, rising expectations of interest-rate hikes, and the sell-off by at least one central bank—gold and bitcoin’s synchronized decline has put pressure on its investment portfolio.

Analysts believe Tether seems to have chosen to shrink its team size after completing its initial build-out. The company has about 300 employees.

The layoffs also reflect another side of the hiring frenzy in the commodities industry. Over the past year, several traders have gone all out, hiring away employees with large sums from banking institutions that traditionally dominated the gold market.

According to reports, Mercuria Energy Group hired Benjamin Binet-Laisne from Goldman Sachs, and Gunvor Group also recruited a batch of traders from multiple institutions.

First comprehensive audit kicks off, financing plan paused

The personnel changes within the gold team occurred at a time when Tether itself was going through an important transformation milestone.

This month, Tether announced that it has commissioned a major accounting firm to conduct its first comprehensive financial audit. At the same time, the company’s plan to raise up to $20 billion in external funding has been put on hold, to be advanced only after the audit results are released.

Tether is the issuer of the world’s largest U.S.-dollar-pegged “stablecoin” USDT. Currently, the circulating supply of the “stablecoin” USDT is about $184 billion.

At the beginning of the year, the company held about 140 tons of gold, mainly used to back USDT and its smaller gold-pegged stablecoin XAUT.

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