XAUT Hold-to-Earn
Buying gold anyway? Hold it as XAUT and earn up to 20% APY
Where you keep the gold you buy decides whether it earns anything. Bars and coins pay nothing; a gold ETF charges you every year. XAUT — one token per ounce of vaulted gold — held in a TopNod wallet earns up to 20% APY in USDT during Hold-to-Earn. No lockup and nothing to stake: buy it, keep it in the wallet, and it accrues daily. Round 1 is live until November 19, 2026. Best case if you start now: $3.17 on $1,000, $31.72 on $10,000.
On a computer? Scan with your phone to open TopNod.
Hold-to-Earn is not offered in the US, Singapore or sanctioned regions, and StackFi does not promote it in mainland China.
You can still buy and hold XAUT in TopNod; the app shows whether the reward applies to you.
Disclosure: StackFi's chief editor, Woody, works in the Web3 wallet space and is affiliated with TopNod. We earn no referral fees. Details
XAUT rewards: the short answer
TopNod offers up to 20% annualized rewards on eligible Ethereum XAUT holdings during round 1. This is not a 20% return over the campaign. At the maximum rate, $1,000 over 30 qualifying days would earn about 16.44 USDT before costs; fewer remaining days earn less.
Within the scheduled campaign period; pool availability must be checked in the app.
- Campaign window
- —
- Balance and rewards
- Minimum $20; up to $10,000 per address counts. Accrual starts after 24 hours, based on each day’s lowest eligible balance. Rewards are paid in USDT after the round ends, subject to the 50,000 USDT pool.
Before your first purchase
- Open the campaign in TopNod and confirm your eligibility, current terms and pool availability before funding. The United States, Singapore and sanctioned regions are excluded.
- Use the receiving address and network shown in the app. For an Ethereum USDT swap, fund on that same network and check how gas must be paid; direct Ethereum transactions require ETH. Do not send USDT from another chain to an Ethereum-only deposit route.
- Choose the official XAUT contract, compare the final quote with spot, and include swap fees, spread, slippage, gas and any withdrawal fees in the calculator. Complete any checks the app requires.
- After buying, confirm the XAUT balance on Ethereum in your TopNod wallet and check the app’s reward status after the qualifying delay.
Step-by-step XAUT purchase guide · Issuer, reserves and redemption
Campaign facts recorded 2026-10-10: TopNod information relayed through StackFi's chief editor. A public campaign terms URL has not been supplied; the current terms inside TopNod are authoritative. Tether sources below describe the token, not this wallet campaign.
Who this is for
Hold-to-Earn is for people who were already going to own gold. If you are about to add gold to a portfolio — as a hedge, as savings outside the banking system, or as a slice next to your crypto — the decision you still have to make is the form: a bar in a drawer, a fund in a brokerage account, or a token in a wallet. Each holds the same gold price. Only one of them pays you to hold it right now.
That is the whole case. The reward does not change what gold is, and it is not a reason to buy gold you did not want. But for a position you were going to build anyway, holding it as XAUT for these weeks adds up to 20% a year on top of whatever gold itself does, with no lockup and nothing to manage after the purchase. If you are still deciding between the forms, the trade-offs beyond this reward are in physical gold vs gold ETF vs tokenized gold; if you buy gold by the gram in an app, see digital gold vs tokenized gold.
How much you would earn
Enter the gold you plan to hold and the day you would start; the calculator applies TopNod's rule, the $10,000 cap, the $20 minimum and the 24-hour start. Add your own gas and spread to see what is left after costs.
- Days earning
- 5.8 days
- Counted holding
- $1,000
- Best-case reward
- 3.17 USDT
- After your costs
- −$1.83
- Break-even holding
- $1,576
Best case = full 20% APY, the 50,000 USDT pool lasting to the end, and a balance that never dips below this amount. The reward is paid in USDT; gold's price change on the XAUT itself is not included.
How Hold-to-Earn works
Buy XAUT, keep it in your TopNod wallet, and each day earns a slice of the annual rate on that day's lowest balance. New to XAUT? See how to buy it with USDT and what backs it. The campaign details recorded from TopNod through StackFi's chief editor:
- What to hold: at least $20 of XAUT on Ethereum, in a TopNod wallet.
- When it starts: 24 hours after you hold the position.
- Daily reward = the day's lowest holding in USD × APY ÷ 365. Selling or sending XAUT during a day lowers that day's figure.
- Cap: up to $10,000 per address counts; anything above it is counted as $10,000.
- Rate: up to 20% APY, paid in USDT once the round ends.
- Round 1: October 9, 2026 12:00 UTC to November 19, 2026 16:00 UTC, from a 50,000 USDT pool.
A worked example: you buy $1,000 of XAUT when the round opens. From the next day it earns about $0.55 a day. If you later send $300 elsewhere, that day and every day after it are counted on $700. The balance is valued in dollars, so it moves with gold: if gold rises 3%, the same XAUT counts as about $1,030.
Bars vs ETF vs XAUT, over the same weeks
For the same dollars of gold held from now to the end of round 1, a bar earns nothing, an ETF costs its fee, and XAUT in a TopNod wallet earns up to 0.32%. Gold's own price change is identical in all three, so it is left out.
| Gold held | Bars or coins | Gold ETF (GLD) | XAUT in TopNod, best case |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $0.00 | −$0.06 | +3.17 USDT |
| $5,000 | $0.00 | −$0.32 | +15.86 USDT |
| $10,000 | $0.00 | −$0.63 | +31.72 USDT |
Buying costs differ too. Small bars and coins are sold at a dealer premium over spot, typically 3–8%; an ETF has a brokerage commission and a small spread; XAUT has Ethereum gas and the token's spread to spot, which was -0.14% on 2026-11-12 (live on the tokenized metal premium tracker). To compare those costs over a longer holding period, use the gold holding cost calculator. Gold was about $3,872/oz when this page was built.
Gas, spread and the break-even
You pay the Ethereum gas to buy XAUT; compare your actual total costs with the reward available over the remaining days. At $20 the round pays about $0.06, usually less than one Ethereum transaction. The holding at which the remaining-period reward covers your costs:
| Your gas + spread | Holding to break even (starting now) |
|---|---|
| $2 | $630 |
| $5 | $1,576 |
| $10 | $3,152 |
| $20 | $6,305 |
Past that point, the reward is extra return on gold you were holding anyway. Since you would pay some cost to buy gold in any form, the fairer comparison is against the bar's dealer premium or the ETF's commission, not against zero.
Why joining early matters
Rewards come from a 50,000 USDT pool paid out first come, first served. At the full 20% for the whole round, that covers about $2,271,784 of counted holdings. If more joins than that, the pool can run out before November 19, 2026 — which is what "up to" means here, and why the start of the round is the best time to be holding.
Is this XAUT staking?
No — it is simply holding, which is why some people call it soft staking. XAUT has no native staking: it is a claim on vaulted gold, not a token that secures a blockchain, and its issuer pays holders nothing. So any "XAUT staking" offer is someone paying you to hold it or to lend it out. Lending moves your XAUT into a protocol or an exchange; Hold-to-Earn leaves it in your own wallet, with nothing locked and nothing to unstake when you want to sell. For how this compares with leasing gold, bank gold deposits and covered-call funds, see does gold pay interest?
What to weigh
- Gold's price moves the position far more than the reward does over 6 days — in either direction.
- The reward is a ceiling from a finite pool, paid by TopNod after the round ends.
- XAUT is a claim on gold held by its issuer, TG Commodities, rather than metal in your hands; see PAXG vs XAUT and tokenized gold risks.
- Self-custody: TopNod has no seed phrase; your password restores access if you lose the device, so keep it safe.
New to holding gold on-chain? How to hold gold on-chain covers the basics end to end.
On a computer? Scan with your phone to open TopNod.
Hold-to-Earn is not offered in the US, Singapore or sanctioned regions, and StackFi does not promote it in mainland China.
You can still buy and hold XAUT in TopNod; the app shows whether the reward applies to you.
Disclosure: StackFi's chief editor, Woody, works in the Web3 wallet space and is affiliated with TopNod. We earn no referral fees. Details
FAQ
Does the advertised rate mean I earn 20% during this round?
No. The ceiling is 20% annualized, not a 20% bonus on your purchase. The estimate is eligible balance × 0.2 × qualifying days ÷ 365, before fees. Gas, spread and gold-price losses can exceed the reward.
What is XAUT Hold-to-Earn?
A TopNod campaign that pays up to 20% APY in USDT on XAUT (Tether Gold) held in a TopNod wallet on Ethereum. You buy XAUT and keep it in the wallet; the reward accrues daily on that day's lowest balance, counted on up to $10,000 per address, and is paid after the round ends. Round 1: October 9, 2026 to November 19, 2026.
Do I have to lock or stake my XAUT?
No. There is no lockup and nothing to stake — the XAUT just stays in your wallet. You can sell or send it at any time; that day's reward and later days are then counted on the smaller balance, and days already earned are kept.
How much can I earn?
At most about $3.17 on $1,000 and $31.72 on the $10,000 maximum for the round, if you start holding now and the pool lasts. That is 0.32% of the position in about 6 days.
Is XAUT staking the same thing?
XAUT has no native staking, so "XAUT staking" offers are always someone paying you to hold or lend it. Hold-to-Earn is the holding kind, sometimes called soft staking: the token never leaves your wallet.
Does gold normally pay interest?
No. Bars and coins pay nothing, and a gold ETF costs its expense ratio every year (0.40% for GLD). Campaign rewards are one way to receive an additional payment; lending and other products add different risks. This reward lasts only for the campaign.
When is the reward paid?
Once, in USDT, to your TopNod wallet after the round ends on November 19, 2026.
Who can join?
Eligibility requires at least $20 of XAUT on Ethereum in a TopNod wallet. The United States, Singapore and sanctioned regions are excluded. Check the current in-app terms before funding; the app determines eligibility.
Campaign details recorded 2026-10-10, supplied by TopNod through StackFi's chief editor; current in-app terms are authoritative. TopNod intends to renew the campaign after this round; next-round terms are not known yet.