Breaking! $USDT giant whale just finished building a gold reserve and then "betrayed" it—two HSBC executives were dismissed within months. Is the trend about to change?

The absolute ruler of the stablecoin space has recently made a perplexing personnel adjustment. According to market reports, the company has laid off two core members from its precious-metals trading team, Vincent Domien and Mathew O’Neill. Notably, the two only joined from HSBC Holdings a few months ago.

The specific reasons for the departures have not been disclosed. In response, the company said it has been committed to maintaining a lean team structure and continuously optimizing operational efficiency. The timing of this change is also rather delicate, coming at a time when the gold market is facing significant pullback pressure.

In March this year, influenced by the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, crude oil prices surged sharply, while gold suffered its worst monthly performance since the 2008 financial crisis. Against this backdrop, the crude oil price denominated in gold broke a multi-year downward trend and posted a significant increase.

The recruitment of Domien and O’Neill had drawn wide attention in the industry. Domien previously handled global metals trading at HSBC, and O’Neill was a top-tier sales executive. Bringing them onboard had a very clear goal: to professionalize the management of the company’s massive gold reserves and generate additional returns through active trading—so ambitious, in fact, that it aimed to build a “world’s best gold trading platform.”

This hiring drive coincided with the company’s record annual gold purchase. Its procurement volume was so large that it even surpassed the gold-buying scale of most central banks worldwide. However, as gold faced multiple pressures in March—including sell-offs triggered by geopolitical conflict, shifts in interest-rate expectations, and at least one central bank reducing its holdings—gold fell in tandem with crypto assets such as $BTC, undoubtedly putting pressure on its investment portfolio.

Some analysts point out that after completing a large-scale accumulation of gold assets, the company may have chosen to scale back the size of the related teams. The company currently has about 300 employees. These layoffs also reflect another side of the fierce talent competition in the commodities trading industry. Over the past year, multiple large traders have gone so far as to lure talent away from banking institutions that traditionally dominate the gold market, at great expense.

For example, Mercuria Energy Group brought in Benjamin Binet-Laisne from Goldman Sachs, and Gunvor Group has also recruited a group of traders from multiple institutions.

The personnel upheaval in the gold team occurred at a crucial point when this company itself was undergoing a key transition. This month, the company announced that it had commissioned a large accounting firm to conduct its first-ever comprehensive financial audit in its history.

Meanwhile, a plan aimed at raising up to $20 billion in external funding has been temporarily shelved and will need to wait until the audit results are released before it can proceed further. As the issuer of $USDT, the world’s largest dollar stablecoin, its current circulating supply is about $184 billion. Earlier this year, the company held roughly 140 tons of gold reserves, and these assets are mainly used to support the value of $USDT and its smaller, gold-linked stablecoin $XAUT.

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