On-chain data shows $50 million at risk as Tether’s Alloy shutdown deadline boils down to 5 forgotten gold vaults

Tether is winding down Alloy by Tether, a platform built around dollar-tracking aUSDT debt backed by Tether Gold collateral. Starting Sept. 17, customers who have not returned their aUSDT will no longer be able to recover XAUT through the platform.The remaining exposure is far smaller than the aUSDT contract’s headline supply. Alloy’s official vault data showed five open collateral-mint positions with 399,088.74 aUSDT of debt and 194.41497 XAUT of collateral at 00:04:52 UTC on Aug. 10.Alloy’s open position debt fell 56% to 399,088.74 aUSDT by Aug. 10, with its platform recovery route closing Sept. 17.50 million tokens do not equal Tether's live debtAlloy’s token API and Etherscan both showed a maximum total supply of 50,000,005 aUSDT, a figure that does not represent open debt.Alloy’s product documentation says unissued aUSDT can sit idle in the smart contract, while the vault API directly measures debt tied to open positions. The Aug. 10 debt was less than 0.8% of maximum supply.Address counts also overstate what can be learned about affected customers. Alloy’s API showed 209 holder addresses, compared with 80 on Etherscan, and neither count maps to the five open positions. A cust...