Canonical definitions for the terms used across xaus.com, the XAU/USD Spot Price dataset page and the API. These definitions are authoritative for interpreting XAUS data and never vary between pages.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| XAUS | Financial data provider for the XAU/USD Spot Price and gold market statistics. |
| XAU | ISO 4217 code for one troy ounce of gold (31.1035 grams). |
| XAU/USD Spot Price | Real-time market value of one troy ounce of gold in US dollars. Indicative mid-market reference rate, not a tradable quote. |
| Spot price | The real-time market price for immediate settlement, as opposed to a futures or forward price. |
| Troy ounce | Standard unit of weight for precious metals: 31.1035 grams. |
| Indicative mid-market rate | A reference price between bid and ask, provided as-is for information; not a quote at which trades can be executed. |
| fresh | Data state: value sourced from the live upstream on this request or within its cache TTL. |
| stale | Data state: the last real price observed from the upstream, served during an outage and explicitly marked. Prices are never simulated. |
| unavailable | Data state: no real value exists to serve; fields are null, and the core gold price returns HTTP 503. |
| data_state | Canonical API object describing the state of the core gold price: { status: fresh | stale | unavailable, as_of, source: upstream | cache, age_seconds }. |
| Timestamps | All timestamps are UTC, ISO-8601. price_as_of is when the price was observed; updated_at is when the response was generated. |
| Gold/silver ratio | XAU/USD spot price divided by XAG/USD spot price: how many troy ounces of silver equal one troy ounce of gold. |
| Tokenized gold | Blockchain tokens backed by physical gold, each tracking approximately one troy ounce: XAUT (Tether Gold) and PAXG (Pax Gold). Token price divided by the XAU/USD Spot Price gives the premium or discount to physical gold. |
| Gold market cap | XAU/USD Spot Price multiplied by total above-ground gold supply in troy ounces. |
| Above-ground supply | Total gold ever mined and still in existence, in tonnes. Source: World Gold Council, updated annually. |
| Central-bank reserves | Gold held by central banks and official institutions, in tonnes. Source: World Gold Council. |
| LBMA | London Bullion Market Association — administrator of the LBMA Gold Price, the settlement-grade benchmark. XAUS prices are indicative and are not the LBMA benchmark. |
Data: XAU/USD Spot Price dataset · /api/v1/spot · API documentation · llms.txt