Tokenized gold’s market capitalization passed $5.7 billion in early March, reinforcing its position as the second pillar of real-world assets (RWA) on-chain, just behind tokenized US Treasuries.
On its own, the segment now represents roughly 75% of the total tokenized commodities market.
This growth is not accidental. It is the result of sustained demand from both institutional and retail investors, sparked by the tensions of 2025. Today, two players overwhelmingly dominate the landscape: XAUt (Tether Gold) and PAXG (Pax Gold), which together control 98% of supply.
On-chain indicators confirm this step change:
Adoption: More than 115,000 new wallets were created over one year (+198% in holders).
Issuer performance: XAUt surged 323% (from $717 million to $3 billion) while PAXG rose 328% (from $600 million to $2.6 billion).
2026 momentum: The trend is accelerating, with respective gains of 33.6% and 27.1% in March alone.
At this pace, tokenized gold could capture 6% to 10% of the assets under management of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) as early as this year, implying a valuation range of $10.4 billion to $17.4 billion.
>> Benjamin Louvet: “Seeing Tether buy 25 tonnes of gold per quarter is not a systemic shock”
Trading volumes that challenge TradFi
Trading activity reflects a growing level of maturity. In 2025, trading volume reached $178 billion, a 1,550% jump compared with the previous year. The fourth quarter was particularly intense, exceeding $126 billion.
Notably, in several periods these volumes surpassed the combined activity of the five largest physical-gold ETFs. Tokenized gold has now become the second most liquid gold investment product in the world, behind the untouchable SPDR Gold Shares (around $400 billion in Q4).
24/7 accessibility: the catalyst for the break
The fundamental difference between “on-chain” gold and traditional financial products (CME, ETFs) is continuous market access. While traditional markets close over the weekend, leaving investors without a hedging mechanism in the event of a geopolitical shock, crypto secondary markets operate without interruption.
The usefulness of this infrastructure was highlighted during the recent tensions between Israel and Iran. As oil prices surged and investors sought macro protection on Friday evening, futures markets were closed until Sunday night. During that interval, digital-asset platforms remained the only venues for real-time price formation for gold.
Toward a new market microstructure?
While tokenized gold does not yet replace the traditional spot market, it acts as an additional layer of liquidity. Over weekends, it becomes the effective price-discovery mechanism.
Temporary premiums or discounts can appear (XAUt briefly climbed to $5,450 and PAXG to $5,530 before stabilizing) because arbitrage capacity is limited by the opening hours of banks and physical vaults.
However, continuous monitoring reduces Monday-morning opening price “gaps.”
For asset managers, this improves market microstructure and reduces the risk of shocks linked to margin calls on leveraged positions during market closures.
The Big Whale’s take
From an infrastructure perspective, this shift highlights both opportunities and limits.
The 24/7 rail still relies on traditional settlement and delivery circuits, which remain constrained by banks’ and custodians’ operating hours.
But the resulting data flow already serves as a real-time oracle for institutional desks, which adjust prices on traditional venues as soon as Monday.
In the background, tokenized gold is accelerating the move toward more continuous price formation in commodity markets that, for decades, were trapped by fixed trading hours.
>> Tokenized gold: a market ready to explode?
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