Tether Gold and Paxos Gold remain the largest onchain gold tokens, as the tokenized commodity sector grows.
Tokenized gold has surpassed $4 billion in market value as spot gold reached a new all-time high this week, reflecting growing interest in onchain commodities amid global market uncertainty.
Tether Gold (XAUT) has about $2.5 billion in total assets, while Paxos Gold (PAXG) stands near $1.99 billion, according to DeFiLlama data. Both tokens are designed to track the price of an ounce of physical gold. PAXG saw about $533 million in 24-hour trading volume, while XAUT recorded around $266 million, per CoinGecko.
The milestone comes as gold prices pushed higher this week, trading around $4,986 per ounce on Friday. This is up about 1.6% on the day, according to GoldPrice.org.
Tokenized commodities overall also continue to expand. RWA.xyz data showed the tokenized commodities market at roughly $4.88 billion, up more than 22% over the past 30 days, with monthly transfer volume above $7 billion. Notably, Tether Gold and Paxos Gold together hold roughly 86% of the market share.
The growth highlights a broader trend of real-world assets (RWAs) moving onchain, as crypto-native traders and TradFi investors look for ways to access familiar assets on blockchain rails.
The rise in tokenized gold also comes as investors continue to rotate into safe-haven assets amid broader market volatility. Bitcoin, for example, is currently trading at $90,750, up 2% over the past 24 hours but still down 4% over the past week and 14% over the past year.
On TradeXYZ, which is powered by Hyperliquid, the GOLD-USDC perp contract posted about $76 million in 24-hour trading volume and roughly $60 million in open interest as of Jan. 23.
Björn Schmidtke, CEO of Aurelion, said in comments shared with The Defiant that gold’s recent rally is not a coincidence. “It reflects a world that is becoming more fragmented and less predictable by the day,” he said.
Schmidtke also said tokenization could address risks in traditional gold exposure. “Most investors don’t own gold; they own claims on gold,” he said, adding that tokenized, fully allocated gold can “restore certainty around ownership.”
This comes as big institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have turned more bullish on gold. Goldman recently raised its year-end forecast for gold to $5,400 per ounce, according to Bloomberg, more than 8% above current levels.
