As RWA growth accelerates by 2025, the gold market is up 177%.
Onchain gold products have added billions in new value over the past year, outpacing the overall gold market and most major gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with onchain trading activity accelerating.
Over the past year, gold capitalization jumped 177%, holdings nearly tripled, and more than 115,000 new wallets were added during the year, surpassing all other RWA categories, according to data compiled by Cex.io from public blockchain and market sources.
The gold market is expected to grow from $1.6 billion to $4.4 billion by 2025, with a net worth of nearly $2.8 billion, according to the report. That increase alone represents almost 25% of the total net inflows in the RWA sector, which is greater than the combined growth seen in tokenized stocks, corporate bonds and non-U.S. Treasuries.
The rally comes amid a strong year for gold, with its overall market value up more than 67 percent. Still, token gold is 2.6 times faster than physical gold and outperforms most major gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
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Tokenized gold in 2025 transaction volume will reach 178 billion dollars
Tokenized gold is set to trade at $178 billion by 2025, with quarterly volumes rising to more than $126 billion in the fourth quarter. By comparison, that tokenized gold ranks as the world's largest gold investment product, trailing SPDR Gold shares as the most traded.
Much of the year-to-date increase was led by Tether Gold (XAUT), which accounted for 75 percent of total trading volume in Q4, up sharply from 27 percent in Q3. According to the website, XAUT has a market cap of $2.42 billion and is backed by 1,329 gold bars or 16,239 kilograms of physical gold.
“Such a large-scale expansion reflects a structural change in which gold trade is becoming more liquid than traditional commodities,” the report said.
In particular, the market value of tokenized products has exceeded 4.3 billion dollars. Data from RWA.xyz shows that the sector grew 18 percent last month with Tether Gold at $1.9 billion and Paxos Gold at $1.7 billion.
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Gold has risen on Fed turmoil and rising international tensions.
Gold hit record highs as investors piled into safe-haven assets amid rising macro and political uncertainty. Precious metals rallied earlier this week after reports of a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns about the central bank's independence.
Macro data also benefited the metal. A weaker-than-expected U.S. consumer price index report strengthened expectations for several Federal Reserve rate cuts this year, putting pressure on real yields and the dollar. Low yields have boosted gold's popularity as a non-yielding asset, while uncertainty over future monetary policy has increased the rate of depreciation.
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