Tokenized Gold Trading Volume Surpassed Leading Gold ETFs Nearly 10× in 2025

• Tokenized gold saw a 177% growth in market cap in 2025, accounting for 25% of all net RWA growth and expanding by 2.6 times faster than physical gold.
• Tokenized gold volume jumped by 345% in Q4, exceeding $126 billion and surpassing the combined volume of five major gold ETFs.
• Top three tokenized gold assets control 97% of total market cap, while top 4 — 99% of total trading volume.

In a year when most of DeFi struggled to recover, showing a 2% overall TVL increase, real-world assets quietly became crypto’s standout performer. In 2025, RWA total locked value was up roughly 184%, growingmore than 6x higher than lending platforms and 9x faster than bridges TVL. In other words, a significant portion of net growth in DeFi came from RWAs.

And within RWAs, one category stood out more than any other — tokenized gold.

25% of RWA Growth Comes From Tokenized Gold

RWAs now span everything from tokenized bonds, stocks, and commodities, and some of these categories saw explosive growth in 2025, driven largely by institutional adoption or low starting bases. However, among large RWA categories, tokenized gold showed one of the strongest combinations of scale and growth, registering a 177% increase in market cap and 198% surge in total holders in 2025.

In 2025, the tokenized gold market cap added nearly $2.8 billion in net value, moving from $1.6 billion to $4.4 billion in market cap. This means the sector absorbed nearly a quarter of all net RWA growth over the past 12 months, while absolute inflows exceeded those from tokenized stocks, corporate bonds, and non-US treasuries combined.

In turn, the number of tokenized gold holders grew by more than 115,000 in a year, 14 times faster than in 2024. Compared with other major RWA segments, tokenized gold added more holders than tokenized U.S. treasuries and other tokenized bonds. This is because tokenized gold is well-positioned as a category that can scale significantly across both institutional and retail audiences

Unlike some tokenized assets, it’s not limited only to accredited investors, has no minimum investment threshold, and offers fractional ownership, allowing investors of all sizes, from institutions to individuals with very small capital, to easily gain exposure by simply purchasing a token.

If Tokenized Gold Were an ETF, It Would Already Be a Giant

Market Cap Dynamics

One might argue that such explosive growth in tokenized gold simply reflects the fact that gold prices saw their largest increase in 46 years. However, while demand for gold was elevated across the board, another reason tokenized gold stands out compared to other RWA categories is its adoption and positioning relative to traditional counterparts

The total market value of physical gold surpassed $30 trillion, showing a more than 67% increase in 2025. At the same time, major gold ETFs saw substantial inflows, doubling total assets under management, as investors looked for inflation hedges and geopolitical protection. Yet even against this backdrop, tokenized gold has become an outlier.

Tokenized gold expanded by 2.6 times faster than physical gold, and outperformed most of the top 7 spot gold ETFs. The only major gold ETF that outpaced tokenized gold was iShares Gold Trust Micro (IAUM), registering an over 300% increase in total holdings this year.

Overall, considering the scale, tokenized gold would have already been the 6th largest gold ETF by market cap, and one of the most popular ways to get gold exposure.

### Trading Volume Dynamics

If market cap tells one story, trading volume tells an even more striking one. Tokenized gold trading activity accelerated dramatically throughout 2025, with volumes climbing quarter after quarter. By Q4, quarterly trading volume surged to over $126 billion, dwarfing earlier periods.

To put it into perspective, tokenized gold recorded slightly higher trading volume in Q4 than five major gold ETFs combined. Only the largest gold ETF, SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), stands apart, with a $375 billion in trading volume in Q4.

Taking into account the full year, tokenized gold reached $178 billion in trading volume in 2025. Compared to gold ETFs, this would place tokenized gold as the second-largest gold investment product globally by trading volume, ahead of every ETF except GLD, underscoring its rapid emergence as a major liquidity venue.

The growth was also far more dynamic than in traditional gold ETFs. In 2025, trading volume in tokenized gold surged by over 1,550% compared with 2024, nearly ten times faster than the growth seen in the largest gold ETFs, which primarily posted gains in the 100-150% range. Such a massive expansion highlights a structural shift in where incremental gold trading liquidity is increasingly forming on-chain rather than in traditional products.

## Increased Market Shift Toward XAUT

Such an explosive growth in trading activity did not occur evenly across the sector. The Q4 spike was largely driven by Tether Gold (XAUT), which accounted for 75% of total trading volume, up sharply from 27% in Q3. The surge followed XAUT’s Q3 reserve attestation, echoing earlier episodes where transparency updates coincided with sharp increases in activity

While XAUT dominated the latest volume expansion, the broader landscape remained largely unchanged, with nearly 99% of tokenized gold trading volume still concentrated in a handful of assets.

The market cap distribution shows similar patterns, with rotation at the top but little change in overall market structure. Throughout 2025, XAUT expanded its share in tokenized gold market cap from 41.1% to 52.4%, largely at the expense of smaller tokenized gold projects and tokens with increasingly questioned or unverified reported market cap. However, the three largest assets, XAUT, PAXG, and KAU**,** still account for roughly 97% of total tokenized gold market cap, underscoring how concentrated the sector becomes despite the emergence of new entrants in 2025.

Beyond the established leaders, 2025 also saw selective but meaningful adoption among newer products. One of the biggest success stories was Matrixdock Gold (XAUM), which saw an over 1,000% surge in market cap, and an increase in holder base from less than a 1,000 to more than65,000 wallets in 2025. The latter was largely driven by XAUM integration with the Plume ecosystem.

Tokenized Gold Complements, Don’t Compete With Stablecoins

Considering the status of gold as a safe haven asset, one might assume that tokenized gold can be acting as a potential substitute for stablecoins or Bitcoin, especially during market downturn. However, it rather serves as a tactical hedge for traders, or some kind of “middle ground” between risk-on crypto trading and risk-off stablecoin exits.

October 2025’s trading patterns illustrate this dynamic perfectly. On October 10-11, the crypto market experienced the largest liquidation event in its history, which led to a spike in BTC and USDT volume, with subsequent decrease. In turn, mid-month saw daily tokenized gold volume surge from $537 million to $1.88 billion (a 250% spike) as Bitcoin’s price declined from $122,000 to $106,000.

This inverse correlation signals intentional capital rotation into tokenized gold as a hedge. By late October, as Bitcoin stabilized, tokenized gold volume normalized and continued following the trends of the wider crypto market, confirming its role as a defensive alternative.

The scale matters: tokenized gold represents roughly 1% of Bitcoin and USDT volumes, up from less than 0.1% in January 2025. While this 10x growth trajectory shows increasing adoption, tokenized gold remains a specialized tool rather than a market-moving force. During panic events, USDT still dominates in volumes, maintaining its position as crypto’s true emergency safe haven.

As a result, tokenized gold occupies a growing but complementary role to park capital or increase diversification, with patterns similar to October one also consistently emerging during tariff tensions throughout 2025.

Conclusion

In 2025, tokenized gold transitioned from a niche RWA category into a large-scale gold investment vehicle, rivaling, and in some cases surpassing, established gold ETFs in both growth and trading activity. Its ability to combine institutional-grade exposure with retail accessibility made it one of the most scalable segments within the RWA ecosystem.

While liquidity and market cap remain highly concentrated, the year marked a structural shift: tokenized gold is now more than an alternative to traditional gold products, but an increasingly important liquidity venue in its own right, with scale, usage, and adoption that now place it firmly among the world’s largest gold investment instruments.