There’s a trend that’s been quietly gaining momentum and has become hard to ignore in recent weeks: more and more investors are turning to tokenized versions of commodities—especially gold and silver—to gain exposure to these assets through the blockchain, without being tied to the schedules or limitations of traditional markets.
The numbers confirm it. The tokenized commodities market grew by 10% in the last month, reaching a cumulative capitalization of $7.69 billion, according to data from RWA.xyz. At the same time, the number of holders of these assets increased by 5.8%, reaching 189,390 unique wallets.
Within this market, two players clearly dominate. Tether Gold (XAUT) leads with $2.96 billion in on-chain commodities, closely followed by Paxos Gold (PAXG), which holds $2.56 billion. Together, they control the majority of the ecosystem.
Crypto Exchanges: New Venues for Traditional Assets
What’s interesting isn’t just the growth of the spot market for these tokens, but what’s happening on cryptocurrency exchanges with derivatives linked to precious metals. According to a report published Tuesday by CryptoQuant, activity in gold and silver contracts skyrocketed during periods of strong upward trends in the prices of these metals, such as the recent rally.
The most striking data came from Binance. Since the platform launched its perpetual futures on TradFi assets in January, the cumulative trading volume has already exceeded $130 billion in approximately 90 million transactions. On Tuesday alone, the daily volume in gold and silver contracts reached $3.77 billion and $3.75 billion, respectively, according to the same report.
Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, noted that “activity spiked during periods of strong momentum in precious metal prices,” suggesting that traders are using crypto exchanges as an alternative or complement to conventional financial markets.
Why now?
CryptoQuant attributes this growth to a combination of macroeconomic factors: the uncertainty generated by trade tariffs, high interest rates, and increased demand for safe-haven assets. In this context, the possibility of accessing gold or silver digitally, with 24/7 liquidity and without traditional intermediaries, becomes an attractive proposition for an investor profile that previously would not have considered cryptocurrencies.
It is, ultimately, another chapter in the story of real-world assets migrating to the blockchain. And the numbers suggest that this story is far from over.
