Tokenized gold volume hits $1B first time since 2023 US banking crisis

Tokenized gold trading volume surged to a two-year high this week, topping $1 billion as investors pivoted toward safe-haven assets amid global uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs.

The weekly trading volume of tokenized gold surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time since March 2023, when a US banking crisis saw the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank. Signature Bank was also forced to close operations by New York regulators on March 12, two days after Silvergate’s liquidation.

Tokenized gold has experienced a significant surge in trading interest since early February, when global trade war fears started spreading to digital markets, according to a CEX.io research report shared with Cointelegraph.

*Top tokenized gold assets, trading volume. Source: CoinGecko, Cex.io*

Since Trump’s first tariff announcement on Jan. 20, Paxos Gold (PAXG) trading volume has surged by over 900%, Tether Gold (XAUT) trading rose over 300% and Kinesis Gold (KAU) volume increased by more than 83,000%.

Tokenized gold has become one of the best-performing crypto categories since Trump’s inauguration, surging over 21% in market cap and over 1,000% in trading volume, while stablecoins saw an 8% market cap increase and a 285% trading volume expansion during the same period.

*Tokenized gold, market cap. Source: Cex.io*

Tokenized gold is part of the growing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector, which refers to financial products and tangible assets such as real estate and fine art minted on the blockchain.

Gold prices hit new highs

The surge in tokenized gold coincides with a record-setting performance in physical gold. On March 31, gold hit an all-time high of over $3,100 per ounce and was trading above $3,118 at the time of writing.

*BTC, gold, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView*

Since the beginning of 2025, the price of gold has risen over 18%, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), which has fallen by more than 12% year-to-date, TradingView data shows.

Gold’s robust price performance after key tariff-related events highlights a growing appetite for safe-haven assets, according to Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at Cex.io.

However, tokenized gold remains far from being a physical gold competitor at the current “stage of RWA development,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Tokenized gold presents a compelling alternative for crypto-native investors who might otherwise look to Bitcoin or stablecoins.”

“In this context, tokenized gold has primarily served as a diversification tool, gaining increasing traction in investor portfolios as market uncertainty deepens,” he added

Geopolitical trade tensions caused by Trump’s import tariffs have inspired a flight to safety among crypto investors, specifically toward stablecoins and tokenized assets.

Following the 2023 banking crisis, the Federal Reserve created the Bank Term Funding Program, offering banking loans of up to a year in return for posting “qualifying assets” as collateral.

This emergency measure was what started the Bitcoin bull run in 2023, according to BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes.

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