Tokenized gold market cap tops $2 billion as tariff fears boost secure trading

Gold-backed crypto tokens have outpaced most other crypto sectors, including stablecoins, in terms of market capitalization growth since Trump's inauguration on January 20, according to CEX.IO.

Author: Christian Sandor, AI Boost | Edited by: Stephen Alpher Updated: April 11, 2025, 4:08 PM Published: April 10, 2025, 6:10 PM

Important facts:

• The market capitalization of tokenized gold surpassed $2 billion on Friday, rising amid a surge in physical gold prices as investors shunned riskier assets due to tariff shocks.
• Trading activity has also increased significantly, with weekly trading volumes for Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) increasing by 900% and 300% respectively since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, as indicated in a report from CEX.IO.
• With geopolitical tensions rising and interest in real world assets (RWAs) growing, tokenized gold is becoming the safe haven asset of choice for crypto investors, according to Alexander Kerya of CEX.IO.

With gold prices rising to new records, their digital counterparts are also on the rise, outperforming most other crypto sectors.

While risk assets including cryptocurrencies struggled on Thursday amid tariff uncertainty, tokenized gold once again took center stage amid the volatility.

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The market capitalization of gold-backed tokens hit $2 billion on Friday, setting a new record, up 5.5% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. The gains coincided with a rally in the yellow metal to a new all-time high of $3,240 an ounce, according to TradingView.

In addition to the price increase, gold tokens have seen incredible activity and demand in recent weeks, fueled by broader market swings. Weekly trading volume for tokenized gold has surpassed $1 billion, the highest since the US banking crisis in March 2023, according to a report from digital asset platform CEX.IO.

According to a report based on CoinGecko data, two leading tokens, Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT), which make up a significant share of the tokenized gold market, have seen weekly trading volumes increase by over 900% and 300%, respectively, since January 20. PAXG has also seen a steady influx of $63 million during this period, according to DefiLlama.

The rally follows a broader rally in physical gold, which has posted double-digit gains in 2025 amid geopolitical uncertainty and inflation concerns. However, even gold has not escaped the market sell-off triggered by U.S. tariffs; prices briefly fell 6% but have since recovered to record levels.

Since Trump’s inauguration, tokenized gold has been one of the best-performing sectors in crypto, with its market cap up 21%, the report found. In contrast, stablecoins have added a more modest 8% in market cap, while Bitcoin has fallen 19% and the overall crypto market has lost 26%.