Crypto has long been known as the financial wild west, capable of delivering outsized gains and blistering volatility.
Unfortunately for the crypto faithful, however, the future of finance is being outperformed by a bunch of old rocks, with gold and silver once again breaking all-time highs as crypto languishes.
Why are precious metals enjoying an up-only alt season of their own, and how can Solana DeFi users get exposure to the financial world’s most battle-tested asset class?
As Donald Trump’s seemingly endless trade war turns its attention to Europe, precious metals like gold and silver are enjoying a financial renaissance. After trading sideways for the better part of 3 years, gold has surged to over $4,660 per ounce, while silver has exploded to $92, rising ~200% since the start of 2025 alone.
While this is great for boomers, the vast majority of crypto holders have zero exposure to precious metals. While gold added $16,6T (5x the size of the total crypto market) to its market cap in the past two years, crypto’s market size has dropped around 10% in the same timeframe.
Despite all the innovation happening onchain, wider acceptance in the institutional sphere, and progress in the regulatory field, crypto is being outperformed by the oldest and most boring (this is a feature, not a bug) assets in history.
To the trained crypto trader, both the gold and silver charts above bear a strong resemblance to the kind of blow-off top you might see in the memecoin trenches. However, some charts indicate that the 21st-century gold rush is only just beginning.
Mapping gold against the S&P 500, an index of the U.S. stock market’s most valuable companies, gold is still far from the levels it held following the 2008 global financial crisis. Extrapolating that data out over the course of the last century, the divide grows even larger.
While there’s nothing to suggest the global economy will suffer a black swan of a similar magnitude in the near future, rising geopolitical tensions and international trade wars have investors searching for a reliable store of value.
Silver, on the other hand, benefits from its perception as a gold-beta and as an industrial input. Alongside a structural supply deficit exacerbated by China’s new export controls, demand for silver is exploding as data centers, AI hardware, and solar energy manufacturing ramp up production. Price is finally playing catch up, as silver industrial demand rose 4% in 2024 to 680.5 million ounces (Moz), securing a new record high for the fourth consecutive year.
For centuries, precious metals have stood the test of time as a globally recognized store of value. While Bitcoin is often touted as “digital gold”, recent market movements have confirmed that traders and investors are not yet fully sold on this narrative.
Gold, on the other hand, demonstrated its resiliency as the world’s preferred safe haven. One look at how both Bitcoin and gold reacted to President Trump’s latest tariff announcement is enough to illustrate the market’s faith in precious metals.
Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, players at every level of financial markets are seeking a neutral store of value. Everyone from retail investors to trillion-dollar asset managers and central banks argues that gold avoids counterparty risk, making it a resilient hedge against tariffs, sanctions, and international conflict.
Others see gold as a defense against inflation and currency debasement, as governments across the world print fiat currency with impunity to ease debt and ‘stimulate’ local economies.
Stepping out of the thrall of its memecoin hangover, Solana is witnessing an RWA tokenization boom. As the boundaries between TradFi and DeFi converge, tokenized stocks and commodities are becoming ubiquitous across the network and embedding themselves in the fabric of the onchain economy.
Remora Markets, a popular RWA issuer, recently listed tokenized ETFs tracking the value of five precious metals, bringing gold, silver, copper, palladium, and platinum to Solana DeFi.
With thought leaders like Chamath Palihapitiya predicting that copper will go “absolutely parabolic” and Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan declaring “it’s altcoin season in metals”, demand for onchain commodities is at an all-time high.
Remora Markets latest listings ensure that Solana DeFi traders can gain exposure to precious metals from the familiarity of their wallets and expand their portfolios beyond crypto-native asset classes.
Disclaimer: Remora Markets and SolanaFloor are owned and operated by Step Group
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