Gold has long served as a dependable store of value, especially in periods of economic turbulence. Yet owning physical metal comes with hassles: it must be stored securely, is cumbersome to transport, and the price of a whole bar puts the asset out of reach for many investors.
Integration with blockchains and the rise of real-world assets (RWA) offer a neat solution. Tokenised gold is a digital representation of physical bars or coins. The segment is booming because such instruments blend the stability of the precious metal with the absence of custody overheads.
Technically, it is a token that confers ownership rights to real gold. These assets function much like stablecoins, but their peg tracks the market price of the metal rather than fiat currencies.
Typically, one token is backed by a fixed weight of gold — for example, one gram or a troy ounce. The physical reserves sit in certified vaults under the supervision of custodians.
Issuing such assets on networks like Ethereum lets investors transfer them freely, trade on exchanges and use them in DeFi protocols alongside conventional cryptocurrencies.
