BirdEye’s first tokenized-gold report puts the sector’s on-chain value at roughly $4.56 billion as of July 2026, with trading volumes rising rapidly even as ownership remains overwhelmingly concentrated in two established tokens. The data shows tokenized gold moving beyond a simple blockchain wrapper for bullion into a market that includes perpetual contracts, lending pools and tokenized shares of conventional gold ETFs.
The report, titled The Onchain Gold Rush, tracked 14 tokens backed by physical gold and six products linked to traditional gold ETF shares. Across those assets, on-chain gold supply reached about 1.2 million troy ounces in February 2026 before settling near 1.14 million ounces following a decline in gold prices.
BirdEye’s figures point to a market whose usage has expanded faster than its supply. Quarterly trading volume climbed from $13.6 billion in the third quarter of 2025 to $48.8 billion in the fourth quarter, then reached $91 billion in the first quarter of 2026. That increase places liquidity, rather than issuance alone, at the center of the sector’s recent growth.
XAUt and PAXG retain a dominant lead
Tether Gold’s XAUt and Paxos Gold’s PAXG accounted for 93.1% of the tokenized-gold market in BirdEye’s July measurement. The remaining products, including newer tokens operating across alternative blockchains, shared less than 7% of the category.
The concentration means the overall market is still largely defined by the two biggest issuers’ liquidity, custody structures and network availability. It also creates a difficult environment for smaller offerings: issuing a token backed by gold does not automatically create the trading depth, collateral use cases or wallet distribution needed to compete with the leading pair.
BirdEye’s framework treated tokenized gold as a set of products circulating through on-chain markets rather than solely as tokens outstanding. Alongside market capitalization and supply, the report reviewed holders, spot trading, lending activity and derivatives. That approach captures whether bullion-backed tokens are being held passively or incorporated into decentralized finance activity.
XAUm appears across market, holder and lending data
Matrixdock’s XAUm was included in several sections of BirdEye’s dataset, including market size, holder distribution, trading and lending. BirdEye recorded XAUm’s market value at approximately $66 million and counted about 66,100 holder addresses.
About 60,600 of those addresses were on Plume, a network focused on real-world assets. The distribution shows how a tokenized commodity can build much of its user base on a specialized chain, rather than gaining equal adoption across every network where it may be available.
BirdEye reported that XAUm’s monthly trading volume reached $54.6 million in April 2026. That was about 7.4 times the volume at its December 2025 low and roughly 4.4 times March’s total. The increase provides evidence of rising activity in the product, though it remains small beside the category’s quarterly volumes and the market positions of XAUt and PAXG.
Matrixdock’s latest public figures place XAUm’s market value at about $68.31 million, representing approximately 16,331 troy ounces of gold. The company said the token was backed by 508 London Bullion Market Association-standard gold bars and that token supply was matched to its physical reserves.
Lending remains a smaller part of tokenized gold
Tokenized-gold lending had about $112.6 million in total value locked, according to BirdEye. XAUm represented around $787,000 of that total.
The lending figure is modest relative to the sector’s $4.56 billion market value, suggesting that most tokenized gold remains outside borrowing and collateral protocols. Yet the appearance of lending markets across multiple chains signals an effort to give gold-backed tokens more utility than simple price exposure.
A holder who deposits a gold token into a lending protocol can potentially use it as collateral or make it available to borrowers, subject to each protocol’s terms and risks. Unlike holding allocated bullion or a token in a wallet, that activity introduces smart-contract, liquidation and liquidity risks. Interest rates can also change quickly as the balance between lenders and borrowers shifts.
BirdEye identified lending activity on Sui and BNB Chain, while noting growth in gold perpetual contracts on Solana. Perpetuals allow traders to take leveraged long or short positions on a gold-linked price without an expiration date, adding a derivatives layer to an asset class traditionally associated with physical custody and long-term holdings.
ETF-linked tokens widen the category
The report also included six tokenized products tied to shares of traditional gold ETFs. These products differ from tokens directly backed by physical bullion because their underlying exposure comes through an ETF share rather than allocated bars held for token holders.
That distinction matters for how users assess custody, redemption, fees and price tracking. A physically backed gold token generally aims to represent a defined quantity of bullion, while an ETF-linked token depends on the structure and market performance of the underlying fund. BirdEye’s decision to track both types reflects how on-chain gold exposure is becoming more varied, even if physically backed tokens remain the category’s core.
The sector’s recent volume growth indicates that tokenized gold is increasingly being used in trading and DeFi settings, but BirdEye’s data also shows the limits of that transition. Lending remains comparatively small, and market share is tightly held by two tokens. The next stage of competition will depend less on adding new gold-backed products and more on whether smaller tokens can build durable liquidity, transparent backing arrangements and practical use across networks.
Explore how tokenized gold compares with broader crypto assets in Toobit’s RWA deep dive: read the full analysis.
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