Tokenized Gold Breaks $100 Million DEX Volume as Metal Surges to All-Time High

As gold breaks through the historic $3,500 per ounce mark for the first time, a new record is being established in decentralized finance.

Tokenized gold assets—which are mostly $PAXG (Paxos Gold) and $XAUt (Tether Gold)—have exceeded a whopping $102 million in monthly trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on the Ethereum blockchain. This DEX activity is up an astonishing fivefold from January 2025, when trading volume in tokenized gold DEXs was just $18 million.

When it comes to technical accomplishments, crossing the $100 million mark in tokenized gold DEX volume is huge. But it doesn’t just show that we can do it (i.e., it’s not just an achievement on a technical checklist); it demonstrates that we’re moving toward a financial dystopia where we can trust lawless tools instead of traditional institutions to preserve the value of what we have.

Gold in tokenized form functions by offering investors 1:1 backed, real, physical gold that is stationed in secure, vault-like locations. The two most prominent and widely adopted tokenized forms of gold are:

1. $PAXG, issued by Paxos.

2. $XAUt, offered by Tether.

These tokens not only allow investors to gain simple, uncomplicated exposure to gold that isn’t sullied by the burdensomeness of physical ownership but also facilitate smooth transfers, allow for and enable fractional ownership, and interoperable use across decentralized finance protocols.

The increase in trading volume is even more remarkable when you consider that it is happening entirely on decentralized exchanges. Unlike centralized exchanges, DEXs operate without intermediaries, allowing users to trade directly with one another via smart contracts that execute the trades. This means that trading tokenized gold on a DEX is as close to trading it in a traditional market as one can get, since the smart contract, like a traditional market maker, does the job of getting sellers and buyers to trade with each other.

This fresh wave of demand is being driven by macroeconomic forces. Gold has long been a safe-haven asset during times of strife, and its recent move past $3,500/oz has strong investor demand written all over it. This is happening despite the fact that we are not in a clear-cut recession and the global economy has been showing some signs of life. The creation of tokenized versions of gold via decentralized exchanges (DEXs) allows even more people to allocate part of their wealth to this time-honored safe haven.

Still, this incredibly rapid growth in digital gold adoption corresponds with only the tiniest fraction of gold’s massive worldwide market. By March 2025, the total capitalization of the gold market exceeded $20 trillion. Even after the surge in interest from 2021 through 2023, gold tokens represent less than 1% of that total. Those numbers highlight just how early we are in this digital gold adoption story and point to the potential for explosive growth to come.

Interest from institutions is starting to pick up. A number of DeFi protocols and asset managers have been looking into how to integrate tokenized gold into structured products and use it for things like collateralized lending and liquidity provision, with the bet that these use cases will grow as regulatory clarity around not just tokenized gold, but around all tokenized assets improves globally.

What we’re witnessing now is the meeting of value that has been held for centuries with next-generation finance. Gold—once the bedrock of maintaining wealth in a traditional sense—is now finding a new digital identity. And with Ethereum providing the backbone for this transformation, it’s clear that decentralized finance ain’t just about crypto anymore. It’s about making all manner of traditional assets borderless, permissionless, and programmable.

In the months to come, analysts and crypto fans will closely observe tokenized gold to see if it can keep up its head of steam or ramp up even more. But it’s a near certainty that the fusion of real-world assets and decentralized finance won’t be theoretical much longer—they’re here, they’re growing, and they’re changing our basic understanding of value.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

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