Amid a surge in investor interest for accessible blockchain-based financial products, the market for tokenized commodities is nearing a $4 billion valuation. This growth coincides with unprecedented highs in the prices of precious metals like gold and silver.
Data from TradingView indicates that on Friday, spot gold prices soared to a record $4,530 per ounce, while silver, although not a major player in the tokenized market, briefly reached an all-time high of $74.56 per ounce. Over the past month, tokenized commodities have grown by 11%, reaching $3.93 billion, according to RWA.xyz. Tether Gold (XAUt) leads this space with a valuation of $1.74 billion, followed closely by Paxos Gold (PAXG) at $1.61 billion.
Despite being tradeable around the clock through blockchain technology, the pricing and redemption of these tokenized precious metals are still influenced by traditional market systems.
Tokenized commodities are part of the broader real-world asset (RWA) sector, which offers blockchain-based versions of conventional assets, facilitating quicker transactions and fractional ownership. Investment bank Standard Chartered anticipates that tokenized RWAs, excluding stablecoins, could expand to $2 trillion by 2028, with commodities and private equity expected to attract $250 billion of that growth.
Ethereum stands out as the dominant blockchain network for RWAs, holding a commanding 65% share valued at $12.7 billion. RWA.xyz data places BNB Chain in second place with a 10.5% share, equivalent to $1.85 billion. This trend is likely to boost blockchain activity and transaction fees on Ethereum, although tokenized traditional financial assets still make up a smaller portion of onchain transactions when compared to stablecoins and fungible token trading.
According to Nansen, Ethereum ranked fourth in transaction fee generation over the last 30 days, bringing in $11.41 million. The Tron network, primarily driven by stablecoin transactions, topped the list with $29.5 million in fees, followed by BNB Chain and Solana, which are favored for token launches and retail trading activities.