Tokenized gold trading volume surged to a two-year high this week, topping $1 billion as investors pivoted toward safe-haven assets amid global uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs. The weekly trading volume of tokenized gold surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time since March 2023, when a US banking crisis saw the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank . Signature Bank was also forced to close operations by New York regulators on March 12, two days after Silvergate’s liquidation. Tokenized gold has experienced a significant surge in trading interest since early February, when global trade war fears started spreading to digital markets, according to a CEX.io research report shared with Cointelegraph. Top tokenized gold assets, trading volume. Source: CoinGecko, Cex.io Since Trump’s first tariff announcement on Jan. 20, Paxos Gold ( PAXG ) trading volume has surged by over 900%, Tether Gold ( XAUT ) trading rose over 300% and Kinesis Gold (KAU) volume increased by more than 83,000%. Tokenized gold has become one of the best-performing crypto categories since Trump’s inauguration, surging over 21% in market cap and over 1,000% in trading volume, while stablecoins saw an 8% market cap increase and a 285% trading volume expansion during the same period. Tokenized gold, market cap. Source: Cex.io Tokenized gold is part of the growing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector, which refers to financial products and tangible assets such as real estate and fine art minted on the blockchain. Related: BlackRock ‘BUIDL’ tokenized fund triples in 3 weeks as Bitcoin stalls Gold prices hit new highs The surge in tokenized gold coincides with a record-setting performance in physical gold. On March 31, gold hit an all-time high of over $3,100 per ounce and was trading above $3,118 at the time of writing. BTC, gold, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/ TradingView Since the beginning of 2025, the price of gold has risen over 18%, outperforming Bitcoin ( BTC ), which has fallen by more than 12% year-to-date, TradingView data shows. Gold’s robust price performance after key tariff-related events highlights a growing appetite for safe-haven assets, according to Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at Cex.io. However, tokenized gold remains far from being a physical gold competitor at the current “stage of RWA development,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding: “Tokenized gold presents a compelling alternative for crypto-native investors who might otherwise look to Bitcoin or stablecoins.” “In this context, tokenized gold has primarily served as a diversification tool, gaining increasing traction in investor portfolios as market uncertainty deepens,” he added Related: Stablecoins, tokenized assets gain as Trump tariffs loom Geopolitical trade tensions caused by Trump’s import tariffs have inspired a flight to safety among crypto investors, specifically toward stablecoins and tokenized assets . Following the 2023 banking crisis, the Federal Reserve created the Bank Term Funding Program , offering banking loans of up to a year in return for posting “qualifying assets” as collateral. This emergency measure was what started the Bitcoin bull run in 2023 , according to BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes. Magazine: Ripple says SEC lawsuit ‘over,’ Trump at DAS, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 16 – 22
