Blockchain-based tokenized commodities are nearing the $4 billion milestone, following new all-time highs reached by the world’s leading precious metals.
Gold, silver and platinum hit record highs on Friday, with spot gold rising as high as $4,530 per ounce, TradingView data shows. Silver, currently not a major contributor to the tokenized commodities market, briefly touched an all-time high of $74.56 per ounce.
Tokenized commodities rose 11% in the month leading to Friday, reaching $3.93 billion, according to data aggregator RWA.xyz. Tether Gold (XAUt) was listed as the largest tokenized commodity, worth $1.74 billion, followed by Paxos Gold (PAXG) at $1.61 billion.
Tokenized precious metals can be transferred and traded onchain outside traditional market hours, though pricing, liquidity and redemption remain tied to legacy infrastructure.
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Tokenized commodities are part of the wider real-world asset (RWA) sector, which involves issuing blockchain-based representations of traditional assets to enable faster settlement and fractionalized ownership.
Investment bank Standard Chartered projects the tokenized RWAs (excluding stablecoins) to surge to $2 trillion by 2028, with $250 billion predicted to flow into “less liquid” investments such as private equity and commodities.
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Ethereum captures the lion’s share of RWA tokenization growth
Ethereum is emerging as the most popular blockchain network for tokenized RWAs.
It commands a 65% market share of tokenized RWAs at $12.7 billion, while BNB Chain is in second place with 10.5%, or $1.85 billion, data from RWA.xyz shows.
Growth in tokenization can contribute to increased blockchain activity and transaction fees on Ethereum.
However, blockchain data shows that tokenization of traditional financial assets still represents a relatively small share of onchain activity compared with more established use cases such as stablecoins and fungible token trading.
Ethereum ranked fourth by total transaction fees over the past 30 days, generating $11.41 million, according to data from crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
The Tron network, where stablecoin activity is dominant, ranked first with $29.5 million in fees. BNB Chain and Solana placed second and third respectively. The two blockchains are popular for token launches and retail trading activity.
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