From Safe-Haven Assets to Financial Building Blocks: The Structural Rise and Investment Logic of Gold RWA

1. Behind the New High in Gold Prices, Asset Forms Are Changing

On December 22, 2025, domestic gold prices once again broke through 1,000 yuan/gram, setting a new high for the year. In traditional financial markets, gold price increases are often interpreted as a sign of rising risk aversion; but in the digital asset world, changes in gold go beyond just price movements.

CoinFound (a data technology company combining TradFi and Crypto) recently released the report “Gold RWA Trend Insights,” which systematically reviews the market size, ecosystem landscape, and application scenarios of gold RWA in 2025. Data shows that the market capitalization of gold RWA grew from less than $1 billion at the beginning of the year to over $3 billion in 2025, nearly tripling.

From Starbase’s perspective, this growth is not simply a reflection of rising gold prices, but indicates that the asset form and financial utility of gold are undergoing changes.

2. Market Status: It’s Not “Gold” That’s Growing, But Its Usability

1.1 Rapid Expansion of the Gold RWA Market

Along with market capitalization growth, the number of protocols, custodians, and infrastructure related to gold RWA has increased simultaneously, significantly enhancing ecosystem completeness.

On-chain distribution shows that currently, gold RWA assets are mainly concentrated in the Ethereum ecosystem, accounting for about 86.48%; Polygon accounts for 12.71%, with other public chains still on the fringe. This distribution reflects that institutions prefer to deploy core assets on chains with higher security and more mature infrastructure.

The rapid expansion of gold RWA is no accident; it is driven by the increasing demand for “programmable, divisible, and liquid” high-trust assets within on-chain financial systems. The growth of gold RWA reflects the release of “usability premium” for gold, rather than price premium.

Starbase

1.2 Market Landscape: From “Dual Giants” to Functional Layering

CoinFound’s report indicates that in 2025, the gold RWA market will feature a multi-polar pattern led by XAUt and PAXG, with other projects differentiating themselves.

XAUt (Tether Gold), leveraging the Tether stablecoin ecosystem, has clear advantages in liquidity and trading depth, becoming the most commonly used gold collateral asset on centralized exchanges and on-chain derivatives protocols, suitable for high-frequency trading and institutional hedging needs.

PAXG (Paxos Gold), regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), offers a transparent, per-gram bar query mechanism, aligning better with regulated financial institutions’ requirements for compliance, auditing, and asset rights confirmation.

Building on this, some new projects are approaching from a functional perspective:

Kinesis Gold (KAU) attempts to introduce gold into high-frequency consumption and inclusive finance scenarios through “gold earning” and payment network design;

Matrixdock Gold (XAUm) uses dual-mode asset structures and DeFi integration to serve institutional-level holdings and on-chain yield needs.

Starbase prefers to understand this landscape as “functional layering,” rather than competitive replacement, with different gold RWA projects embedding into different layers of financial infrastructure.

1.3 Increased Institutional Participation: From Asset Allocation to Settlement Tools

The report highlights a significant change in 2025: the shift in how institutions participate. DBS Bank and Standard Chartered, under the regulatory framework of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), launched cross-border settlement pilot programs based on gold RWA, compressing traditional physical gold settlement processes to minutes.

Meanwhile, institutional-grade custody and account systems are completing key puzzle pieces:

Platforms like Fireblocks and Copper fully support mainstream gold RWA;

Multi-signature custody and enterprise-level interfaces lower the threshold for institutions to manage private keys directly;

Mainstream projects generally integrate Chainlink PoR to achieve near real-time reserve proof.

Additionally, the passage of the “Genius Stablecoin Act” provides clear legal positioning for physically-backed tokens, further reducing regulatory uncertainty for institutional entry.

The core motivation for institutional participation in gold RWA is not asset allocation but improving settlement efficiency and credit neutrality.

Starbase

3. Macro Perspective: “Non-Sovereign Value Anchors” Beyond Stablecoins

2.1 Macro Uncertainty Amplifies Demand for Gold and Gold RWA

In 2025, the global macro environment remains highly unstable, with major economies’ public debt levels continuing to rise, amid inflation, geopolitical conflicts, and financial system volatility. Against this backdrop, gold prices repeatedly hit record highs, with gold RWA prices moving in close sync.

Unlike before, gold RWA is no longer just seen as a safe haven but is beginning to assume a structural role within on-chain financial systems.

2.2 Structural Constraints of the Stablecoin System

Currently, the stablecoin system is highly anchored to the US dollar and US Treasuries, facing issues such as credit concentration, maturity structure, and regulatory spillovers. Issuers like Tether are gradually increasing the proportion of gold and Bitcoin reserves to enhance system resilience.

In contrast, physical gold and gold ETFs face obvious limitations in on-chain applications: the former lacks liquidity and programmability, while the latter remains essentially securitized equity, difficult to use for peer-to-peer settlement.

Gold RWA fills this structural gap, becoming an asset that matches the needs of on-chain finance. Gold RWA is not a substitute for stablecoins but an important complement that introduces non-debt-based value foundations into the on-chain ecosystem.

Starbase

4. Use Case Reconfiguration: Gold Is Becoming a Financial Module

From a functional perspective, the uses of gold RWA have clearly gone beyond the traditional “safe haven asset” scope:

Programmable safe haven assets: support for splitting, locking, conditional transfer, and yield aggregation;

On-chain collateral for core assets: hedge systemic risks in DeFi and CeFi scenarios;

Payment and cross-border settlement medium: act as a neutral asset to reduce settlement friction across multiple systems;

Bridge asset between TradFi and DeFi: lower the cognitive and compliance costs for traditional institutions entering the on-chain ecosystem.

The core value of gold RWA lies not in whether it is “decentralized,” but in whether it can serve key functions bridging real-world finance and on-chain finance.

5. Risks and Boundaries: Unavoidable Practical Constraints

Despite the clear trend, gold RWA still faces multiple structural risks:

Centralized custody and redemption risks that are difficult to eliminate entirely;

Systemic technical exposure from smart contracts, cross-chain bridges, and oracles;

Regulatory differences across jurisdictions limit borderless expansion.

At this stage, gold RWA is more suitable for steady advancement within a compliant framework through institutional pilots, settlement, and collateral scenarios, rather than full-scale financialization.

6. Conclusion: The Value of Gold RWA Lies in Its “Position,” Not Its “Rise”

Overall, the rise of gold RWA is not driven by short-term market speculation but is a natural result of the global financial system’s evolution toward tokenization and programmability. Its long-term value does not depend on gold price fluctuations but on the critical role gold plays in the new generation of financial systems.

From Starbase’s research perspective, gold RWA is transitioning from a safe haven asset to a foundational component of finance. Its development warrants ongoing attention, but with a clear awareness of its risk boundaries.

Original report link: