Tokenized gold trading surged to $90.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, blowing past the entire volume logged last year. The figure raises fresh questions about how concentrated the market has become and whether regulators are keeping pace.
Record-breaking quarter for tokenized gold
The $90.7 billion traded in just three months marks a sharp acceleration. For context, all of 2025 saw less than that total. The jump is driven by institutional players moving into digital representations of the precious metal, which let buyers trade fractions of a bar without physical delivery.
Issuers like Paxos and Tether have seen their gold-backed tokens gain traction. Exchanges and DeFi protocols now list these assets, making them easier to swap. But the speed of growth has caught some observers off guard.
Concentration concerns
The surge isn't evenly spread. A handful of token issuers and trading platforms dominate the volume. That concentration worries analysts who track systemic risk. If one major issuer faces a liquidity crunch or a custody problem, the knock-on effects could ripple across the tokenized gold market and into the broader crypto ecosystem.
Data from on-chain trackers shows that the top two tokens account for more than 70% of daily trading. Smaller issuers struggle to break in, partly because large liquidity pools stay with the incumbents. The lack of diversification makes the market brittle, critics say.
Regulatory attention
Regulators are taking notice. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been eyeing tokenized commodities for months. In Europe, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, sets rules for stablecoins but doesn't explicitly cover gold-backed tokens. That gap could become a problem.
Some national regulators have already flagged the need for clearer custody standards and reserve reporting. Without them, investors have to trust that each token truly represents a bar of gold sitting in a vault. Questions about audits and insurance remain unresolved.
The growth also brings cross-border complications. A tokenized gold trade might involve a buyer in Asia, a token issued by a U.S. firm, and a vault in Switzerland. Who oversees that chain? No single regulator has the full picture.
What happens next
The next big test comes in mid-2026, when the European Securities and Markets Authority is expected to release guidance on tokenized assets. That document could set standards that other jurisdictions follow. Meanwhile, the market shows no sign of slowing. Trading volumes in April are already on track to exceed March's levels.
For now, the unanswered question is whether the infrastructure behind tokenized gold can scale as fast as the trading itself — and whether regulators will step in before the first major failure.
