Blockchain-based tokenized commodities are approaching the $4 billion milestone after the world's leading precious metals hit recent all-time highs.
Gold, silver and platinum hit record highs on Friday, with spot gold prices rising as high as $4,530 an oz., data from TradingView shows. Silver, which isn’t currently a significant contributor to the tokenized commodity market, briefly hit an all-time high of $74.56 an oz..
According to data aggregator RWA.xyz, tokenized commodities rose 11% within the month leading as much as Friday, reaching $3.93 billion. Tether Gold (XAUt) was listed as the most important tokenized commodity with a worth of $1.74 billion, followed by Paxos Gold (PAXG) with $1.61 billion.
Tokenized precious metals will be transferred and traded on-chain outside of traditional market hours, but pricing, liquidity and redemption remain tied to existing infrastructure.
Tokenized commodities, all-time chart. Source: RWA.xyz
Tokenized goods are a part of the broader real-world asset (RWA) sector, which involves the issuance of blockchain-based representations of traditional assets to enable faster settlement and fractional ownership.
Investment bank Standard Chartered predicts that tokenized RWAs (excluding stablecoins) will rise to $2 trillion by 2028, with $250 billion expected to flow into “less liquid” investments reminiscent of private equity and commodities.
Ethereum accounts for the lion’s share of RWA tokenization growth
Ethereum is becoming the most well-liked blockchain network for tokenized RWAs.
At $12.7 billion, it has a 65% market share of tokenized RWAs, while BNB Chain is second with 10.5% or $1.85 billion, data from RWA.xyz shows.
Tokenized assets, network asset. Source: RWA.xyz
Increasing tokenization may result in increased blockchain activity and better transaction fees on Ethereum.
However, blockchain data shows that the tokenization of traditional financial assets still represents a comparatively small share of on-chain activity in comparison with more established use cases reminiscent of stablecoins and fungible token trading.
According to data from crypto intelligence platform Nansen, Ethereum ranked fourth in total transaction fees over the past 30 days, generating $11.41 million.
Blockchain network by total transaction fees generated. Source: Nansen.ai
The Tron network, where stablecoin activity dominates, took first place with fees of $29.5 million. BNB Chain and Solana took second and third place. The two blockchains are popular for token adoption and retail trading activities.
