- Tokenized gold saw 30% growth in its market capitalization in the first quarter of 2026, expanding 5.5 times faster than physical gold, the fastest pace on record.
- Tokenized gold experienced the largest wallet growth in history, adding more than 44,500 new wallets and suggesting a growing holder base.
- Tokenized gold saw its biggest surge in DeFi adoption, with value deployed in DeFi increasing 123% in the first quarter.
With the cryptocurrency market losing over 20% in market capitalization, the first quarter of 2026 was difficult for DeFi, which showed an 11% decline in TVL. However, RWA was one of the few sectors that went in the opposite direction, adding 30% in total value, partially offsetting the decline in DeFi.
And within RWA, tokenized gold was one of the main drivers behind this growth.
One in three RWA investors now own tokenized gold
Tokenized gold is the second largest RWA category (behind tokenized Treasuries) and ended the first quarter at 5.6 billion dollars in market capitalization. During the quarter, tokenized gold was added $1.3 billion in new valueraising its total growth to 30%. To put this in perspective, this single quarter increase is almost half of what the sector added throughout 2025.
The same pattern can be seen in user growth.
Tokenized gold won 44,500 new wallets in the first quarter alonemarking the largest increase in its history. In practical terms, this suggests that one in five tokenized gold today entered the market in just these three months.
This rapid expansion took tokenized gold to a new milestone. Today, approximately one in three RWA participants own tokenized goldmaking it the most adopted real-world on-chain asset.
At the same time, the quarter did not lack for new narratives. Tokenized stocks led absolute user growth, adding almost 80,000 new asset holding addresses. In turn, other commodities, including tokenized oil, metals and agricultural assets, generated the fastest relative gains. These segments attracted new attention and capital, which likely partly limited the performance of tokenized gold.
Another notable signal comes from how the asset is used. Amount of tokenized gold actively deployed in DeFi increased 123% during the quarter, raising the total asset value above $193 million. This is the largest increase in DeFi adoption for tokenized gold to date, and means that users are increasingly using tokenized gold rather than perceiving it as a simple store of value.
Tokenized gold achieves highest performance on record over physical gold
To understand what the growth of tokenized gold in the first quarter of 2026 really means, it is helpful to start with the broader context of the gold market. The first quarter was a very volatile period: on the one hand, recorded its best month in more than 25 years; on the other, went through its worst weekly drop since 1983.
Despite this turbulence, physical gold ended the quarter higher. 5.5%raising its total market value to $32.6 billion. Major gold ETFs moved in the same direction, with SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) gaining about 10% and iShares Gold Trust (IAU) rising 8% in holdings.
However, tokenized gold expanded in 30% during the same periodmarking your highest quarterly performance against physical gold on record. In relative terms, tokenized gold grew 5.5 times faster than the underlying asset, a gap that highlights how quickly exposure to on-chain gold is increasing compared to traditional markets.
Overall, of all the major gold investment vehicles, tokenized gold recorded the highest market capitalization growth in the first quarter. Furthermore, if tokenized gold were an ETF, it would now rank as the fourth largest.
Tokenized gold trading slows as it enters mainstream investment vehicle territory
Tokenized gold trading activity remains strong, but its growth is beginning to normalize as it reaches the scale of traditional markets. In the first quarter of 2026, tokenized gold was recorded $82 billion in trading volumemarking a 1,300% increase year over year — a rhythm approximately 20 times faster than the largest gold ETFs recorded during the same period.
At the same time, the growth gap is starting to narrow, with tokenized gold volume showing its slowest growth over the past year, lagging behind several leading gold ETFs. As a result, tokenized gold fell from second to third gold trading instrument by volume in the first quarter.
This does not necessarily indicate a weakening of demand. As tokenized gold reaches a scale comparable to that of larger ETFs, maintaining explosive growth becomes more difficult. In turn, traditional instruments are seeing renewed activity, likely driven by the same macroeconomic volatility that supported gold prices in general.
PAXG gains ground in market cap, XAUT outperforms in wallet growth
One of the major trends of 2025 was Tether Gold (XAUT) gaining share against Paxos Gold (PAXG) and smaller tokenized gold assets. In the first quarter of 2026, the picture became more balanced.
In terms of market cap, PAXG had the strongest quarter by a wide margin. He published a 51% increaseadding more than $800 million in value, while XAUT grew 16%. PAXG entered the year as the smaller of the two assets and closed the first quarter just $200 million behind, from a space closer to $650 million. This means that PAXG surpassed XAUT in terms of attracting new capital in the first quarter of 2026.
XAUT’s victories came elsewhere. Its number of wallets containing the asset almost doubled in the first quarter, growing by nearly 19,000 wallets. This means that for the first time since 2024, XAUT added more headlines than PAXG in a single quarter. PAXG wallet base grew 26%broadly in line with the broader tokenized gold market.
The DeFi landscape reinforces the same divide. Virtually all of the growth in tokenized gold deployed by DeFi during the first quarter came from XAUT, whose active value in the protocols increased +127%while PAXG retreated slightly.
That divergence is becoming a defining characteristic of how these two assets perform in the market. PAXG attracts dead capital, and longer-duration holders build up a store of value. XAUT attracts capital that moves: deployed in protocols, actively traded and recycled. This duopoly resembles the stablecoin landscape where USDT and USDC show a growing divide in use cases.
Beyond the first two, the most notable development was Matrixdock Gold, whose DeFi-implemented value grew the most 1,500% in the quarter, a sign of increasing protocol integration that could matter more as on-chain gold use cases expand.
Conclusion
The first quarter of 2026 was a strong quarter for gold overall, with tokenized gold outperforming the entire field. It grew faster than physical gold, faster than all major ETFs, and remained one of the leading gold investment vehicles in terms of trading volume. The growth in market capitalization was more than just price appreciation and was accompanied by one of the largest increases in the holder base in history.
The next milestone will likely be closing the gap with GLD and IAU, the only two gold investment products still ahead in trading volume. Whether the first quarter’s convergence with GLD’s growth pace indicates maturation or a temporary plateau will likely be the defining question of the coming quarters.
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