The RWA narrative is shifting: Why is tokenized gold being mentioned repeatedly?

As real-world assets (RWA) gradually become an important narrative direction in the crypto industry, the market focus is undergoing a significant shift: discussions are no longer limited to "which assets can be tokenized," but are beginning to turn to a more pragmatic question— which assets truly have the opportunity to operate effectively on-chain in the long term and form stable scales.

In the recently released "My Crypto Predictions for 2026," crypto trend observer Jay Yu lists Tokenized Gold as one of the most certain asset directions in the future development of RWA. In his predictive framework, tokenized gold is no longer seen as a marginal experiment but is included in discussions at a more core asset level.

This judgment is not based on short-term market hype but stems from the "starting conditions" of gold itself. As an asset that has long been accepted by the global financial system, gold has a mature custody, auditing, and clearing system. This means that when gold enters an on-chain form, the real issue to be resolved is not "whether the asset is real or fake," but how to lower the thresholds for holding and circulation, and achieve cross-regional and more efficient use.

From a practical perspective, physical gold does not possess good liquidity in many scenarios. High costs of cross-border transfer and low circulation efficiency, along with operational and regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions, pose challenges. In contrast, the on-chain form allows gold to have the possibility of being "as liquid as digital assets" for the first time, making it easier to be integrated into the crypto financial system and asset portfolios. This is a key reason why researchers view it as one of the RWA assets most likely to operate effectively first.

The macro environment further amplifies this trend. Against the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, inflationary pressures, and sovereign debt issues, the market is refocusing on the core function of "value storage." The traditional safe-haven attributes of gold are once again brought to the forefront, while the tokenized form allows these attributes to directly enter on-chain scenarios, reaching more crypto users and institutions.

It is noteworthy that discussions around tokenized gold are shifting from a focus on the feasibility of the concept to an examination of actual operational conditions. The market is becoming more concerned with: How is physical gold custodied? Is the reserve information verifiable? How do on-chain and off-chain data align? And does the system have the capability for long-term stable operation in different compliance environments?

In this trend, some platforms that have built underlying infrastructure around gold tokenization are gradually entering the industry spotlight. For example, Matrixport's RWA platform Matrixdock launched the gold token XAUm, which is tokenized based on physical gold that meets LBMA standards, focusing on underlying capabilities such as physical custody, on-chain verifiability, and long-term compliance operation. This path emphasizes the improvement of infrastructure and system-level capabilities rather than merely staying at the trading product level.

From a more macro perspective, the next stage of RWA is no longer just a competition of issuance scale but is gradually evolving into a systematic test of asset selection, system stability, and long-term sustainability. The frequent mention of tokenized gold is precisely because it presents a relatively clear and verifiable intersection between asset maturity, real demand, and on-chain availability.

Report source: https://x.com/0xfishylosopher/status/2003830142330900513?s=46