"Following the ETF Growth Path"…Tokenized gold, with a market potential of up to $400 billion

Some predictions suggest that as tokenized gold penetrates the investment gold market, its market size could reach $400 billion.

On the 19th, Animoca Brands Research stated: “Tokenized gold functions similarly to ETFs. If the penetration rate increases, the market size could grow several tens of times.”

As of December 31, 2025, the total investment gold market, including gold bars, gold coins, and gold ETFs, is approximately $5.6 trillion. Among them, the tokenized gold market size is $4.2 billion, with a market penetration rate of only 0.075%.

Meanwhile, the gold ETF market size is about $444.1 billion, with a penetration rate of 7.9%. Since its first launch in 2003, gold ETFs have played a central role in connecting physical gold with modern financial investment portfolios. They eliminate physical limitations related to custody and transportation and enable trading like stocks, greatly expanding the convenience of gold investment. As a result, market penetration increased to around 7% over about 5 to 6 years and has stabilized within the 4% to 9% range.

Animoca Brands Research pointed out that tokenized gold also converts physical assets into digital form for easier trading and utilization. In this sense, it functions similarly to ETFs. The gap in penetration rates between gold ETFs and tokenized gold is seen as a key indicator of the growth potential of tokenized gold.

Analysis suggests that if ETFs turn gold into financial assets, then tokenization takes it a step further by expanding it into on-chain assets. By offering features like 24-hour trading, fractional ownership, and composability with DeFi, it directly creates utility. Demand is expected to form among private institutions and individual investors.

The report states: “If the penetration rate of tokenized gold expands to a similar 7% level as ETFs, its market size could approach $400 billion, more than 90 times the current size.” It also predicts: “Even under a more conservative assumption of just 0.5%, the market size could grow to about $28 billion, representing approximately a sixfold increase.”