Recently, the on-chain data platform BirdEye released its first research report focused on the tokenized gold market, titled "The Onchain Gold Rush." The report systematically analyzes the development of tokenized gold over the past year across five dimensions: market size, trading volume, holder distribution, gold perpetual contracts, and the lending market. Unlike previous reports that focused more on individual products or market events, this report emphasizes broader industry trends and identifies which products have entered the long-term monitoring scope of third-party data providers.
Notably, the tokenized gold XAUm launched by Matrixdock is featured in multiple sections of the report, covering dimensions such as market size, number of holders, trading volume, and the lending market. This does not imply an evaluation by BirdEye of a single product, but rather indicates that XAUm has been included in its data tracking of the tokenized gold market.
For the still rapidly evolving RWA industry, the significance of entering third-party industry research samples may be more noteworthy than a single partnership announcement.
What does the BirdEye report reflect? Tokenized gold is entering a new growth phase.
BirdEye's research first outlines the current state of the tokenized gold market.
As of July 2026, the global tokenized gold market size was approximately $4.56 billion, encompassing 14 gold tokens backed by physical gold and 6 products that tokenize shares of traditional gold ETFs. Over the past year, driven by rising international gold prices, the on-chain supply of gold grew rapidly, reaching a historical peak of about 1.2 million troy ounces in February 2026; even after a subsequent price correction, the overall supply remained stable at approximately 1.14 million troy ounces without a significant decline. BirdEye believes this reflects the absence of large-scale redemptions in response to price adjustments.
Meanwhile, trading activity has continued to rise. The report shows that industry quarterly trading volume increased from $13.6 billion in Q3 2025 to $48.8 billion in Q4, reaching a peak of $91 billion in Q1 2026, reflecting tokenized gold’s transition from an asset issuance phase to a more active trading phase.
However, the market remains highly concentrated: XAUt and PAXG together account for 93.1% of the market share, while all other products combined make up less than 7%. BirdEye also notes that it’s not just the leading products that deserve attention, but also the growing number of new products gradually expanding their influence across different ecosystems, driving continued market growth.
Why is XAUm included in BirdEye's research sample?
BirdEye did not provide a separate evaluation of XAUm, but instead included it within the overall data metrics for the tokenized gold market.
According to the report, as of the reporting date, the market capitalization of XAUm was approximately $66 million and was included in BirdEye’s coverage of the tokenized gold market. Meanwhile, BirdEye recorded approximately 66,100 unique addresses holding XAUm, second only to PAXG and surpassing XAUt, with around 60,600 of these addresses concentrated on the Plume network. The report suggests this reflects the emergence of RWA-specific networks with asset distribution capabilities distinct from traditional public blockchains.
According to trading data, XAUm has also shown rapid growth. BirdEye statistics show that its monthly trading volume reached $54.6 million in April 2026, representing an approximately 7.4-fold increase from the low point in December 2025 and a roughly 4.4-fold increase from March 2026, indicating that on-chain trading activity continues to rise.
Additionally, according to the latest publicly available information from the Matrixdock website, the current market capitalization of XAUm is approximately $68.31 million, backed by about 16,331 troy ounces of physical gold, supported by 508 gold bars compliant with LBMA standards, ensuring a one-to-one correspondence between token supply and underlying gold. XAUm has now been expanded across multiple blockchain networks and is being used in on-chain financial applications such as trading, lending, and liquidity.
The industry's evaluation standards are shifting from "assets on-chain" to "assets available".
More significant than the specific products are the industry shifts reflected in the BirdEye report.
If the market previously focused primarily on whether gold tokenization had been completed, today, third-party data providers are paying more attention to whether assets are genuinely circulating and being used on-chain.
In BirdEye's statistical framework, market size is just one dimension; trading volume, holder structure, perpetual contracts, and lending markets are also key indicators for measuring industry development.
The report shows that, as of now, the TVL of the tokenized gold lending market has reached approximately $112.6 million. Although the current lending TVL of XAUm is around $787,000, which still lags behind mature products like XAUt, BirdEye’s statistics also indicate that new gold lending markets have emerged on ecosystems such as Sui, BNB Chain, and Solana, demonstrating the ongoing expansion of tokenized gold use cases.
This also means that industry competition is gradually shifting from a sole focus on asset issuance to encompassing ongoing asset operations, including transparency of underlying reserves, holder base, on-chain liquidity, and financial applications.
Behind the BirdEye report, tokenized gold is beginning to enter the infrastructure race.
BirdEye's report notes that although XAUt and PAXG still dominate the market, the periphery is continuously expanding: ETF-wrapped products are growing rapidly, trading volume for gold perpetuals on Solana continues to rise, new gold lending markets are emerging on ecosystems such as Sui and BNB Chain, and the approximately 66,000 on-chain holders of XAUm are primarily concentrated on the Plume network.
These changes collectively reflect that the tokenized gold market has entered a new phase of development.
The focus of future industry competition may no longer be solely on who issues more gold, but rather on who can build more robust on-chain infrastructure around gold, including a continuously transparent reserve system, broader on-chain distribution, richer financial applications, and more mature ecosystem participation capabilities.
For XAUm, its appearance in BirdEye’s inaugural tokenized gold industry research report is not merely about a single exposure, but signifies that it has been included in the data sampling scope of a third-party research institution and is now being continuously tracked across multiple dimensions, including market size, number of holders, trading activity, and multi-chain ecosystem deployment.
As more research institutions begin to evaluate tokenized gold based on metrics such as market size, liquidity, on-chain activity, and financial applications, competition in this space is gradually expanding from asset issuance to on-chain infrastructure capabilities and ecosystem development.
Original link:https://birdeye.so/research/detail/the-onchain-gold-rush