KEY FACTS: The World Gold Council, in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group, has released a white paper titled "Digital Gold: The Case for a Shared Infrastructure", proposing an open platform called "Gold as a Service" to standardize and scale tokenized gold products. This shared infrastructure aims to bridge physical gold custody with digital issuance and management systems by addressing fragmentation through standardized processes for custody coordination, reconciliation, compliance, audits, and redemption, ultimately reducing complexity, enhancing interoperability with traditional and blockchain-based financial systems, improving fungibility, embedding trust via continuous verification, and unlocking greater liquidity and utility in lending, borrowing, and DeFi applications. The initiative arrives amid rapid growth in tokenized real-world assets, where tokenized commodities (including gold) now account for about 20% of the $5.5 billion sector, having surged 340% in the past year; leading products like Tether Gold (XAUT, ~$2.6 billion market cap, up 17% yearly) and Pax Gold (PAXG, ~$2.3 billion) dominate, with recent innovations such as Bybit's yield-bearing tokenized gold product underscoring rising demand. The WGC is inviting industry collaboration to build and refine this platform.

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Source:World Gold Council

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World Gold Council Unveils "Gold as a Service" Framework for Tokenized Gold

The World Gold Council (WGC) has released a comprehensive framework for tokenized gold. Titled "Digital Gold: The Case for a Shared Infrastructure," the white paper, co-authored with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), proposes "Gold as a Service," an open platform designed to connect the physical custody of gold with the digital systems used to issue and manage tokenized products. Announced on March 19, 2026, this initiative aims to address longstanding structural barriers in the digital gold market, standardizing processes to unlock scalability, interoperability, and broader adoption across global finance.

The World Gold Council, the leading global authority on gold and its industry, has long championed innovation in how the precious metal integrates with modern economies. With gold's enduring role as a store of value, hedge against inflation, and portfolio diversifier spanning millennia, the organization recognizes that financial services are in the midst of a "rapid and pervasive digital transformation." Gold, it argues, must evolve alongside this shift to remain relevant. David Tait, Chief Executive Officer of the World Gold Council, emphasized that shared infrastructure can help gold become more accessible, more easily traded and fully integrated into modern financial systems, ensuring it remains as relevant tomorrow as it has been for millennia.

Gold as a Service functions as a shared, open platform that links physical gold vaults and custody operations directly to blockchain-based issuance and management systems. Rather than forcing individual issuers to build redundant infrastructure for compliance, reconciliation, audits, and redemption, the model creates a standardized backbone. This approach promises to reduce operational complexity, lower barriers to entry for new participants, and foster greater consistency across digital gold products, ultimately enhancing trust, liquidity, and utility in an increasingly tokenized world.

Tokenized gold is not a new concept. Products like Tether Gold (XAUT) and Pax Gold (PAXG) have already demonstrated the potential of blockchain-backed representations of physical gold, allowing investors to own fractional shares of allocated bullion while trading them seamlessly on crypto exchanges. These assets maintain a 1:1 backing with audited physical gold reserves, offering the benefits of digital assets, such as instant settlement, 24/7 trading, and DeFi integration, without sacrificing the intrinsic value and security of the yellow metal.

However, these pioneering products have largely operated in silos, each developing its own custody arrangements, compliance protocols, and redemption mechanisms. This fragmentation has limited scalability and fungibility, preventing tokenized gold from fully integrating with broader financial rails. The white paper explicitly acknowledges the challenge that despite significant digitalization in gold trading, clearing, and recordkeeping, "digital gold remains limited in scale largely due to structural constraints." Launching and operating such products remains complex, with reduced standardization hindering seamless use across platforms.

Gold as a Service directly tackles these issues by proposing a layered infrastructure model. It envisions three interconnected levels: robust physical custody and vaulting at the base; digital issuance and lifecycle management in the middle; and synchronization systems that ensure real-time alignment between on-chain tokens and off-chain gold reserves. By standardizing core functions, custody coordination, ongoing reconciliation, regulatory compliance, and redemption processes, the platform preserves the physical integrity of gold while enabling it to thrive in digital ecosystems.

The framework outlines several transformative features that could redefine how tokenized gold operates as follows:

• Issuers will gain access to standardized tools that simplify the creation and ongoing oversight of digital gold tokens, slashing the time, cost, and technical hurdles involved in bringing new products to market.
• Digital gold will be treated as a unified asset class with consistent legal rights and value across platforms; hence, the model boosts interchangeability. Tokens from different issuers could trade more fluidly, much like shares on a traditional stock exchange.
• Continuous audits, reconciliations, and proof-of-reserve mechanisms are built into the shared infrastructure, providing transparent, real-time verification of physical backing. This strengthens investor confidence and addresses regulatory scrutiny head-on.
• The platform is engineered to connect with existing financial market infrastructure as well as emerging blockchain rails, allowing tokenized gold to flow effortlessly between traditional finance (TradFi), decentralized finance (DeFi), lending protocols, and beyond.
• Improved fungibility will open new doors for gold as "deployable capital." Beyond its classic role as a safe-haven asset, tokenized gold could be pledged as collateral for loans, used in yield-generating strategies, or integrated into sophisticated financial products, expanding its appeal to institutions and retail investors alike.

Meanwhile, according to data from RWA.xyz, tokenized commodities, including gold, now represent approximately $5.5 billion, or about 20% of the total on-chain value in the tokenized real-world assets sector. This segment has surged 340% over the past 12 months, fueled by surging demand for gold amid economic uncertainty, inflation concerns, and institutional interest in diversified, blockchain-native holdings.

Leading the pack are established tokenized gold offerings. Tether Gold (XAUT) boasts a market capitalization of around $2.6 billion, reflecting a 17% increase over the past year, while Pax Gold (PAXG) stands at approximately $2.3 billion. These figures underscore the growing mainstream acceptance of gold tokens, even as traditional Wall Street players quietly adjust positions and retail investors triple their gold purchases in recent months.

Just days before the WGC announcement, crypto exchange Bybit launched a yield-bearing tokenized gold product based on Tether Gold, allowing users to earn interest while holding the asset. Such innovations highlight the momentum building around digital gold, yet they also spotlight the need for standardized infrastructure to prevent fragmentation and ensure sustainable growth.

The World Gold Council is not stopping at the white paper. It is actively calling for innovators, market participants, custodians, blockchain developers, and regulators, from both the gold industry and the broader crypto ecosystem, to collaborate on building this shared infrastructure. The organization positions itself as an orchestrator, inviting contributions to refine and scale the platform while maintaining competition among issuers.

This collaborative approach mirrors successful shared utilities in traditional finance, such as central securities depositories or clearing houses, but tailored for the hybrid physical-digital nature of gold. By embedding legal clarity, consistent redemption frameworks, and seamless liquidity access, Gold as a Service could accelerate institutional adoption and pave the way for new use cases, from gold-backed stablecoins to collateral in decentralized lending protocols.

With global gold demand hitting records, central banks stockpiling the metal, and blockchain technology maturing, tokenized gold stands poised for exponential growth. With Gold as a Service providing the trusted rails, it could soon become a cornerstone of both traditional portfolios and decentralized finance.

For those interested in diving deeper, the full white paper, "Digital Gold: The Case for a Shared Infrastructure", is available for download on the World Gold Council's official website. The coming months promise exciting developments as stakeholders respond to this call for collaboration.

Information Sources:

• Press Release
• MEXC
• Cointelegraph

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