The World Gold Council expects the market for tokenized gold to grow from roughly $45 billion today to about $170 billion by 2031, according to a projection shared by Cointelegraph on October 20, 2026. The figure points to a near-fourfold expansion in under six years for a form of gold that lives on public blockchains rather than in a vault receipt or an exchange-traded fund.
Tokenized gold is physical bullion represented as a digital token, with each unit backed by a defined weight of metal held in custody. The token moves on-chain the way a stablecoin does, which means it can settle in minutes, split into fractions far smaller than a bar, and sit in the same wallet as everything else a holder owns. The Council's forecast treats that structure as the growth driver, not the gold price itself.
A forecast built on plumbing, not price
The projection is about adoption of the rail, not a call on where gold trades. A move from $45 billion to $170 billion is a statement that more gold will be issued, held, and transacted as tokens, regardless of whether the metal's spot price rises or falls over the period. That distinction matters because gold's appeal has always been as a store of value that does not depend on a counterparty. Putting it on-chain keeps that pitch while adding settlement speed and divisibility.
For context on the current backdrop, Bitcoin traded near $81,309 as of October 20, 2026, down 1.7% on the day, with the broader market reading Neutral at 47 on the Fear and Greed index. Gold's digital form is being positioned as the calmer end of the same infrastructure story, which is part of why institutions tracking real-world assets keep citing it.
Gold's slice of the real-world asset push
Tokenized gold is one slice of a wider effort to move real-world assets onto blockchains. Tokenized US Treasuries, private credit, and deposit tokens from major banks have all expanded this year, and gold is the commodity that most naturally fits the template: it is fungible, globally priced, and already held in custody at scale. A $170 billion forecast would still leave it small next to the total gold market, but large relative to where on-chain assets stand now.
The practical case is straightforward. A holder can own a fraction of an ounce rather than a whole bar, transfer it without shipping metal, and redeem or trade it around the clock. That removes the storage and settlement friction that kept retail buyers in paper products. It also lets gold sit alongside stablecoin balances in a single wallet, which is the same convenience argument that drove stablecoin adoption.
The risks the headline number skips
A token is only as sound as its custody and audit chain. The value rests on the issuer actually holding the gold it claims and proving it on a schedule. That is counterparty risk, the same kind that applies to any custodial product: if the audits are thin or the metal is encumbered, the on-chain balance means little. Buyers should treat reserve attestations and the identity of the vault operator as the first thing to check, not an afterthought.
There is also the gap between a forecast and a realized market. A six-year projection depends on regulation staying workable, custody standards holding up, and demand showing up at the retail and institutional level. Any of those can slip. The number describes a plausible path, not a guaranteed one, and it comes from an industry body with an interest in seeing the category grow.
The read for crypto users
Tokenized gold does not directly change how a crypto card works today, since spending still routes through stablecoins or a card issuer's conversion. The longer-term signal is that more asset types are landing in the same wallets people already use to hold and spend crypto. If gold becomes a routine on-chain balance, it joins stablecoins as collateral and a funding source that can eventually feed into spending and yield products rather than sitting idle in a brokerage account.
The near-term takeaway is narrower. A respected industry body is putting a hard number on real-world assets moving on-chain, and gold is its example. Whether the market reaches $170 billion by 2031 will depend on custody proof and regulatory clarity more than on any price rally.
Overview
The World Gold Council projects tokenized gold growing from about $45 billion today to roughly $170 billion by 2031, a forecast framed around adoption of blockchain settlement rather than the gold price. Tokenized gold represents physical bullion as an on-chain token, adding speed, divisibility, and wallet-level convenience, while carrying custody and counterparty risk that holders should verify through reserve attestations. The figure is one marker in a broader shift of real-world assets onto public chains, alongside tokenized Treasuries and bank deposit tokens.
