The World Gold Council (WGC) introduced an initiative to create a unified infrastructure aimed at accelerating the development of tokenized gold and simplifying its integration into the financial system.
WGC released a joint report with Boston Consulting Group outlining the Gold as a Service (GaaS) model. The initiative envisions a platform that combines physical storage of the precious metal with digital tools for issuing and managing assets, including tokenized products.
The report notes that the market has already taken steps toward tokenization: trading, clearing, and accounting largely moved into digital formats, and gold-backed crypto tokens are already available. However, scaling these solutions is hindered by several factors, including the lack of unified standards, high operational complexity, and limited asset fungibility.
The proposed infrastructure is designed to remove these barriers. It focuses on standardizing key processes, from storage and data reconciliation to regulatory compliance and redemption. According to WGC, this will simplify the issuance of tokens backed by physical gold, increase their liquidity, and establish unified rules for circulation.
Key expected outcomes of the platform include:
- simplified issuance and management of gold-based tokenized assets;
- increased liquidity through improved fungibility;
- continuous verification of physical backing and ownership transparency;
- integration with existing financial infrastructure and digital platforms;
- expanded use cases, including using tokenized gold as collateral.
WGC CEO David Tait emphasized that the financial system is rapidly digitalizing, and the gold market must adapt to these changes. According to him, the new infrastructure could make tokenized gold a more accessible and liquid instrument.
Boston Consulting Group added that the key challenge is not just digitizing gold but creating a robust architecture that allows tokenized assets to integrate seamlessly into the financial system without losing their link to physical backing.
WGC called on market participants and technology companies to join the development of this infrastructure, which could become the foundation for the next stage of gold tokenization.
Between mid-2025 and Q1 2026 inclusive, total retail investor inflows into gold-based exchange-traded funds (ETF) exceeded $60 billion, reflecting a sharp increase in interest in the asset, according to a report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Initiatives related to tokenized gold are already progressing. In February 2026, market maker Wintermute launched over-the-counter (OTC) trading of gold-backed digital tokens for institutional clients, expecting the tokenized gold market to reach $15 billion in 2026. A year earlier, UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, tested a solution based on the ZKsync L2 protocol to offer clients an investment product in tokenized gold.
