BirdEye, a blockchain data platform, has released its first research report focused on the tokenized gold market, titled The Onchain Gold Rush. The study reviews the past year of development in the sector across five areas: market size, trading volume, holder distribution, gold perpetuals, and lending markets.
Rather than centering on a single product or one-off market event, the report is framed around broader industry direction and which products have entered the long-term coverage range of third-party data institutions. Matrixdock’s tokenized gold product, XAUm, appears in multiple sections of the report, including market size, number of holders, trading volume, and lending activity. That does not amount to a product endorsement from BirdEye, but it does show that XAUm has been included in BirdEye’s statistical tracking of the tokenized gold market.
BirdEye data points to a new growth phase for tokenized gold
The report first lays out the current state of the broader tokenized gold market.
As of July 2026, the global tokenized gold market was worth about $4.56 billion. That total covers 14 gold tokens backed by physical bullion and six products that tokenize shares of traditional gold ETFs. Over the past year, onchain gold supply rose quickly alongside higher international gold prices and reached a record of about 1.2 million troy ounces in February 2026. After that, even as gold prices pulled back, aggregate supply stayed stable at about 1.14 million troy ounces and did not show a clear decline. BirdEye said this suggests the market did not experience large-scale redemptions during the price correction.
Trading activity also climbed. According to the report, quarterly trading volume for the sector increased from $13.6 billion in the third quarter of 2025 to $48.8 billion in the fourth quarter, then hit a peak of $91 billion in the first quarter of 2026. The data indicates tokenized gold is moving beyond the issuance stage and into a more active trading phase.
Market concentration, however, remains high. XAUt and PAXG together account for 93.1% of total market share, while all other products combined make up less than 7%. BirdEye also notes that the key development is not limited to the largest products. A growing number of newer offerings are expanding their presence across different ecosystems and helping push the market forward.
Why XAUm entered BirdEye’s sample set
BirdEye does not give XAUm a standalone verdict in the report. Instead, it includes the token within the wider statistical framework for tokenized gold.
At the time covered by the report, XAUm had a market capitalization of about $66 million, enough to place it within BirdEye’s market-wide dataset. BirdEye also recorded roughly 66,100 holder addresses for XAUm, second only to PAXG and above XAUt. Of those, around 60,600 addresses were concentrated on the Plume network. The report says this points to RWA-focused networks beginning to develop asset distribution capacity distinct from that of traditional public blockchains.
Trading data for XAUm also showed relatively fast growth. BirdEye’s figures show its monthly trading volume reached $54.6 million in April 2026, up about 7.4 times from the low seen in December 2025 and about 4.4 times higher than in March 2026. The report uses those figures to show that XAUm’s onchain trading activity has been increasing.
Separately, the latest public information on Matrixdock’s website shows XAUm currently has a market capitalization of about $68.31 million, representing around 16,331 troy ounces of physical gold. The token is backed by 508 LBMA-standard gold bars, and token supply remains matched to the underlying gold holdings. XAUm has also expanded to multiple blockchain networks and is being used in onchain financial scenarios including trading, lending, and liquidity provision.
Industry metrics are shifting from issuance to usability
Beyond the product-specific numbers, the report highlights a change in how the tokenized gold market is being judged.
If the earlier market focus was whether gold had been successfully tokenized, third-party data institutions are now paying closer attention to whether those assets are actually circulating and being used onchain. In BirdEye’s framework, market size is only one measure. Trading volume, holder structure, perpetuals, and lending markets are also treated as key indicators of sector development.
The report shows that total value locked in tokenized gold lending has now reached about $112.6 million. XAUm’s lending TVL stands at about $787,000, still below more established products such as XAUt. At the same time, BirdEye’s data shows that new gold lending markets have already appeared across ecosystems including Sui, BNB Chain, and Solana, indicating that use cases for tokenized gold continue to expand.
That, in turn, shows competition is moving beyond the narrow question of issuance and toward ongoing operating capacity, including reserve transparency, holder base, onchain liquidity, and financial applications.
Tokenized gold competition is moving toward infrastructure
BirdEye says that while XAUt and PAXG still dominate the market, the surrounding ecosystem keeps widening. ETF wrapper products are growing quickly, gold perpetual trading volume on Solana continues to rise, new gold lending markets are appearing on networks such as Sui and BNB Chain, and XAUm’s roughly 66,000 onchain holder addresses are mainly concentrated on Plume.
Taken together, those changes suggest the tokenized gold market has entered a new stage of development.
For XAUm, appearing in BirdEye’s first industry report on tokenized gold is less about a one-time mention and more about entering the statistical sample range used by a third-party research institution. The token is now being tracked across market capitalization, holder count, trading activity, and multi-chain ecosystem positioning.
As more research institutions assess tokenized gold through dimensions such as market size, liquidity, onchain activity, and financial applications, competition in the segment is extending from issuance into onchain infrastructure and ecosystem building.