The World Gold Council has proposed a common infrastructure layer for tokenized gold, a plan aimed at replacing today’s fragmented issuer-by-issuer setup with shared standards. The group helped launch SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) in 2004, and that fund now stands at $163 billion. By comparison, Tether Gold (XAUT) and Pax Gold (PAXG), the two largest crypto gold tokens, hold close to $5 billion combined, while the broader tokenized gold market has moved past $5.5 billion.
White paper focuses on custody, compliance, audits and redemption
On March 19, the World Gold Council and Boston Consulting Group released a white paper outlining a “Gold as a Service” model. The proposal calls for shared backend infrastructure across the tokenized gold market, with standardized rules for custody, compliance, audits, and redemption. In practice, that would create common rails for issuers instead of leaving each product to operate inside its own closed framework.
That is the current structure for the market leaders. Tether keeps XAUT reserves in a Swiss vault, while Paxos uses London vaults through Brink’s for PAXG. Those systems were built separately. The result is limited fungibility across products, thinner liquidity than the market could support, and a trust hurdle that has kept tokenized gold from reaching a broader retail base.
A visible standard is central to the pitch
Mike Oswin, the World Gold Council’s Global Head of Market Structure, compared the idea to “Intel Inside,” meaning buyers should be able to see a recognizable standard before they purchase a product. BCG’s Matthias Tauber framed the issue in similar terms, saying the main question is no longer whether gold will go digital, but how it can fit into modern financial systems without compromising the integrity of the physical asset behind it.
The proposal is still conceptual. No implementation timeline was disclosed, and any rollout would depend on wide adoption across the industry. That means XAUT and PAXG are not being changed overnight, but the paper points to a possible shift in how tokenized gold could be issued, verified, and redeemed if a shared standard gains traction.
Bybit launched a yield product on the same day
On the day the white paper was released, Bybit introduced a yield-bearing tokenized gold product that lets users earn interest on Tether Gold. Physical gold stored in a vault does not generate yield on its own. That has long been one of its weak points against stablecoins. Bybit’s launch and the World Gold Council’s paper addressed the same practical issue from different angles: how to make gold work more effectively inside digital financial markets.
The report also said gold was trading at $4,691 that day. With oil rising and markets shaken by the Iran conflict, gold’s safe-haven role is being tested in live conditions. The World Gold Council’s proposal suggests that the next phase of that role may depend less on isolated products and more on shared on-chain infrastructure.