What is digital gold in this context?

The WGC-BCG report uses digital gold to mean on-chain tokens backed one-to-one by allocated or vaulted physical gold, distinct from paper claims or ETF shares. PAXG and Tether Gold are the two largest examples today.

How big is the tokenized gold market now?

Combined market capitalization of PAXG and XAUT, the two largest tokens, has sat under $10 billion through 2026. The $160-170B 2031 figure implies roughly a 20-fold expansion.

Who published the forecast?

The World Gold Council, the industry body for gold miners and refiners, together with Boston Consulting Group. Crypto.News flagged the report on October 20, 2026.

What could derail the forecast?

The report identifies custody, settlement, and distribution as the three gating constraints. Add regulatory delay in the US and EU, and LBMA reluctance to recognize on-chain settlement as equivalent to vault transfer.

Digital Gold Market Could Hit $170B by 2031, WGC-BCG Forecast Says

Market impact

Tokenized gold has traded as a quiet beta to spot gold through 2026, with PAXG and XAUT tracking London fix prices inside a few basis points. The forecast does not change spot dynamics, but it reframes the issuer landscape. Paxos, which runs PAXG, and Tether, which runs XAUT, are suddenly staring at a total addressable market an order of magnitude larger than their current combined float.

The headline looks like an unambiguous win for tokenization platforms. The flow picture is more complicated. A $160 billion market in 2031 implies regulatory clarity in the US, EU, and at least one Asian jurisdiction, and it assumes the LBMA accepts on-chain settlement as equivalent to vault transfer. Neither is priced in. Stablecoin issuers with existing bank-grade custody, Paxos first among them, are better positioned than crypto-native competitors to capture the institutional slice.

One editorial read: the WGC-BCG number is credible as a ceiling, aggressive as a base case. Tokenized Treasuries took three years to clear $10 billion with a tailwind from US rates. Gold tokenization needs a comparable catalyst, and the report does not identify one beyond general RWA momentum.

The World Gold Council and Boston Consulting Group projected on Tuesday that the digital gold market could reach $160 billion to $170 billion by 2031, with as much as $700 billion in potential demand if adoption barriers come down. The forecast, flagged in a joint report cited by Crypto.News on October 20, puts tokenized bullion squarely in the same conversation as stablecoins and tokenized Treasuries as the next real-world asset category to scale.

By Elena Stojanović· AI-assisted· Regulation correspondent

What happened

The World Gold Council and Boston Consulting Group released a joint forecast Tuesday pegging the digital gold market at $160 billion to $170 billion by 2031, Crypto.News reported. The report frames tokenized gold as a distinct category from paper gold and physical bars, covering on-chain claims backed by allocated or vaulted metal. BCG and the WGC also sketched a higher-adoption scenario in which total demand reaches roughly $700 billion over the same window, contingent on friction coming out of custody and distribution.

Tokenized gold today is a thin market. Paxos-issued PAXG and Tether Gold together account for the bulk of circulating supply, with combined market capitalization under $10 billion through most of 2026. Smaller issuers, including HSBC's gold token pilots and Comex-adjacent experiments, round out the field. The report's 2031 number implies the category expanding roughly 20-fold, in line with the trajectory stablecoins traced from 2020 to 2024.

Why it matters

The WGC is not a crypto shop. It is the industry body for gold miners and refiners, and its endorsement signals that tokenization has crossed from crypto-native experiment to a channel the physical gold industry is willing to underwrite. BCG's involvement adds the consulting layer that corporate treasuries and asset managers read before they allocate.

The $700 billion ceiling is the number that matters. It assumes custody standardization, regulated secondary markets, and distribution through the same wealth channels that currently sell gold ETFs. If even a fraction of that latent demand lands on-chain, tokenized gold becomes the second real-world asset category after Treasuries to clear nine zeroes, ahead of real estate and private credit tokenization pilots.

Market impact

Digital Gold Market Could Hit $170B by 2031, WGC-BCG Forecast Says

What happened

Why it matters

Market impact

What to watch

Disclaimer

Key takeaways

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