Crypto’s gold rush: why did tokenized gold return as a hot asset?

Gold returned as a hot asset in August, with several sources of demand. Crypto traders shifted to tokenized gold and perpetual futures as an offset to inflation, but also as a speculative asset. 

Gold is not forgotten in the crypto space, and various forms of tokenized assets and contracts have spread across the ecosystem. While gold is off its all-time highs, the recent climb of tokenized to the $4,600 range came with renewed trading interest. Later, gold retreated to around $4,480, with XAUT trading at $4,474.72. 

The trend of on-chain gold is still spearheaded by Tether’s XAUT. The token expanded with more minting in the past three months, while trading volumes remain near their peak levels for 2026. 

XAUT gained decentralized activity through usage as collateral in lending. The token also saw more active DEX trading in August. As of September 2026, XAUT carried $3.15B in value. Another $59M flowed into Tether’s tokenized gold as of September 4. 

Around $2.39M in XAUT is trading on Uniswap V3, increasing on-chain activity. Overall, XAUT and PAXG are the most widely traded gold-backed tokens on decentralized markets. 

XAUT is also available as collateral on Lighter, boosting the perpetual futures market. 

Gold returns on perpetual futures markets

Gold returned as one of the top perpetual futures contracts on HIP-3. Open interest returned to $750M, with $299M in daily trading. 

Most of the whale positions on gold are on the long side, with the largest whale currently carrying more than $273K in unrealized gains. As of September 4, the unrealized losses of the largest short position expanded to $2.2M. 

Gold also regained its appeal following the recent trend of trading semiconductor stocks. Uncertainty around the war in Iran and the ongoing inflation signals boosted the appeal of gold. 

AI agent accumulates gold-backed tokens

Additional demand for gold also came from a single whale wallet. The wallet has been identified with high probability as belonging to the Antalpha AI agent. In the past month, the AI agent added several tranches of 1K XAUT while gold was trading closer to $4,000 per ounce, currently carrying unrealized gains. 

The Antalpha wallet shows only inflows, with no attempts to cash out. As of September 4, the AI agent held 16.12K XAUT, valued at over $71M. 

Another Antalpha wallet holds over 33K XAUT tokens, along with other assets. The AI agent uses other wallets to actively trade XAUT, usually sending funds to Bitfinex. Some of the holdings have also been sent for custody to a Cobo.com wallet. 

Antalpha is a relatively sizeable XAUT buyer and is seen as an indicator of interest in tokenized gold. The presence of a new wallet dedicated to strong accumulation may signal the improved influence of XAUT. 

Overall, XAUT has also increased its total holder count to 84,756 wallets, up by over 16% in the last 30 days. Over $4.6B in value was moved through XAUT in August, with over 53K active addresses. 

Most of the XAUT tokens are still on Ethereum, though in the past month, the supply on BNB Chain and Monad increased, potentially moving into new use cases. 

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