Digital Gold Is a $50 Billion Market Today. What Will It Take to Unlock Its Next Phase of Growth?

With nearly nine in ten retail investors open to digital gold under the right conditions, a new World Gold Council report highlights the opportunities and barriers shaping the market’s future.

Gold ownership is evolving. From physical bars and coins to exchange-traded funds and app-based accounts, each new format has changed how investors access the precious metal. Tokenisation represents the latest development in this transition, bringing gold ownership onto blockchain-based infrastructure and potentially enabling greater divisibility, transferability and financial utility.

Yet, despite growing interest in digital assets, digital gold remains a relatively small segment of the global gold market.

According to the World Gold Council’s October 2026 report, Digital Gold: Unlocking a $700-Billion Opportunity, the digital gold market is currently valued at approximately $45–55 billion. The report draws on a survey of more than 12,000 retail investors, interviews with 20 industry experts and market modelling to assess what could drive adoption through 2031.

Its central finding is significant: investor interest is already substantial, but converting that interest into actual participation will require progress on trust, accessibility, utility and cost.

Vaulted Digital Gold Dominates, but Tokenisation Is Gaining Momentum

Digital gold is not a single product category. The World Gold Council distinguishes between two primary formats: vaulted digital gold and tokenised gold.

Vaulted digital gold allows investors to own physical gold held in secure custody through an account or digital platform. Tokenised gold, meanwhile, represents ownership of a specified quantity of physical gold through a digital token, typically issued on a blockchain.

The distinction matters because the two formats are at different stages of market development.

Vaulted digital gold accounts for approximately 89% of the digital gold market by value, while tokenised gold represents around 11%. Vaulted products have a longer operating history, with early offerings dating back to 2005. Tokenised gold products emerged later, with examples such as Paxos Gold launching in 2019.

However, tokenised gold has become an important source of recent market activity. The report estimates that its market value increased fivefold from late 2024 to October 2026, rising from approximately $1.2 billion to $6 billion. Tether Gold and Paxos Gold account for more than 90% of the public tokenised gold market.

The broader significance is not simply that one format is growing faster than another. It is that gold ownership is beginning to intersect with the wider digitisation of financial assets, creating scope for new distribution channels and potential applications.

A $700 Billion Opportunity, but Adoption Remains the Key Question

The gap between the existing market and its potential is striking. The World Gold Council estimates that digital gold could unlock up to $700 billion in latent demand over the longer term if barriers to adoption are addressed. This represents a potential pool of demand, not a near-term market forecast.

For the period through 2031, the report presents three scenarios. Its base case projects the digital gold market reaching $160–170 billion, implying annual growth of approximately 27%. Under a more favourable scenario, the market could reach $270–280 billion. If adoption barriers persist, growth could be more limited, with the market reaching $70–80 billion.

These scenarios suggest that technology alone will not determine the market’s trajectory. The pace of adoption will depend on whether digital gold products can establish credibility, reach investors through familiar channels and offer a clear value proposition relative to other ways of owning gold.

Trust, Access, Utility and Cost Will Shape the Next Phase

Trust remains fundamental. Nearly four in five investors surveyed identified trust in the provider as a priority. Investors need clarity on the physical backing of their holdings, custody arrangements, consumer protections and the circumstances under which they can redeem their holdings for physical gold. Greater regulatory clarity and transparent product structures will be important in addressing these concerns.

Accessibility will influence participation. The report finds that markets where digital gold is available through familiar channels, including banking apps, payment platforms and super-apps, have significantly higher penetration. In markets such as India and Indonesia, integration into established digital platforms has helped broaden access. For tokenised gold, reaching beyond crypto-native users could be particularly important.

Utility could expand beyond ownership. Digital gold’s potential applications include using holdings as collateral, accessing lending arrangements and facilitating payments. These use cases remain at different stages of development, but they point to a broader question: can digital infrastructure make gold useful in more financial contexts, rather than simply changing how it is purchased and held?

Pricing will remain a practical consideration. Digital distribution does not eliminate the costs associated with sourcing gold, secure custody and compliance. Products will therefore need to remain competitive with alternative forms of gold ownership. Greater convenience or technological sophistication may not be sufficient if the overall cost structure is unattractive.

Could Digital Gold Bring New Investors into the Gold Market?

One of the report’s most notable findings is that digital gold could expand participation rather than merely shift existing gold holdings between products.

Approximately 65% of the estimated latent demand comes from people who do not currently own gold. The report also finds that 52% of existing digital gold holders had not owned gold in any form before their first digital purchase. Of that group, 92% subsequently bought other forms of gold.

These findings suggest that digital access can serve as an entry point into the wider gold market. Rather than competing exclusively with physical gold or gold-backed exchange-traded funds, digital products may also attract individuals who have not previously participated in gold ownership.

Younger investors could play an important role in this expansion. Awareness of digital gold stands at 50% among respondents aged 25–34, compared with 23% among those aged 55 and above. However, awareness and willingness to invest will translate into sustained participation only if the products meet investors’ expectations around security, usability and cost.

From Digital Ownership to Financial Infrastructure

The next phase of digital gold will depend on more than the growth of token issuance or transaction volumes. It will require an ecosystem that connects physical gold, secure custody, transparent ownership records, accessible distribution and appropriate safeguards.

For tokenisation, this creates a broader opportunity. Blockchain-based infrastructure could enable gold ownership to become more divisible and transferable, while potentially supporting new applications across digital asset markets. But these possibilities depend on the underlying product structure, the rights attached to each token and the reliability of the institutions and systems supporting it.

The World Gold Council’s findings point to a market at an important stage of development. Digital gold has demonstrated investor appeal and is beginning to establish a meaningful market presence, yet it remains small relative to the wider gold industry.

Whether that interest translates into a much larger market by 2031 will depend on the industry's ability to bridge the gap between technological possibility and investor confidence. The next stage of growth may ultimately be determined not by how digitally gold can be represented, but by how securely, transparently and usefully it can be owned.

Source: World Gold Council, Digital Gold: Unlocking a $700-Billion Opportunity, October 2026.