Author: Jae, PANews

The much-anticipated Christmas rally didn't favor the cryptocurrency market, but instead ignited a gold and silver frenzy. Recently, spot gold prices quietly broke through the $4,500 per ounce mark, while silver's performance was even more impressive, reaching $75 per ounce for the first time, with its year-to-date gains approaching 160%.

This enthusiasm has also spread to the crypto market. Fueled by the precious metals bull market, the pace of commodities being tokenized on blockchains has accelerated this year, with the total market capitalization of tokenized gold and silver approaching $4 billion. Many Perp DEXs (decentralized perpetual contract exchanges) have successively listed precious metals. For example, the leading protocol Ostium has seen its cumulative trading volume exceed $30 billion, with perpetual contracts for commodities accounting for as much as 40% of that.

Macroeconomic safe-haven premium ignites precious metals bull market

The underlying logic behind the epic commodity price surge is not driven by a single factor, but rather by the convergence of three factors: a shift in monetary policy, a dollar credit crisis, and geopolitical conflicts. From a macroeconomic policy perspective, the Federal Reserve abandoned its "higher and longer" tightening stance in the second half of this year, implementing three consecutive interest rate cuts to address a potential economic recession. This policy shift directly led to the dollar index falling to its lowest level since March 2022, thereby significantly reducing the opportunity cost of holding non-interest-bearing assets such as gold and silver.

Major traditional financial institutions have unanimously expressed optimism about the commodities sector. Goldman Sachs predicts that gold prices will rise to $4,900 in 2026, citing global central bank gold purchases and Federal Reserve interest rate cuts as the dual drivers of this upward trend. Analysts point out that geopolitical risks and economic uncertainty are prompting emerging market central banks to accelerate their gold purchases, while potential entry by private investors could further push up gold prices. Goldman Sachs expects global central bank gold purchases to remain around 70 tons per month in 2026.

In its 2026 Commodities Outlook report, IG indicated that gold's upward trend is likely to continue, benefiting from declining real yields, high government spending, and continued central bank gold purchases, potentially breaking through $5,000 amid a favorable macroeconomic environment. Silver has entered a price exploration phase. With supply shortages for the fifth consecutive year and accelerating industrial demand, technical models point to $72 or even $88. The precious metals sector is driven by real macroeconomic demand and possesses long-term structural support.

Yardeni Research has raised its gold price target, predicting it will reach $6,000 by the end of 2026 and potentially $10,000 by the end of 2029. Yardeni points out that geopolitical risks and market concerns about excessive monetary and fiscal stimulus are driving the rise in gold prices.

As the aforementioned institutions have stated, significant changes are taking place in the sovereign reserve sector . In 2025, emerging market central banks, represented by China, Russia, and Poland, demonstrated a strong willingness to allocate gold.

The People's Bank of China increased its gold reserves for the 13th consecutive month; Russia's gold reserves surpassed $300 billion for the first time in November, setting a new modern record; and the Polish central bank announced that it would raise its gold reserve target to 30% of its total assets.

This strategic shift from holding US Treasury bonds to holding gold reserves has effectively created a relatively solid institutional floor for gold prices above $4,000. In this context, gold is no longer merely seen as a safe-haven asset, but may become a neutral anchor in the global financial order's move towards de-dollarization.

The tokenized commodities market expands to $4 billion, a robust threefold increase in one year.

While traditional hard asset markets are experiencing structural premiums, precious metals (RWA) are also entering a period of rapid growth.

As of December 26, the total market capitalization of tokenized commodities had climbed to $3.95 billion, an increase of nearly $3 billion since the beginning of the year, representing a year-to-date growth of approximately 300%. Commodities have become the most active asset class in the RWA tokenization space after government bonds, with funds rapidly flowing into the tokenized commodities market.

Currently, tokenized gold holds an absolute dominant position in this niche market, with a market share exceeding 80%. Tether Gold (XAUT) and Paxos Gold (PAXG), as the two leading companies in the sector, have market capitalizations of $1.7 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, with recent 30-day increases of 8.53% and 16.83%, respectively.

This on-chain gold model will significantly optimize holding costs and liquidity in the traditional gold market. By mapping each ounce of physical gold stored in vaults in London or Switzerland into on-chain tokens, investors will be able to trade with a lower share threshold.

The essence of this trend is the atomization and real-time processing of financial assets. In the traditional financial system, the delivery of commodities typically requires complex settlement processes and high logistics costs; however, on-chain, proof of reserves implemented through smart contracts will allow the authenticity of each tokenized commodity to be verified in real time, significantly reducing the marginal costs of anti-money laundering and due diligence.

On-chain gold and silver trading is gaining popularity.

This year, not only have centralized exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and Gate gradually launched spot and contract trading for XAUT/PAXG, but Perp DEX has also been adding new precious metals. If RWA tokenization optimizes and solves the settlement and circulation issues of commodities, then Perp DEX provides tools for speculation and hedging.

The bullish trend in precious metals may have also benefited the Perp DEX sector. PANews compiled statistics on several platforms offering commodity trading, and three of them reported daily trading volumes exceeding ten million US dollars. Ostium, a leading commodity trading protocol, has shown remarkably strong growth momentum this month.

Ostium's differentiated positioning, focusing heavily on commodity trading, is likely the main reason for its meteoric rise in the fiercely competitive Perp DEX market. While competitors like Hyperliquid are still locked in a fierce battle over cryptocurrency derivatives, over 95% of the open interest on the Ostium platform is concentrated in traditional assets such as gold, energy, and forex. During the gold price surge to $4,500, Ostium captured over 50% of the on-chain gold perpetual contract holdings.

To date, Ostium's cumulative trading volume has surpassed the $30 billion mark, with commodities trading accounting for approximately 40% of the total. The platform's growth trajectory reflects a diversified shift in the crypto user profile: from a singular focus on "crypto speculators" to include "macro hedge traders."

The rise of on-chain commodity trading reveals not only a shift in monetary credit but also a migration of macro-asset trading paradigms. A parallel market driven by smart contracts is quietly maturing.

This also signifies that the crypto market is offering investors mainstream assets beyond alternatives. This is not only a technological victory, but also a necessary choice for investors to diversify their asset allocation in an era of uncertainty.

The on-chain war for commodities may have only just begun.