From the on-chain integration of U.S. Treasury bonds to the rise of the "digital gold" concept, RWA (Real World Assets) has transitioned from a slogan to a reality. Recently, the price of gold has reached new highs, drawing more attention to gold RWA. However, most gold tokens still merely map physical assets onto the blockchain, lacking the unique advantages of composability found in the crypto world. In the past, gold was often seen as a typical passive asset for value preservation; now, on-chain gold tokens can "earn interest, be collateralized, and collaborate" (for example, they can be compatible with certain DeFi protocols, allowing users to access yield opportunities; they can also be used as collateral according to specific platform rules and achieve interoperability across different applications). Connecting traditional assets to an open on-chain financial network, giving them verifiable, tradable, and composable characteristics, is the key to this wave of RWA innovation. The XAUm launched by Matrixdock achieves the transformation of RWA from passive to active assets through transparency, security, compliance, and a rich on-chain ecosystem.

Gold Tokens Backed by Physical Assets: What is XAUm

XAUm is a high-standard gold token launched by Matrixdock, a RWA platform under the Matrixport Group. Each XAUm is 1:1 pegged to one troy ounce (approximately 31.1 grams) of physical gold, certified by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), with a purity of 99.99%. This gold is stored in high-security vaults in Singapore and Hong Kong by globally recognized custodians and supports offline physical redemption (with a minimum redemption amount of 1 kilogram of gold bars). In other words, holding XAUm tokens is equivalent to holding an equal amount of redeemable physical gold, with sufficient physical backing for its value and security.

Compared to some existing gold tokens, XAUm is technically innovative. It is compatible with both ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards—meaning XAUm can be freely traded on-chain as a fungible token and can also be minted on demand as an NFT representing a specific gold bar (for example, when a user accumulates 1 kilogram of gold, they can mint an NFT corresponding to that gold bar). This design gives XAUm both the liquidity of a token and the transparency of independent identification for each gold bar. With support for mainstream standards, XAUm can flexibly integrate into various DeFi applications and wallets, serving different forms of assets in different scenarios.

Multi-chain interoperability is also a major highlight of XAUm. Since its official issuance in September 2024, XAUm has been deployed on mainstream blockchains such as Ethereum and BNB Chain, and has achieved cross-chain circulation management through solutions like Chainlink CCIP. More notably, in August 2025, XAUm completed its native issuance on the Sui public chain. Sui is an emerging high-performance L1 chain that uses the Move language and features parallel execution and sub-second confirmation. This deployment marks a leap in XAUm's technical architecture and ecosystem scale, allowing gold assets to enter the non-Ethereum ecosystem in a "natively on-chain" form, opening up new space for speed and composability. Currently, XAUm has achieved compatibility with multiple networks, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, PlumeNetwork, and HashKey, and has launched on well-known protocols such as UniSwap, PancakeSwap, Curve, and Kinza, ranking among the top three in on-chain adoption for gold tokens. It can be said that whether you are on Ethereum, BNB Chain, or the emerging Sui network, you can easily access and use XAUm. This extensive network coverage lays the foundation for the circulation of gold assets on-chain.

In just one year, XAUm has achieved significant development and recognition. As a digital gold backed by physical assets, it successfully merges the stable value of gold with the flexibility and efficiency of blockchain, revitalizing this ancient asset in the digital age. Gold is no longer just a static asset sitting in vaults; through XAUm, it can circulate flexibly in digital form on-chain.

Transparency and Governance: "Visible, Countable, Redeemable"

For all RWA projects, security and transparency are lifelines. XAUm sets a high industry standard in this regard, striving to be "visible, countable, and redeemable."

First, in terms of reserve transparency, Matrixdock regularly hires independent auditing firms to conduct comprehensive audits of XAUm's physical gold reserves. In the first half of 2025, the international authoritative testing agency Bureau Veritas released the reserve audit report for XAUm. The report shows that as of mid-2025, the physical gold holdings in the Matrixdock vault had increased by 500% compared to the beginning of the year. Currently, there are 421 one-kilogram LBMA standard gold bars supporting the reserves for XAUm tokens. Each gold bar is individually inspected, weighed, and verified against vault records by auditors. The audit report has been publicly released on the Matrixdock website, and anyone can access it. Additionally, Matrixdock has launched a gold holding inquiry tool, allowing investors to track the gold batch and barcode corresponding to each XAUm in real-time through on-chain data, achieving dual verification of on-chain transparency and third-party auditing. In the RWA field, projects that disclose reserve details to such high standards are rare. With these measures, XAUm ensures that users can see where the reserves are and can accurately calculate how much gold each token corresponds to.

Secondly, in terms of governance compliance and redeemability, XAUm also provides investors with peace of mind. The physical gold behind each XAUm is stored in internationally recognized vaults and recorded in custody certificates issued by custodians. If users wish to exchange their tokens for physical gold, they can initiate a physical redemption request through the Matrixdock platform after accumulating XAUm equivalent to approximately 1 kilogram of gold bars; after completing the necessary KYC/AML identity and compliance verification, they can withdraw gold bars from designated vaults or choose secure logistics delivery. The entire process is open and transparent, and the corresponding tokens will be burned from the blockchain upon redemption, ensuring that the number of on-chain tokens always matches the offline gold inventory. Currently, Matrixdock has designated vaults in certain countries and regions to support physical delivery, with plans to gradually expand to more global markets. The redemption arrangement distinguishes XAUm from paper gold or linked notes—users can retain the right to claim physical gold under compliant conditions. This trustworthy redemption mechanism is also one of the lifelines for RWA projects.

In addition to its own efforts, institutional participation also underscores XAUm's credibility. In July 2025, Matrixport officially announced that its investment division, Matrixport Ventures, had strategically held XAUm tokens worth $3 million and planned to continue increasing its holdings in phases. As a leading global crypto financial services platform, this move reflects confidence in XAUm's long-term value and stability: on one hand, incorporating gold into its financial reserves helps hedge against cyclical fluctuations and inflation risks; on the other hand, it is a practical action to support the development of the RWA ecosystem. As Matrixport CEO Ge Yuesheng stated, "Strategic holding of XAUm has become an important allocation for institutions to optimize financial reserves and enhance risk resistance." Not only is the parent company investing, but the public chain ecosystem has also shown strong interest in XAUm. In August 2025, the Sui Foundation announced that it would allocate part of its official reserve funds to XAUm, recognizing this project through practical action and viewing tokenized gold as a strategic asset in the asset portfolio of the Web3 era. Institutions like Sui proactively incorporating gold tokens into their asset reserves is a first in the industry. These strong institutional signals undoubtedly enhance market trust in XAUm and indicate that gold tokenization is gaining recognition from more and more heavyweight institutions and organizations.

It is worth mentioning that financial centers like Hong Kong are actively exploring compliant development paths for digital assets, providing a favorable environment for the entire RWA tokenization industry. Matrixdock has positioned part of its gold storage and business layout in Hong Kong, not only because of its well-established gold storage and trading infrastructure but also because Hong Kong regulators are actively embracing compliant tokenized asset innovations. Since the end of 2023, Hong Kong has successively issued virtual asset policy declarations and stablecoin regulatory frameworks, supporting RWA exploration within a regulated environment. Matrixport also signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with the Financial Research Institute of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on August 14, 2025, using its gold token XAUm as a research basis. Both parties will jointly explore the application mechanisms, user behavior, and channel strategies of RWA (real asset tokenization) in the global market and conduct visualization and risk monitoring research using on-chain financial data.

Gold is Not Just for Storage: On-chain and CeFi Uses of XAUm

In traditional thinking, gold is more often seen as a means of value storage—"buy and hold" to gain price appreciation; however, in the on-chain financial world of XAUm, gold can be endowed with more "active" uses—allowing assets to work for them and exploring more potential yield opportunities. XAUm is actively expanding its applications on both DeFi and centralized platforms (CeFi), indicating that gold is not just passively held but can also be used for collateral, settlement, and participation in more advanced DeFi strategies within a compliant framework, enhancing allocation efficiency and liquidity.

On-chain "yield-generating" gold: Continuously exploring the application of gold tokens on-chain

Thanks to XAUm's deployment across multiple public chain networks, users can freely integrate it into various DeFi protocols, implementing yield strategies similar to stablecoins and other crypto assets. For example, on BNB Chain, XAUm achieved collateralized lending through KinzaFinance shortly after its issuance: holders can collateralize XAUm to borrow stablecoins like USDT/USDC, with an initial collateralization rate of up to 70%. On PlumeNetwork, which focuses on compliant real asset finance, XAUm is viewed as a programmable financial primitive, capable of being used as collateral, a settlement medium, and even participating in yield strategies. The Plume team pointed out that a pain point in the traditional gold market is that holding gold yields almost no returns, but by tokenizing gold and integrating it into DeFi, "gold can be used to participate in yield strategies that were previously difficult to achieve (active yield)." This showcases a new value of gold to global investors: they can enjoy gold's anti-inflation and hedging properties while also using it for on-chain lending and deposit products. It can be imagined that as more DeFi protocols accept gold tokens as pricing or collateral assets, gold will no longer be just a "dead inventory" of wealth but will become an actively operating component of investment portfolios.

Recently, on the newly launched Sui chain, XAUm has integrated as a "native asset" into a rapidly developing emerging DeFi ecosystem. The high throughput and low latency characteristics of Sui significantly enhance the trading and interaction experience of XAUm. According to data, on the day XAUm was launched on Sui, the trading volume of the XAUm trading pair on the decentralized exchange Momentum exceeded one million dollars within 24 hours. This has opened an unprecedented high-speed channel for traditional gold assets. On the Sui network, XAUm has connected with underlying oracle and wallet infrastructure: for instance, PythNetwork provides real-time price feeds for XAUm, and the Sui native wallet application Slush has also launched XAUm, ensuring users have a smooth experience. Moreover, several mainstream DeFi protocols on Sui (such as MomentumDEX, Navi Lending, AlphaLend, AlphaFi, Nodo, etc.) are gradually completing XAUm integration, which will support XAUm as a trading pair asset, collateral, or source of yield.

Ecosystem Empowerment of Centralized Platforms

In addition to thriving in the decentralized world, XAUm's functionalities on centralized financial platforms are also continuously expanding. As the issuer of XAUm, Matrixdock leverages Matrixport's comprehensive product line to empower XAUm and expand more diverse investment and wealth management channels. First, the Matrixport platform has supported features such as collateralized lending for XAUm. Users holding XAUm can use it for pledge loans within the Matrixport app, obtaining liquidity without selling their gold holdings. According to official announcements, Matrixport's pledge lending products have long included XAUm in their support list, allowing users to pledge digital gold to borrow USDT/USDC, thus achieving the convenience of "borrowing without liquidating gold." This is particularly useful for investors with short-term liquidity needs who do not want to give up their long-term gold allocation.

Secondly, Matrixport also provides a regular investment service for XAUm, allowing users to periodically invest a fixed amount in XAUm, reducing timing risks and gradually accumulating gold assets. Launched in May 2025, XAUm Smart-Invest is a smart contract-based on-chain regular investment service. Users can connect their wallets through the Matrixdock website and set investment amounts and frequencies, after which the smart contract will automatically execute regular purchases of XAUm in each cycle. Supported assets include regular stablecoins and some interest-bearing assets (such as Aave interest-bearing USDT), meaning users can even use other investment returns to automatically purchase gold, achieving cross-category rolling appreciation of assets. As Eva Meng, head of Matrixdock, stated: "With XAUm Smart-Invest, investors can seamlessly build gold positions with small, frequent investments without timing the market, spreading costs while increasing profit margins." Compared to traditional manual regular investments, on-chain smart investments offer higher capital efficiency and intelligence: not only do they eliminate the inconvenience of manual operations, but they also introduce space for strategy optimization (for example, dynamically adjusting frequency with market fluctuations). In the current environment of high macro uncertainty, fluctuating gold prices, and significant financial market volatility, this tool timely meets investors' needs for stable gold allocation.

Additionally, the Matrixport platform has developed a variety of wealth management products around XAUm. For instance, to meet different risk preferences, the platform may launch structured products that combine XAUm with other assets, allowing gold to participate in these advanced strategies. Some innovative products even combine XAUm with volatile assets like Bitcoin, designing strategies for automatic rebalancing or yield swaps, enabling users to invest in both gold and crypto assets simultaneously. For example, Matrixport once launched the "XAUm + BTC Dual Automatic Investment" feature, which meets users' long-term allocation needs with a "Long XAUm, Long BTC" approach by regularly investing in gold and Bitcoin according to a preset ratio. Relying on these unique designs, the stability of gold complements the aggressiveness of Bitcoin, providing investors with new asset allocation pathways.

It can be seen that whether on-chain or off-chain, XAUm is rapidly broadening the application boundaries of gold. In the DeFi world, gold tokens can be combined like Lego blocks into various financial puzzles, generating yields and improving efficiency; on CeFi platforms, gold tokens are packaged into familiar wealth management services, lowering usage barriers and releasing liquidity. This traditional asset, gold, is transforming into a digital character that can actively operate through XAUm, playing a role in various dimensions of financial scenarios.

Gold Bars Start to Run, RWA Truly Begins

Recently, the World Gold Council (WGC) released its latest research and pilot plans on digital gold, proposing concepts such as "wholesale-level digital gold" and "Standard Gold Units (SGU)," which are expected to be gradually promoted by 2026. This signal indicates that as an important research institution in the global gold industry, the WGC has also recognized that gold must move towards digitization to better integrate into future financial infrastructure.

The various explorations of XAUm are at the forefront of the industry, demonstrating its foresight and providing a clear path for future RWA development: simply putting assets on-chain is not the end goal; integrating quality assets into an open digital financial system, achieving verifiability, usability, and high-speed circulation, is the true demand of the on-chain world for RWA. Over the past year, XAUm has completed a series of milestone explorations, from issuance and multi-chain expansion to deep integration into DeFi and attracting institutional allocations. This series of advancements indicates that gold, which once "slept" in vaults, can be endowed with the dynamism of the digital age, unleashing value far beyond traditional categories.

When gold bars "learn to run," it signifies that traditional finance and the crypto world are further merging. XAUm's explorations indicate that the future of Real World Assets lies not in simply issuing a token for a certain asset, but in how to endow it with active energy after tokenization, making it an "active asset": capable of circulating reliably on-chain and participating in various financial collaborations, thereby releasing higher capital efficiency and innovation space.

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