[World Gold Council Plans to Launch Tokenized Gold Framework to Challenge Tether and Paxos] According to Decrypt, the World Gold Council, established in 1987, is collaborating with Boston Consulting Group to propose a 'Gold-as-a-Service' framework aimed at setting standards for tokenized gold and challenging crypto-native issuers like Tether Gold and PAX Gold. This service will provide a shared network, enabling companies issuing tokenized gold to access a unified platform for managing physical reserves, enhancing trust through continuous audits, and establishing interoperability between products. Currently, the tokenized gold market, dominated by Paxos and Tether, has a total market capitalization of approximately $4.9 billion, with each having established independent custody and issuance systems. The World Gold Council previously launched the first U.S. physical gold ETF, SPDR Gold Shares, in 2004, which now has a market capitalization of $126 billion. The council stated that the new service could lower the entry barriers for issuers and potentially give rise to hundreds of tokenized gold products.