New Generation of Gold ETFs: Hong Kong Scholars Explain the On-Chain Yield Advantages of Tokenized Gold

StakeTillRetire · 2026-01-21T09:40:01+00:00

The academic community in Hong Kong is increasingly paying attention to gold tokenization, believing it has the potential to reshape the Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization market. As on-chain certificates, gold tokens differ from traditional gold ETFs in that holders can directly redeem physical gold and earn interest income. By leveraging blockchain technology, they breathe new life into traditional safe-haven assets.

StakeTillRetire

2026-01-21 09:40:01

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Recently, the academic community in Hong Kong has been increasingly focused on the topic of gold tokenization. Dr. Tang Bo, Assistant Dean of the Institute of Financial Studies at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, stated that gold tokenization is gradually entering the forefront of the most promising track for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. As a traditional safe-haven asset, gold’s financial value is undergoing a new evolution through blockchain technology, opening up a completely different realm of possibilities from traditional gold ETFs.

How Gold Tokenization Reshapes the RWA Track

Gold tokenization fundamentally differs from traditional gold ETFs. A gold token is an on-chain certificate that corresponds 1:1 with physical gold, giving holders the right to directly extract the physical asset from the vault. This represents true asset ownership. In contrast, gold ETFs mainly serve as asset certificates, and investors hold an indirect ownership.

More importantly, gold tokens possess a dynamic attribute that traditional ETFs do not— they can generate interest income on the blockchain network. Through the application of DeFi protocols such as collateralization and lending, the financial properties of gold tokens are fully activated, giving this ancient asset a new vitality.

The Financial Imagination of On-Chain Gold: From Static Holding to Dynamic Empowerment

Gold tokenization technology not only preserves gold’s traditional attribute as a safe-haven asset but also endows it with a new identity for financial interaction through on-chain mechanisms. This means holders no longer face the binary dilemma of “either hold securely or give up appreciation,” but can instead enable gold assets to continuously generate returns within the blockchain ecosystem.

From this perspective, gold tokenization presents a more flexible and vibrant alternative compared to the traditional gold ETF products popular in Hong Kong and other regions, indicating that there will be more room for imagination in the future of the RWA field.

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