Tokenized gold has already shown itself to be an important investment, with geopolitical stresses causing the value of gold-backed tokens to surge, even as bitcoin’s value simultaneously fell. It is clear that gold, in whatever form it takes, remains the number one geopolitical hedge, despite the claims made for cryptocurrency. Gold is the pre-eminent asset class, retaining its value in a way that any kind of currency, crypto or fiat just does not, providing an unbeatable hedge against inflation.
Current tokenized gold products such as Paxos and tether gold are not tokenized gold per se, they are gold backed tokens, i.e. they are tokens whose value is guaranteed by gold owned by the issuers. With Mattereum it is possible to tokenize and fractionalize gold directly, that is, to create tokens that can be traded on the blockchain that also give the token holder actual legal ownership of the underlying physical gold itself.
If someone purchases a tokenized gold bar which has a Mattereum Asset Passport (MAP), their token will be legally connected to that gold bar in a way that proves ownership of the gold itself in 170 countries worldwide. The token owner, if they so wish, can turn up at the vault that holds the bar, show them their MAP and be able to withdraw the physical gold itself, burning their token when they do so. The MAP will provide the token owner with details of the vault holding the gold and the identity of the specific gold bar they own. The same holds true for owners of tokens of fractionalized gold, although a token owner there cannot remove the whole bar of which they own a fraction without the consent of the other owners. Fractionalized token owners will still be able to verify the physical existence and location of the gold that their token makes them the legal owner of, though.
No other company can provide this service. Mattereum has partnered with the German regulated exchange Swarm and with gold refiners and vaults to be able to directly tokenize gold in this way. Live trials of this system have already been carried out, with tokenized gold being successfully sold on OpenSea and redeemed from its vault by token owners. This is not pie-in-the-sky promises of future developments designed just to woo investors, it is a real working system in operation now and has massive potential for the future.
