For my sins, I occasionally spend time on crypto Twitter. It’s a great place for Pepe memes, writing BULLISH or BEARISH like an addict with a caps lock problem, and declaring that everything is about to go ‘parabolic’. More recently, it’s been distracted by precious metals.
It turns out that the real meme coins were the things we used to make actual coins from. At the time of writing, gold is up 77% on the dollar for the year, and silver is going mega, super, hyper parabolic at 213%*. As you’d expect, there’s a clamour to bring tokenised precious metals to the blockchain.
*Note: On a revisit this weekend (Feb 7, 2026), figures would be 73% for gold and 142% for silver, a notable drop, but still outstanding annual performance.
I’m no expert on gold, so Kurt Hemecker, CEO of Gold Token SA, a company which is now owned by leading precious metals company MKS PAMP, talks me through what’s going on. Kurt tells me that prices are being pumped by ‘the three D’s’. These are:
Debasement: As currency loses its value through inflation.
Deglobalisation: As international trade enters a tetchy phase. Think tariffs.
Decentralisation: Gold isn’t governed by a single government or entity, which makes it an attractive investment right now.
“Collectively as a society, we're living in this new era of what do we trust? How do we trust it?,” says Hemecker.
“If you consider gold, there is no central entity that controls it. If you have gold, you have gold. Nobody can suddenly debase the value of it or take it away from you, and there's no central organization controlling it, so it's really like a bearer instrument."
Remind You of Anything?
Sounds a little like Bitcoin, no? I’m not going to argue that gold is decentralised in the same way, but it does have decentralised properties. As mentioned above, it’s not issued by a central bank or government and it can’t be devalued through policy decisions. Anyone can own it, it’s internationally available, and gold-backed stablecoins could one day be viable as a well recognised international payment method.
There are reasons why gold is somewhat centralised too though. Standards for gold are still set by one entity, the London Bullion Market Association, and most gold is stored across a relatively small number of vaults. Additionally, more than half of the world’s major refineries are based in Switzerland.
Gold also remains at risk of market manipulation and regulatory oversight (what was I saying about bitcoin again?).
Gold Token S.A’s Geneva office.
Why Tokenise It?
Prices are going up. That doesn’t mean that the default response should be to bring gold to the blockchain. However, the case in favour of it is compelling.
For retail investors, the benefits are simple. You can take a tangible, real world asset, and allow people to claim ownership. There’s no need for the investor to actually possess a gold bar, and they can buy ownership of a tiny fraction if desired. With fractional ownership and the ability to buy and sell with instant settlement, gold becomes a more compelling investment.
The institutional use case is slightly spicier. Hemecker mentions that there’s potential for tokenised gold to be used as collateral for lending and repo agreements, which would give it investment qualities above being a store of value. You’d gain interest from the loan without needing to sell your gold.
“These are the advantages of tokenising something on the blockchain,” he says. “You can have physical asset ownership but combined with code, so you have fractional elements, instant settlement 24/7, and you open it up to wider trading opportunities.”
As regulatory clarity emerges, this sort of action may become more commonplace. Hemecker tells me that of the $20 trillion of gold in circulation, only $4 billion is on blockchain. The sky is the limit.
What if you decide to take physical ownership of your gold?
MKS PAMP, through its group companies such as Gold Avenue, enables investors to have their gold delivered to them, starting from as little as one gram. He mentions that other competitors only deliver to Switzerland and have a minimum limit of one delivery bar. Hemecker tells me this typically weighs about 400 ounces and would be valued at about $1.5 million. As he suggests, “if you’re a retail person, you don’t really have that.”
Kurt Hemecker, CEO of Gold Token SA
Tokenised Does Not Equal Good
I’ve held a longstanding suspicion that tokenised assets could create a welcoming environment for fraudsters. Just because something is onchain, that doesn’t mean it’s investible. There’s also scope to misrepresent an asset, or to create hype or fear around it to influence the price. That’s why it’s important that we have confidence in the asset that’s being tokenised, and likewise the governance around it.
This is where Hemecker and Gold Token SA see a clear opportunity in bringing tokenized gold to scale. For more than 60 years, MKS PAMP has operated across refining, vaulting, trading, institutional markets, and retail distribution, providing end-to-end control of the gold lifecycle. It’s built a strong reputation and earned the trust of the market.
“It’s just like every treasury bond is not the same bond,” he says. “A US Treasury bond is not the same as an Argentinian or Venezuelan government bond. So you should ask, what’s the gold backing that token? Here, that gold meets London Bullion Market Association standards.”
“Banks pay attention to credit ratings, to history, to the reputation of who they’re working with. That’s where I think we’re particularly blessed.”
Final Thoughts
Precious metals are among the first real world assets to be tokenised and there are good reasons for this. The use case is straightforward, the assets have performed relatively well for generations, and demand is international and well established. To me, this seems like a necessary step in the evolution of asset ownership, and it’s not just about bringing gold onchain. A wider range of real world assets will follow.
Gold and silver prices have been surging, and maybe these OG currencies gave us an ‘altcoin season’ after all. But that’s not why I think this is interesting. I’m more interested in the fact that this spike in demand could accelerate the tokenisation of gold, silver, and other precious metals. If that happens, then institutions can gain more utility from gold investments, and it’ll probably be easier than ever to own your very own fraction of a gold bar. And that’s sort of cool.
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