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10 September 2025 – Matrixport, the world’s leading all-in-one hub for crypto financial services, announced the official release of a joint research report with the HKUST Institute for Financial Research titled “Tokenized Gold: Redefining Financial Infrastructure for the World’s Oldest and Most Trusted Asset Class.” This publication marks the launch of their collaborative research on gold tokenisation products. Going forward, the two parties will continue to deliver case studies and data-driven research, deepening expertise in this field and equipping the industry with practical insights and valuable perspectives.
This academic report was co-authored by Bo Tang, Head of the HKUST Institute for Financial Research, and Eva Meng, Head of Matrixdock, Matrixport’s RWA tokenisation platform. The report begins by examining efficiency challenges of the new financial paradigm, highlighting that gold tokenisation can serve as a foundational asset within the emerging financial architecture.
The report notes that growing pressures on monetary trust worldwide, coupled with dual-challenges of efficiency and adaptability in cross-border payment systems, are intensifying the inherent constraints of traditional value assets. With growing discrepancies in global asset allocation and limited integration between national capital markets, the structural limitation of traditional core reserve assets such as gold has become increasingly evident. At the same time, emerging ecosystems such as blockchain lack effective interfaces with real-world financial infrastructure, making it difficult for asset interaction, credit alignment, and value interoperability. As a result, markets are calling for new financial architecture and digital frameworks to bridge these gaps.
Drawing on on-chain asset flow data, transaction structures, and lending behaviour across key dimensions, Bo Tang and Eva Meng outline the on-chain value and structural advantages of tokenized gold, along with its applications in payments, trading, liquidity dynamics, and broader real-world use cases. They also examine the trust frameworks, regulatory landscape, and potential risks and challenges shaping the RWA tokenisation sector. Leveraging unique insights and robust on-chain data, the report offers research findings that bridge theory and practice, offering actionable insights for the industry.
Bo Tang, Head of the HKUST Institute for Financial Research, remarked, “Amid the global trend toward financial digitisation and asset tokenisation, gold—universally recognised as a store of value free from sovereign credit risk—is facing a historic opportunity for structural transformation. As the real-world asset (RWA) most likely to achieve scale, gold tokens not only extend gold’s traditional role as the ‘ultimate store of value’ but also leverage programmable, composable and cross-chain features to integrate monetary and asset attributes. They are poised to serve as core collateral in next-generation DeFi infrastructure, a neutral settlement medium for cross-border payments, and a digital reserve asset for emerging market economies, thereby playing a more pivotal and multifaceted role in the future global monetary and asset system.”
“Tokenized gold backed by physical gold is bringing greater transparency and liquidity to the gold industry. It is not a challenge to the financial system but rather a response to structural issues within the gold sector itself, including persistent problems such as information opacity, fragmented liquidity, and limited use cases. With verifiable on-chain holdings, open interaction interfaces and seamless integration with DeFi, gold tokens are evolving from mere price anchors into core components of financial applications,” said Eva Meng, Head of Matrixdock. “We will continue to work with the HKUST Institute for Financial Research to explore practical pathways for applying RWA tokenisation to traditional assets such as gold, driving the digital transformation of the gold industry.”
In August 2025, Matrixport signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the HKUST Institute for Financial Research to jointly pursue cutting-edge financial research on digital assets and RWA tokenisation, with the goal of addressing real-world challenges and fostering sustainable growth in both Hong Kong’s and the global fintech ecosystems. The release of the academic report “Tokenized Gold: Redefining Financial Infrastructure for the World’s Oldest and Most Trusted Asset Class” marks the beginning of Matrixport and HKUST Institute for Financial Research’s dedicated research into gold tokenisation products. Looking ahead, both parties will strengthen collaboration between industry and academia, delivering deeper insights and impactful findings to the market, and accelerating the integration of RWA tokenisation with traditional finance.
Report download link：https://matrixdock.gitbook.io/matrixdock-docs/english/knowledge-hub-and-reports/hkust-matrixdock-tokenized-gold-report
