As traditional gold markets heat up, crypto investors are following suit—flocking to tokenized versions of the precious metal that offer both price exposure and digital flexibility.

Gold-backed cryptocurrencies like Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) have risen 24.15% and 23.7% respectively year-to-date to new all-time highs above $3,300, roughly matching the performance of spot gold. Their prices have since receded slightly to $3,265 and $3,244, respectively.

While gold-backed cryptocurrencies surged so far this year, the wider cryptocurrency market has been in a downtrend. Bitcoin (BTC) has lost more than 11% of its value so far this year, while the wider crypto market has fallen by a little over 30%, based on the CoinDesk 20 (