Tokenized commodities market cap rises $298M as overall RWA sector sheds $211M in a week

The tokenized real-world asset market had a split-personality kind of week. Commodities surged, stocks quietly gained ground, and tokenized funds cratered hard enough to drag the entire sector into negative territory. According to Token Terminal data published on August 24, tokenized commodities added $297.5M in market cap over seven days. Tokenized stocks chipped in another $166.2M. But tokenized funds lost $674.2M, wiping out both gains and then some, leaving the combined RWA sectors down a net $210.5M for the week. Gold keeps doing gold things The commodities surge wasn’t exactly a mystery. Gold-backed tokens like Tether’s XAUT and Paxos’s PAXG have been the primary engines of the category, and they tend to do well when traditional investors get nervous about everything else. The tokenized commodities market cap hit roughly $7.5B earlier in August, a figure that would have sounded absurd just a couple of years ago. Gold-backed tokens let investors hold exposure to physical gold without dealing with vaults, custodians, or the logistical headaches of moving metal around. Each token is typically backed by a fixed amount of gold held in reserve, and the token price tracks the underl...