Gold in the vault can still participate in on-chain finance? Matrixdock XAUm offers a new answer
At the Le Freeport vault near Singapore Changi Airport, the movement of a single gold bar is tightly restricted. Entering the vault requires identity verification, and touching or photographing the bars must take place within a designated display area under staff guidance; any movement beyond the permitted scope may trigger security alarms. On the blockchain, however, tokens backed by physical gold can circulate between different addresses and further participate in financial activities such as trading, collateralization, and lending.
This combination of off-chain secure custody and on-chain flexible circulation is opening up new application possibilities for gold, a traditional store-of-value asset. On October 9, global digital financial services platform BIT (formerly Matrixport) hosted the "Inside the Vault" event, inviting guests to step inside the Le Freeport vault in Singapore for a close-up look at the professional custody environment for physical gold. For Matrixdock, BIT's RWA tokenization platform, this vault not only showcases the professional custody of physical gold but also bears witness to an important milestone in its gold token XAUm's journey from an on-chain asset to physical delivery.
Gold Bars Stay in the Vault—So How Does Gold Make Its Way On-Chain?
In traditional gold investment, physical custody, transportation, and settlement have always been important links in the chain. But with the development of RWA tokenization, gold is gaining another mode of circulation: the bars remain in the custody of professional institutions, while the corresponding tokens can be transferred and traded on the blockchain, without the need to physically move the gold for every on-chain transaction.
Matrixdock's gold token XAUm is a concrete implementation of this model. Each XAUm is backed 1:1 by one troy ounce of 99.99% pure physical gold, with the underlying gold sourced from refiners that meet the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Good Delivery standards. At the same time, through mechanisms such as independent audits and on-chain proof of reserves, Matrixdock provides verifiable support for the correspondence between on-chain tokens and off-chain physical gold.
On April 22, 2025, Matrixdock completed the first physical gold bar redemption of XAUm at Le Freeport in Singapore: 32.148 XAUm was burned on-chain, corresponding to the delivery of a single 1-kilogram physical gold bar. The relevant token transfer and burn records can all be publicly verified via Etherscan, providing a transparent and traceable record of the on-chain operations in the redemption process and demonstrating the practical connection between gold tokens and physical asset delivery.
This case illustrates the practical value of gold tokenization: the physical gold remains in the custody of professional institutions, while eligible holders can hold and transfer gold assets through on-chain tokens and redeem physical gold in accordance with the relevant procedures. And when gold bars no longer need to move for every on-chain transaction, the corresponding tokens gain the opportunity to enter a broader range of financial scenarios, allowing gold to further participate in on-chain trading, liquidity, and collateral activities beyond traditional holding and physical settlement.
Starting from a Single Vault, Glimpsing the Broader Possibilities of RWA
This shift is already reflected in the expansion of XAUm's on-chain ecosystem. In June 2026, XAUm was officially natively issued on the Stellar network, further expanding its application base within that network's RWA ecosystem. In the same month, XAUm became the first RWA collateral asset accepted by Venus Protocol's Fixed-Term Vault on BNB Chain, bringing the physical gold-backed token further into on-chain collateral and financing scenarios. In September, Matrixdock announced that it would bring XAUm to Arc, the Layer-1 blockchain built by Circle, making it the first tokenized gold asset on that network; the XAUm/USDC trading pair has also gone live on Uniswap.
These developments correspond to different application directions for gold tokenization: Stellar provides XAUm with a new native issuance network, Venus enables it to serve as a collateral asset in fixed-term on-chain financial products, and Arc further connects the gold token with the USDC liquidity market. In addition, according to product arrangements disclosed by Matrixdock, eligible XAUm redemptions can receive USDC redemption proceeds on the same day after submitting the required transaction credentials and meeting the relevant terms and requirements, providing a new pathway connecting gold assets with stablecoin liquidity.
From Stellar and Venus to Arc, XAUm's applications are gradually extending from on-chain holding of gold to more stages including trading, liquidity, collateral, and redemption settlement. These developments also reflect an important direction for RWA tokenization: beyond bringing real-world assets onto the blockchain, how to ensure that the underlying assets are genuinely verifiable and further unlock their application value in on-chain finance is equally worthy of attention.
From the tokenized short-term U.S. Treasury product STBT to the gold token XAUm and the silver token XAGm, Matrixdock continues to expand its RWA product lineup and is committed to building a Reserve Layer for on-chain finance. Different asset classes have different underlying structures and operational requirements, but professional custody, transparent verification, and on-chain application capabilities are becoming an important foundation connecting traditional financial assets with on-chain financial markets.
This visit to the Le Freeport vault offers an intuitive window into the development of gold tokenization: the gold bars remain strictly guarded in a professional vault, yet their corresponding tokens are already able to participate in financial activities such as trading, liquidity, and collateral across different blockchain ecosystems. From the professional custody and verification of physical gold to the flexible circulation and diverse applications of on-chain assets, Matrixdock is gradually expanding the ways gold can be used in digital financial markets. Gold bars need not move for every on-chain transaction, but the application space for gold in on-chain finance continues to expand.
