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 (CD20) index.

The tokens, which are backed by physical gold and track its price, experienced a surge in value as investors sought refuge from the uncertainty induced by the escalating U.S.-China trade war.

The move echoes a broader return to gold as a safe-haven asset. Inflows into gold ETFs hit 226.5 tonnes in the first quarter of 2025, the highest level since early 2022, according to data from the World Gold Council. Nearly 60% of that demand came from North America.

Similarly, gold-backed cryptocurrencies saw net token minting of over $42.7 million in the first quarter of the year, according to data from RWA.xyz, helping along with gold’s price appreciation raise their total market capitalization near $1.4 billion.

Bitcoin (BTC) proponent Michael Saylor has hinted the company he co-founded, Strategy (MSTR), may be set to announce an additional BTC purchase this week shortly after revealing it expects a net loss in the first quarter of the year over unrealized losses on its massive BTC holdings.

The company has added 80,785 BTC to its balance sheet since the beginning of the year after raising a total of $7.69 billion during the first quarter, with over half of that coming from common stock sales. Most, if not all, of those funds were used to buy bitcoin.

On Sunday, Saylor posted a BTC holdings tracker to X, a move that typically precedes a purchase announcement, commenting there are “no tariffs on orange dots.” The comment implies the company’s BTC purchases were unaffected by the reciprocal tariffs Donald Trump introduced earlier this month and the ensuing U.S.-China trade war.

The company paused its buying during the week ending April 6. Its crypto stash is currently worth roughly $44.59 billion, and was acquired for $35.63 billion.

Strategy currently holds 528,185 BTC bought at an average price of $67,458 according to Bitcointreasuries data equivalent to 2.515% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply.

World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, purchased $775,000 worth of SEI tokens as its altcoin accumulation strategy keeps going.

The move was funded with USDC transferred from the project’s main wallet to a trading wallet that has been used in prior altcoin buys, according to fresh data from Arkham Intelligence.

The SEI purchase adds to a growing portfolio that includes not only the top two cryptocurrencies, bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), but also TRX, movement (MOVE), ondo (ONDO) and various other tokens.

World Liberty Financial recently denied selling ether or any of its other positions after reports suggested a wallet belonging to the project sold around $8 million worth of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

The price of SEI jumped after the move was reported and is up more than 27% over the past week as a result to now trade at $0.178 per token.