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GOLD has always been seen as the ultimate store of value. However, while gold remains largely a preserve of older, wealthier investors, it has found little resonance with the younger generation who have opted for cryptocurrencies and app-based share trading instead.
A new survey by the World Gold Council (WGC) and Boston Consulting Group suggests that is beginning to change, and that digital formats of gold are beginning to make an impact.
Gold is one of the few major assets whose appeal has rested on physical rather than virtual ownership. Investors have long preferred owning a bar of gold or coins precisely because it sits outside the financial system. Even exchange-traded funds, the most successful paper form of gold, had to overcome scepticism over whether the metal really backed the shares.
Digital gold extends that evolution in two forms. Vaulted digital gold, available since 2005, lets investors own physical gold held by a third-party custodian through an app or platform. It accounts for about 89% of the market. Tokenised gold, launched in 2019 through products such as Paxos Gold and Tether Gold, records ownership of a fixed quantity of bullion on a blockchain. It makes up the remaining 11% but has grown fivefold in value since late 2024 to around US$6bn.
The survey’s central finding is that the digital gold market, worth US$45–55bn today, could unlock up to US$700bn in latent demand. While that would still represent only about 5% of the $13 trillion physical investment gold market, it highlights the potential for demand among a new group of investors. The base case points to around US$95bn of genuinely new demand for gold by 2031.
The survey of12,000 retail investors finds that while the appeal of digital gold is strong it is not yet overwhelming. Nearly nine in ten investors would consider digital gold under the right conditions. Awareness reaches 50% among 25 to 34-year-olds, against 23% for those over 55. Some 65% of latent demand comes from people who have never owned gold.
The obstacles to greater investment among those surveyed are trust, access, utility and cost, with four in five investors saying they must trust the provider first.
South Africa reflects the gap between interest and action. Only 14.3% of respondents own gold, against 23.7% across all markets, and just 4.1% hold digital gold. Almost 50% say they are definitely or very likely to invest, well above the global 33.6%.