Gold’s rally to new record highs is providing a boost to tokenized versions of the metal, underscoring investors’ continued preference for safe-haven assets amid ongoing macro uncertainty.
Tether Gold (XAUT), the largest gold-backed token by market capitalization, surged to an all-time high of $4,425. Pax Gold (PAXG) and Kinesis Gold (KAU) also advanced, lifting the total market value of gold-linked tokens to roughly $4.38 billion.
“Investors remain focused on hedging macro risks rather than chasing high-risk assets,” said Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN. “This cautious approach continues to cap broader crypto enthusiasm, even as liquidity conditions improve.”
Bitcoin — often referred to as “digital gold” — rose to around $89,800 as the U.S. dollar weakened and technology stocks drove Asian equity gains. Key chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics, rallied, helping to ease concerns of an overheated AI sector. S&P 500 futures added roughly 0.3%, signaling a positive U.S. open.
Despite the price uptick, signs of a sustained crypto recovery remain muted, with institutional demand showing cooling. CoinShares data indicate that global digital asset investment products recorded net outflows of $952 million last week — the first weekly outflow in four weeks.
Derivatives Market Snapshot
Spot market stability has yet to spur renewed risk-taking in derivatives. Futures activity is mixed: BTC, ETH, HYPE, and BNB saw small gains in open interest over 24 hours, while other major tokens experienced outflows.
Leveraged BTC long positions on Bitfinex continue to rise, a pattern historically linked to extended bear markets. BTC’s 30-day implied volatility remains around 45%, suggesting muted trading, while ETH’s 30-day implied volatility dropped to 70%, the lowest since October 9.
On the CME, open interest in BTC futures fell below 120,000 BTC for the first time since early 2024, pointing to weakening institutional participation. In perpetual markets, BCH, SHIB, WLFI, and TON show negative funding rates, indicating a bias toward short positions, while funding for major assets remains slightly positive.
Options activity on Deribit remains mixed, with BTC call and put spreads actively trading and ETH seeing notable calendar spread activity. Overall, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, though the downside skew has eased slightly since Friday.
Curve DAO Update
Curve DAO rejected a proposal to allocate 17.45 million CRV tokens — valued at approximately $6.3 million — to Swiss Stake AG, a company led by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov that oversees core protocol development.
The proposal aimed to fund infrastructure, security, and development efforts for Swiss Stake’s 25-person team but failed with 54.46% voting against and 45.54% in favor. On-chain data show wallets linked to Yearn Finance and Convex Finance cast nearly 90% of the opposing votes.
Despite the rejection, CRV rose roughly 4% over the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader market, while the CoinDesk 20 index gained 0.35%.
Some DAO members cited concerns about transparency in prior expenditures. “The DAO deserves a detailed, itemized breakdown of expenses and should not approve additional funding until that information is provided,” one member said.
