Data inputs
The findings of this report rest on a combination of primary and secondary research conducted between July and October 2026. The primary research, conducted by Toluna, comprised a consumer survey of over 12,000 respondents in 12 markets and a programme of interviews with experts from across the gold and digital assets value chain. The secondary research comprised a product-by-product review of the existing market landscape, together with third-party datasets of country-level forecasts for population, banked and digitally enabled rates, and investable wealth. The survey covered Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, the UK and the US. Each market contributed around 1,000 respondents, balanced on age, gender, income and region, so that results can be read both market by market and in aggregate. It explored what investors know about digital gold, what they own, what holds them back and what would persuade them to invest. Interviews were also conducted with 20 experts from organisations spanning issuers and platforms, refiners and mints, banks, asset managers, exchanges and market infrastructure, and industry bodies.
Market sizing
The market today
Today's market has been sized from the bottom up: the sum of total assets under custody across all identified product that meets this report's definition of digital gold. The review identified over 70 products worldwide. For each product it recorded what is available and through which channels, the terms on which it is offered and, where publicly disclosed, total assets under custody, customer numbers and average holdings. Twenty-five of these products disclose their assets under custody and account for the large majority of the market. The remainder form a long tail of smaller issuers whose holdings have been estimated from customer counts or other proxies. All disclosures are restated on a common gold-price basis.
Market growth
From this base, future growth is modelled as new demand added on top of today's market. The model sizes each market as the product of four terms, summed across 96 countries, which together represent 98% of global investable wealth:
addressable investors (#) × investable wealth per investor ($) × share holding digital gold (%) × share of portfolio allocated to digital gold (%)
The first two terms come from external data sources. The last two carry the uplifts in share holding digital gold (%) and share of portfolio allocated (%), which are derived from the survey results.
For each of the 96 countries, the population aged 15 and over (World Bank population forecasts) is narrowed first to those with a bank account and then to those able to transact digitally (World Bank Global Findex), producing the number of addressable investors. This figure is multiplied by the country's average investable wealth per investor (BCG Global Wealth Report). Average investable wealth includes financial assets but excludes the largest individual holdings, as these are not addressable through retail products. Both inputs are expressed in today's values and projected annually on a country-by-country basis, so that both the number of addressable investors and their average investable wealth grow over time. These are what the report describes as the “underlying drivers of growth”.
The larger driver is the removal of barriers, the effect of which was sized using a conjoint analysis. As part of the survey, each respondent was shown a series of cards, each describing a digital gold product with a different combination of barriers removed or left in place. For each card they indicated how much they would invest. Because the combinations vary systematically across cards and respondents, the effect of each barrier can be estimated independently of the others. This gives two values for each barrier removed, both set out in Chapter 2: the uplift in the share holding digital gold (%), and the uplift in the share of portfolio allocated to digital gold (%).
Because the uplifts are measured only in the surveyed markets, each remaining country is matched to the surveyed market that best represents how its investors are likely to behave. Proxy markets were selected using four criteria: GDP per capita, geographic proximity, precious metals holdings per capita, and crypto holdings per capita. Each country then inherits its proxy market's uplifts, applied to its own growth in addressable investors and investable wealth.
Total latent demand and the growth scenarios answer two different questions, and the two figures are not directly comparable.
Total latent demand: if every barrier fell at once, at today's population and wealth, the market would be approximately $700 billion larger than it is now. Nothing is phased and nothing grows, so the figure carries no date. It is the ceiling: how much demand the barriers hold back today, assuming investors respond in full and immediately.
Growth scenarios: these ask how much of that demand is realistically converted by 2031. Here population and wealth grow year by year, barriers fall in different years in different markets, and each uplift phases in gradually rather than landing at once. Because those ramp periods run longer than the forecast window, only a portion of the latent demand is captured by 2031. The gap between the scenario outcomes and the $700 billion is therefore a question of how quickly demand converts, not of whether it exists.
Three things change between scenarios: which barriers are removed, when they are removed, and the ramp-up period, in years, from removal to the point at which the full uplift is realised. These assumptions are anchored in the product review, the expert interviews and public disclosures on regulation and forthcoming launches. The ramp-up period is benchmarked against the adoption curves of comparable product transitions.
Three scenarios are modelled: a bear case in which no barriers are removed, so growth comes from the underlying drivers alone; a base case in which barriers are partially removed and the uplift materialises over a longer, 15-year period; and a bull case in which barriers fall faster and more widely. The detail of each scenario is set out in Chapter 3.
Intentionally excluded from modelling
A major hack or security breach could materially damage trust in digital gold. Among respondents, 44% said this would most undermine their confidence in the category.
A significant custody failure or fraud at a large issuer could trigger a broader collapse in retail trust, comparable to the major crypto-exchange failures of 2022. Some 41% of respondents said this would most damage their confidence.
Neither is reflected in the scenarios, which assume the market continues to function as it does today.
The modelling also excludes the effect of a material change in the gold price. A significant move either way would affect both the reported value of the market and investor demand, and could produce outcomes outside the scenarios presented.
A note on interpretation
This report sets out a potential path for the market under particular scenarios, informed by customer research. It is not investment advice and should not be treated as such.
