Peter Schiff, well known in the crypto industry as a Bitcoin critic and gold advocate, announced that he’s exploring a new way to make bullion digital — via blockchain. Schiff revealed his plans for a tokenized gold platform during an interview on CounterParty TV posted yesterday, Oct. 23.
The proposed platform includes a debit card that would let users buy, hold, and spend tokenized gold, while keeping the precious metal in vaults. Schiff didn’t miss a chance to critique Bitcoin as he explained his upcoming product in the interview:
“Ideally, the one thing that makes sense to put on a blockchain is gold. Because it will work. And it will do all the things that Bitcoin promises, but can never do. You can use tokenized gold as a medium of exchange, as a unit of account, as a story of value. And I’m probably going to launch my own token at some point.”
Schiff described the upcoming platform as a way to make gold holdings portable and spendable, letting users manage their tokenized gold in a mobile app, spend fractions via a debit card, and transfer ownership on-chain.
He also noted that the platform “won’t send you the actual gold” as the metal will remain stored in a vault, but users will be able to “transfer ownership of that gold to other people” and redeem their tokenized gold for physical gold, he said. Schiff did not specify if there will be geographical or national limitations for ownership or transfer.
Tokenized Commodities
Schiff’s platform is set to enter a rapidly growing tokenized commodity sector, which has surged over 36% in the past month, per data from RWAxyz. The sector is dominated by two tokenized gold products, Tether Gold (XAUT) and Paxos Gold (PAXG), which together account for $2.9 billion in tokenized value, over 80% of the $3.53 billion market.
Schiff’s bullishness may be fueled by the growing trading volumes in tokenized gold in particular, as the spot price of gold rallied in recent months.
Over the last month, the aggregated trading volume of XAUT and PAXG spiked to surpass $16.5 billion, marking an all-time high and a 2,760% increase from January this year, per data from DefiLlama.
‘Trust Me Bro’ Token
While still light on details, Schiff’s plan drew swift and mixed reactions from the crypto community.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg, joked in response to the interview, “Congratulations you just invented an ETF,” adding that investors already have options like VanEck’s OUNZ and Goldman Sachs’ AAAU, which hold physical gold in vaults and let shareholders redeem their shares for actual gold.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao — who yesterday was pardoned by President Doland Trump after pleading guilty in November 2023 to repeatedly violating U.S. anti-money laundering rules — criticized Schiff’s proposed product, calling it “not ‘on chain’ gold” and referring to it as a “‘trust me bro’ token” due to its reliance on third-party custodians for redemption.
“Tokenizing gold is NOT ‘on chain’ gold. It’s tokenizing that you trust some third party will give you gold at some later date, even after their management changes, maybe decades later, during a war, etc,” Zhao wrote on X.
However, Zhao’s criticism was put under pressure as Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy pointed out in a follow-up response that the same argument could apply to crypto assets wrapped via centralized entities like WBTC/cbBTC or SOL on BNB Chain.
“[…] and you can make the same argument for storing your crypto on centralized exchanges,” Gaevoy added in a direct jab at the CEX founder.
In response to Zhao’s critique, Schiff publicly challenged him to a debate comparing Bitcoin and tokenized gold, aiming to discuss which asset better serves as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. The Binance founder agreed to the debate, though details on when and where it will take place remain unconfirmed as of press time.