Peter Schiff, well-known within the crypto trade as a Bitcoin critic and gold advocate, introduced that he’s exploring a brand new method to make bullion digital — through blockchain. Schiff revealed his plans for a tokenized gold platform throughout an interview on CounterParty TV posted yesterday, Oct. 23.
The proposed platform features a debit card that will let customers purchase, maintain, and spend tokenized gold, whereas protecting the valuable steel in vaults. Schiff didn’t miss an opportunity to critique Bitcoin as he defined his upcoming product within the interview:
“Ideally, the one factor that is sensible to placed on a blockchain is gold. As a result of it is going to work. And it’ll do all of the issues that Bitcoin guarantees, however can by no means do. You need to use tokenized gold as a medium of alternate, as a unit of account, as a narrative of worth. And I’m in all probability going to launch my very own token sooner or later.”
Schiff described the upcoming platform as a method to make gold holdings moveable and spendable, letting customers handle their tokenized gold in a cellular app, spend fractions through a debit card, and switch possession on-chain.
He additionally famous that the platform “received’t ship you the precise gold” because the steel will stay saved in a vault, however customers will be capable of “switch possession of that gold to different folks” and redeem their tokenized gold for bodily gold, he mentioned. Schiff didn’t specify if there will probably be geographical or nationwide limitations for possession or switch.
Tokenized Commodities
Tokenized commodity sector by asset. Supply: RWAxyz
Schiff’s platform is ready to enter a quickly rising tokenized commodity sector, which has surged over 36% prior to now month, per knowledge from RWAxyz. The sector is dominated by two tokenized gold merchandise, Tether Gold (XAUT) and Paxos Gold (PAXG), which collectively account for $2.9 billion in tokenized worth, over 80% of the $3.53 billion market.
Schiff’s bullishness could also be fueled by the rising buying and selling volumes in tokenized gold specifically, because the spot worth of gold rallied in current months.
Over the past month, the aggregated buying and selling quantity of XAUT and PAXG spiked to surpass $16.5 billion, marking an all-time excessive and a 2,760% improve from January this yr, per knowledge from DefiLlama.
‘Belief Me Bro’ Token
Whereas nonetheless mild on particulars, Schiff’s plan drew swift and blended reactions from the crypto neighborhood.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg, joked in response to the interview, “Congratulations you simply invented an ETF,” including that traders have already got choices like VanEck’s OUNZ and Goldman Sachs’ AAAU, which maintain bodily gold in vaults and let shareholders redeem their shares for precise gold.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao — who yesterday was pardoned by President Doland Trump after pleading responsible in November 2023 to repeatedly violating U.S. anti-money laundering guidelines — criticized Schiff’s proposed product, calling it “not ‘on chain’ gold” and referring to it as a “‘belief me bro’ token” on account of its reliance on third-party custodians for redemption.
“Tokenizing gold is NOT ‘on chain’ gold. It’s tokenizing that you just belief some third social gathering offers you gold at some later date, even after their administration adjustments, perhaps many years later, throughout a battle, and so forth,” Zhao wrote on X.
Nevertheless, Zhao’s criticism was put beneath strain as Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy identified in a follow-up response that the identical argument may apply to crypto belongings wrapped through centralized entities like WBTC/cbBTC or SOL on BNB Chain.
“[…] and you can also make the identical argument for storing your crypto on centralized exchanges,” Gaevoy added in a direct jab on the CEX founder.
In response to Zhao’s critique, Schiff publicly challenged him to a debate evaluating Bitcoin and tokenized gold, aiming to debate which asset higher serves as a medium of alternate, unit of account, and retailer of worth. The Binance founder agreed to the controversy, although particulars on when and the place it is going to happen stay unconfirmed as of press time.
