Tokenized commodities push beyond gold into lending and oil

Executives at Paxos Labs, Theo and Energy Substantiation say tokenized commodities are poised to grow from a gold-dominated market into financing, energy trading and borrowing against physical assets, per a CoinDesk report. The category reached a $5.55B market cap at the end of March 2026, up from $1.43B at the start of 2025, with gold-backed tokens from Paxos and Tether driving nearly 90% of that growth.

• Paxos Labs' PAXGy backs each token with PAX Gold, deploys reserves to institutional borrowers, and is designed to be redeemable for more PAXG as lending income accrues; borrowing against the token is a possible next step.
• Theo's thSLVR passes income from institutional silver leases to holders, which CIO Iggy Ioppe calls "the natural second" after gold; he forecasts a tens-of-billions market in five years and $100B+ in a decade.
• EnSub expanded its WTIC oil token from Ethereum to Solana on Oct. 2 — each token backed by verified physical WTI inventory — with natural gas and Brent tokens under development; CEO JP Thieriot sees oil tokens taking a quarter of the oil market within 10 years.

Custody, logistics and borrower default risk remain the main hurdles, and the executives disagree on how quickly energy can follow metals.