Tokenised gold drew strong demand again in the crypto market in August. Traders increased trading in tokenised gold and gold perpetual futures as an inflation hedge and a speculative asset, blockchain outlet Cryptopolitan reported on Thursday.

Gold prices recently rose to around $4,600 before slipping to about $4,480. Tether’s gold-linked token XAUT traded at $4,474.72 as of Thursday. Trading interest continued even after prices retreated from their peak.

The on-chain gold market remained dominated by XAUT. Additional issuance continued over the past three months, and trading volume held near 2026 peak levels. As of September, XAUT was valued at $3.15 billion, and $59 million flowed in on Thursday.

XAUT’s uses also broadened. It was used as collateral in lending markets, and trading on decentralised exchanges became more active in August. About $2.39 million worth of XAUT is being traded on Uniswap V3. The most widely traded gold-linked tokens in decentralised markets are XAUT and PAXG. Righter supported XAUT as collateral, underpinning expansion of the gold perpetual futures market.

Demand for gold also stood out in derivatives markets. Gold again became one of the main perpetual futures contracts on HIP-3. Open interest was $750 million and daily volume was $299 million. Whale positions were largely concentrated on longs, and the largest long position posted unrealised gains of more than $273,000. The largest short position’s unrealised losses rose to $2.2 million as of Thursday.

Buying also continued from a wallet believed to be an Antalpha AI agent. Over the past month, the wallet bought 1,000 XAUT several times when gold was close to $4,000 per ounce, and held 16,120 XAUT as of Thursday. Its estimated value exceeded $71 million, and only inflows were confirmed, with no outflows.

Another Antalpha wallet holds more than 33,000 XAUT. Some funds were moved to Bitfinex, and some tokens were sent to a Cobo.com wallet for storage. The number of wallets holding XAUT rose to 84,756, up more than 16 percent over the past 30 days. The value moved through XAUT in August exceeded $4.6 billion, and active addresses topped 53,000. Supply was still largest on Ethereum, but grew over the past month on BNB Chain and Monad as well.