A Man Who Once Killed Gold Trading Wants To Make It Live Again on the Blockchain

Before joining the World Gold Council as CEO in 2018, Tait ran trading businesses at the Swiss bank, leading to gold and commodities trading eventually losing their place in the firm's businesses. The reason: physical markets carried operational expenses around warehousing, insurance and compliance that made returns harder to justify. 

Years later, the World Gold Council recruited Tait to help "unlock the institutional world to gold." Speaking to Sandmark at the Consensus conference in Miami, he said his role in shutting down gold trading at Credit Suisse gave him a "unique qualification" to understand the market's shortcomings. 

"I was the guy who shut down gold and commodities trading worldwide for the bank [Credit Suisse]. And that caught the eye of my employers, who thought I might have a unique insight, because I've done it, as to how I might be able to fix that." 

For Tait, the challenge lies in gold's fragmented structure. That fragmentation, he argues, stems from disconnected systems built around varying pricing structures, custody models and market standards. "Fragmented, not fungible, islands everywhere," he said. "We have little digital islands everywhere."  

The gold pitch 

At Consensus, Tait pitched what he called a "gold-as-a-service" platform – an effort to create a common framework for digital gold infrastructure. "Think of it as the Apple Store for gold," he said. 

The platform would handle sourcing, custody, insurance and compliance underneath a common framework, allowing institutions and developers to build products on top. The non-profit organization hopes to have a pilot operating by the end of the year with one or two participants. 

"It's not just about gold stablecoins, which is, frankly, quite redundant... we expect a whole string of products to be generated, like redemption tokens and collateralization tokens, lending tokens – all these things to come out of it and many products that we've not even heard of." 

Demand drivers 

Persistent central bank buying and steady investor appetite have helped underpin gold's rally over the past two years. In the first quarter of 2026, global gold demand climbed to 1,231 tonnes, up 2% from a year earlier, according to the World Gold Council. Rising prices amplified the move, lifting the total value of demand 74% to about $193bn. 

The commodity has continued to trade near record territory, although prices eased on 19 May amid a stronger dollar and higher Treasury yields. Spot gold traded around $4,504 per ounce, up about 5% year-to-date.  

Gold gained 64% over the course of 2025. It's rise, Tait argued, is not being driven by traditional macroeconomic pressures such as tariffs or interest rates, nor by moves in the dollar or geopolitical conflicts. "It's largely because of the threat of financial debt spiral," he said. 

Cryptocurrencies backed by the commodity have expanded alongside the rally, although the market remains small relative to traditional gold products. Nearly 20 tokenized gold tokens now carry a combined market value approaching $6bn, according to CoinGecko data. Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) account for most of the market, together representing roughly $5bn in value.