#金融与市场趋势 Seeing Circle's move, what flashes through my mind is the 2017 wave of tokenization. Back then, everyone was feverishly tokenizing everything—real estate, art, even coffee beans. Most projects failed due to liquidity issues and regulatory hurdles. This time, Circle's tokenization of precious metals may seem like a rebranding of an old story, but the underlying logic is worth pondering.

The real difference lies in the choice of underlying assets. Gold and silver are humanity's oldest stores of value, with deep liquidity, transparent pricing, and mature regulatory frameworks. This isn't about betting on a new concept but about leveraging blockchain's property rights capabilities on the most stable asset classes. Backed by COMEX liquidity and using USDC as a trading intermediary, this combination at least addresses the biggest pain points of previous failed projects—lack of real asset backing and liquidity crises.

I've looked into the attempts at gold tokenization in 2019. Why did most of them fade away? Not because of technical issues, but because they failed to find their true niche amid competition from spot markets, futures markets, and banking channels. Circle's use of stablecoins as an entry point is actually a strategic move—solving the friction of fiat currency inflows and outflows in traditional finance, while leveraging the cross-border advantages of the crypto ecosystem.

But this also makes me a bit cautious. Whenever a project emphasizes "physical asset backing" and "deep liquidity," it often signals that the entire sector is entering a new filtering cycle. After Mt.Gox in 2013, the ICO crash in 2017, and the Luna collapse in 2022, what comes next? Perhaps this wave of seemingly stable tokenized assets will truly stand the test of the market.

Watching this move, it feels like crypto finance is undergoing an inevitable convergence—from elusive innovation back to the oldest carriers of value. This could be a sign of maturity, or just a mid-cycle phase. Time will tell us the answer.