Tokenizing Gold and the Future of Real‑World Assets - Lim Say Cheong of ComTech Gold

ComTech Gold is a digital asset platform enabling the tokenization of physical gold for the digital economy. Built on the XDC Network, ComTech Gold issues CGO — a 100% physical gold-backed token.

Lim Say Cheong is an award-winning finance and digital assets leader and Chief Adviser for Digital Assets at ComTech Gold, with deep experience across global capital markets and sovereign advisory. He now focuses on advancing tokenized gold and real-world assets to enable transparent, accessible, and globally investable on-chain products. He recently joined the Bitcoin.com News Podcast to talk about the technology:

During this episode Lim shared his 30-year career in financial services, predominantly in the GCC, and explained that his interest in tokenization stemmed from his work in Islamic finance and the need to solve liquidity issues, particularly with gold. He views ComTech Gold’s offering as an interesting intersection of his expertise and the new wave of Real World Asset ( RWA) tokenization.

The discussion quickly moved to the rationale behind tokenizing gold. Despite its 6,000-year history as a trusted store of value, physical gold is confined, expensive to transport, and slow to trade, making it difficult to integrate into modern digital finance. Tokenization leverages blockchain technology’s speed, transparency, and programmability to combine with gold’s intrinsic value. This allows gold to be moved, settled, and deployed in financial transactions in real-time, overcoming its traditional limitations and offering real-time auditability.

A significant portion of the conversation focused on the particular appeal of tokenized gold for Islamic institutions. Lim explained that gold is considered a ribbawi asset in Islamic finance, making it subject to the prohibition of riba (interest/usury). ComTech Gold’s token is structured to solve this by maintaining full asset backing to physical gold, which restores clarity of ownership and possession and avoids interest-based mechanics. The token is fully Sharia compliant with a fatwa, allowing ComTech Gold to target the Islamic finance space, which Lim sees as a “blue ocean” opportunity compared to the crowded conventional market.

For the end retail user, Lim outlined several practical use cases that go beyond simple savings. These include using tokenized gold as collateral for financing, as lenders are reassured by the backing of physical, audited gold bars stored in blue-chip vaults. It also facilitates portfolio diversification for asset managers by allowing fractional value purchases, which is not possible with large physical gold bars. Furthermore, the company is working on Sharia-compliant arrangements, similar to staking, that could potentially pay a profit rate to investors by deploying and renting out the gold for a return.

On the subject of market adoption, Lim clarified that liquidity is intrinsically tied to adoption, as more investors entering the market create greater depth. The fundamental infrastructure is in place to provide tradability, as fractionalizing the gold bar into small units allows retail investors to easily buy and sell on crypto exchanges. Geographically, ComTech Gold is global but prioritizes jurisdictions with favorable regulatory frameworks, such as Dubai (UAE), Qatar, and Singapore, and is also looking at Central Asian markets like Kazakhstan. Lim forecasted that the UAE and eventually Saudi Arabia could become dominant players in the tokenization space.

Finally, Lim clarified a common misconception regarding “ gold on-chain,” stressing that ComTech Gold’s process involves tokenizing real, audited gold bars that represent direct digital ownership of the physical asset, not just digitizing gold prices or creating synthetic exposure. This physical backing is key to convincing both institutions and retail users of the asset’s credibility. Looking ahead, Lim predicted that real estate and financial assets like US Treasury bills and money market funds would be the next big markets for RWA tokenization.

To learn more about the project visit ComTechGold.com, and connect with Lim Say Cheong on LinkedIn.

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