(Kitco News) – COINSOV, a new store-of-value index, aims to give investors the advantages of gold’s relative safety against downside risk with the strong upside potential that Bitcoin delivers when risk appetite rises, MarketVector and Coinbase announced on Thursday.
“The definition of ‘store-of-value’ is expanding beyond a ‘gold-only’ approach,” the firms said in the announcement. “Against a backdrop of increasing global debt, rising deficits, and persistent monetary debasement, investors are looking for ways to preserve their wealth.”
The index is a collaboration between global index provider MarketVector Indexes and Coinbase Asset Management, and the companies said it reflects their “shared focus on delivering institutionally governed benchmarks that integrate digital and traditional assets within a single, rules-based framework.”
“We believe this index represents a meaningful evolution in store-of-value investing. In a world of fiscal dominance, the future belongs to scarce assets that cannot be printed and are not an obligation of a government or private issuer," said Anthony Bassili, President at Coinbase Asset Management.
COINSOV combines Bitcoin and gold into a “volatility-aware framework” designed to preserve purchasing power across market cycles.
“The index dynamically adjusts its allocation between Bitcoin and gold based on inverse volatility and rebalances quarterly, seeking to capture Bitcoin’s upside potential while maintaining a drawdown profile more comparable to gold,” the statement said. “MarketVector research covering the period from 2017 through 2025 indicates that this approach has delivered stronger risk-adjusted returns that static Bitcoin–gold allocations and several widely followed benchmarks, while experiencing materially smaller drawdowns than a simple 50/50 blend.”
“MarketVector brings deep expertise in constructing indexes that bridge digital and traditional assets within an institutional framework,” said Martin Leinweber, Director of Digital Asset Research and Strategy at MarketVector Indexes. “The Coinbase Store of Value Index reflects our ability to combine Bitcoin and gold through transparent, rules-based construction, offering a disciplined approach to capital preservation in a changing macro environment.”
The Coinbase Store of Value Index (COINSOV) will track the performance of Bitcoin and Pax Gold (PAXG), an asset-backed token representing the price of one fine troy ounce of gold.
Investment demand continues to be a driving force in the gold market, and analysts note that its influence in the evolving digital landscape is growing faster than in traditional markets.
On March 24, Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world – and one of the largest buyers and holders of physical gold – announced that it has engaged one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms to conduct the first full independent audit since its founding.
Tether’s U.S. dollar stablecoin, USD₮, currently has a market capitalization of over $184 billion and a global user base of more than 550 million people, and it is one of the cornerstones of the digital asset ecosystem. Meanwhile, Tether’s gold stablecoin, XAU₮, has a total market capitalization of nearly $2.5 billion and is the 32nd largest cryptocurrency in the world.
XAU₮ has also been attracting significant attention since the company announced its official gold holdings in January. The world’s leading stablecoin issuer holds between 125 and 150 tonnes of gold, according to analysts’ estimates.
“Tether remains the largest non-sovereign buyer of physical gold and now ranks within the top 30 global gold holders, surpassing countries like Australia, UAE, Qatar, South Korea, and Greece,” said Fahad Tariq, Senior Vice President, Equity Research at Jefferies, in early February.
Not only is Tether Gold the world’s largest gold token, but the company also holds large amounts of gold as a reserve asset to back its U.S. dollar stablecoin. Roughly 7% of its total holdings are in gold.
But Tether is not just competing against sovereign national banks. Commodity analysts at Société Générale said that XAU₮’s holdings would rank as the eighth-largest ETF globally in terms of tonnage held, despite not being an ETF at all, but rather a digital-asset issuer.
The French bank said that, according to its analysis, flows into XAU₮ in December were the second highest among all global ETFs, behind only SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD), the world’s biggest gold-backed ETF.
SocGen also noted that Tether flows are competing with speculative interest among hedge funds.
“In the last week of January, Tether’s flows became dominant and were a clear driver of market behavior into month-end, especially compared to ETFs,” the analysts said. “But aggregate hedge funds still dominated the influence on prices into the month-end and early February. After the sharp price decline on Friday the 30th, Tether added a further 11 metric tonnes — effectively ‘buying the dip’, and the flows by Tether outsized those of ETFs but certainly not hedge funds.”
