The gold and silver markets are booming, and the recruitment frenzy for gold traders is driving up salaries. How can you use gold to increase your own salary?

Although gold experienced one of its largest falls in history last week, it still attracts dip buyers from around the world. Trading firms, hedge funds, and banks are aggressively hiring professional gold traders, sparking a talent war that has driven up compensation in this traditionally niche market. If general investors cannot enter the career of a gold trader, how can they use gold to increase their income? This article will guide you through various ways and channels to invest in gold.

The gold and silver market is thriving, significantly boosting the salaries of gold traders.

As people's interest in gold continues to soar, trading companies, hedge funds, and banks are aggressively hiring professional gold traders, leading to a talent war that has driven up compensation in this traditionally niche market.

According to Bloomberg, although the gold market is in the spotlight, with weekly trading volumes reaching hundreds of billions of dollars at the major trading center in London, traditionally, this market has been dominated by a few banks such as JPMorgan, HSBC Holdings, and UBS Group. However, with gold prices soaring this year, new market participants seeking to enter the industry, such as hedge funds and trading companies, are looking for precious metal traders or portfolio managers.

In the first quarter of 2025, 12 major banks collectively earned $500 million from precious metals trading, marking the second highest figure in a decade according to Crisil Coalition Greenwich statistics. Data from the market intelligence firm shows that this is roughly double the average quarterly earnings of the past ten years.

However, for many years, the precious metals trading hall has been in a relatively neglected corner, resulting in a shortage of talent among traders and salespeople. In the past, precious metals traders had only a relatively small number of banks to choose from, but now they are favored by physical trading companies and hedge funds, which are also willing to pay higher compensation. Gold traders at physical trading companies can now earn bonuses that are two to three times higher than those at banks.

So how can an average investor leverage gold to increase their income if they cannot enter the career of a gold trader?

Various Channels for Investing in Gold

Gold has a long history as a traded commodity, from the earliest physical trading of gold bars to financial products such as futures, ETFs, gold savings accounts, and the recently popularized tokenized gold in the cryptocurrency space, providing investors with a rich and diverse range of options. If you still have a long-term positive outlook on gold's trend, you can participate in the market through the following products. While you may not serve as a gold trader, finding alternative ways to increase your income is also a good option.

( Bitcoin vs Tokenized Gold: Peter Schiff and CZ will face off at Binance Blockchain Week )

Gold Futures

The financial M Square futures market course is now available for free, teaching you how to hedge and gain in the stock, foreign exchange, bond, and commodity markets using the most basic introduction to the futures market. It also includes an introduction to gold futures and related trading data. The specifications for the world's largest CME gold futures (GC) are as follows:

Contract Unit: 100 troy ounces

Trading hours: Sunday to Friday 5:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Central US Time), market closes for 60 minutes starting at 4:00 PM each day.

Listed Contracts: Monthly contracts for 3 consecutive months, any contracts for February, April, August, and October within the last 23 months, as well as any contracts for June and December within the last 72 months.

Settlement Method: Physical delivery is possible, as well as cash settlement.

Based on the current initial margin of $20,000, the leverage ratio is approximately 20 times. If you want to reduce risk, it is recommended to deposit a bit more margin to lower the leverage ratio.

In addition, the CME also offers mini gold futures with a contract size of only one-tenth, providing smaller-scale traders with the opportunity to conduct leveraged trading or hedging.

However, investing in futures also requires consideration of the transfer costs, and one needs to open an account at an overseas exchange or through futures firms that operate foreign futures businesses, such as Yuanta Futures, and remit funds to the overseas account.

Gold ETF

Exchange-traded gold products include Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), Exchange Traded Notes (ETN), and Closed-End Funds (CEF), all of which are traded on major stock exchanges like stocks. Gold ETFs have captured a large share of the gold market because they allow investors to operate more efficiently with a small amount of capital. These products aim to track the physical price of gold itself or invest in companies that specialize in gold operations, providing investors with different degrees of indirect exposure to gold, saving them the burden of storage and verification of physical gold.

The world's largest gold ETF is GLD, issued by State Street Global Advisors, with a management fee of 0.4%, and the current price is approximately 380 USD.

Gold Stablecoin ( Tokenized Gold )

With the advent of blockchain technology, tokenized gold has also become another channel for investing in gold. Its principle is similar to that of stablecoins, with its price linked to gold. It offers investors another way to invest in gold without having to pay ETF management fees or bear the storage costs and carrying risks associated with gold bars. Currently, the largest issuers of tokenized gold are the stablecoin issuers Paxos (PAXG) and Tether (XAU₮).

Each PAXG and XAU₮ is backed by one troy ounce of gold, and open contract trading is available on major exchanges, allowing investors to use leverage to gain greater profit margins. However, during the “flash crash” that swept through the crypto market on October 11, 2025, even the traditionally stable gold was significantly affected in the crypto world, with the tokenized gold PAXG plummeting 22% in an instant, triggering a wave of liquidations. This incident not only exposed the vulnerabilities of Real World Asset (RWA) trading but also sparked user outrage due to suspected interface issues on the Binance platform, leading the community to call for regulatory intervention.

(RWA is not equal to real assets! The decoupling from PAXG highlights the risks of asset on-chain ).

Bank of Taiwan's Gold Deposit Fold

In response to the Taiwanese tradition of purchasing gold for value preservation and hedging, various banks in Taiwan have long introduced “gold savings accounts” to facilitate small transactions for investors and also provide redemption for physical gold.

Taking the established Taiwanese banks as an example, their gold savings passbook uses 1 gram of gold as the basic unit and offers services for regular fixed-amount purchases, gold transfers, and conversion to physical gold products.

Of course, the general public can also buy and sell physical gold at gold shops.

This article discusses the prosperous gold and silver market, the recruitment frenzy among gold traders driving up salaries, and how to use gold to increase your salary. First appeared in Chain News ABMedia.