Q: How does illegal gold enter legitimate markets?
Gold from regions with weak governance — such as parts of Venezuela — can be mixed, relabeled, and passed through intermediaries until it becomes indistinguishable from responsibly sourced supply.

Q: Does tokenization reduce or increase that risk?
It can increase liquidity and global accessibility. If provenance isn’t verifiable, tokenized gold may unintentionally make problematic supply easier to trade, borrow against, or integrate into DeFi systems — amplifying opacity rather than reducing it.