What is PAX Gold? In short, PAX Gold (PAXG) is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, issued by Paxos Trust Company, N.A., in which each PAXG represents one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery gold held in LBMA-accredited vaults. Paxos describes the token as a regulated, fully backed tokenized gold product that offers fractional ownership with no custody or storage fees and can be redeemed one-to-one for physical gold (Paxos Docs).
Core technology and blockchain architecture
PAXG launched on Ethereum on 5 September 2019 (Paxos Newsroom). Aave's 2026 technical assessment describes it as an upgradeable ERC-20 token. The Ethereum contract address, 0x45804880De22913dAFE09f4980848ECE6EcbAf78, holds all token state and delegates logic to a separate implementation contract, so upgrades can change behaviour without migrating balances (Aave Governance). The token uses 18 decimal places, so holders can buy fractions of an ounce.
Backing is allocated rather than pooled. Each token maps to a specific serialized bar of at least 99.5% purity that bears the stamp of an LBMA-approved refiner. Customers who do not hold a full bar own pro rata shares of bars based on their holdings (Paxos Blog). On 13 August 2026, Paxos replaced its batch process, which recalculated gold ownership every two hours, with a real-time allocation engine. The company reports that processing time fell to an average of 1.24 milliseconds (CoinTrust).
Multichain deployment
PAXG launched on Solana on 25 June 2026 with Sunrise DeFi, which Paxos described as the first step in its multichain expansion (Paxos Blog). The Solana mint address is 5GgRAEmv8ZxF2PR5hY72Qs5x1bnQ6UK2RbTPoqJ3wSwW, and a LayerZero route bridges the Ethereum token (Aave Governance). CoinStats also lists contract deployments on Polygon PoS, Harmony and Energi.
Primary use cases and real-world applications
- Gold ownership and redemption: Holders can redeem for USD, unallocated gold or physical bars. Full-bar redemption requires 430 PAXG per bar (Paxos one-pager). A tiered redemption fee schedule took effect on 1 September 2026, while creation fees are waived through 1 January 2027 (Paxos Support).
- Trading: PAXG trades 24/7 on secondary markets (Paxos Docs).
- DeFi collateral: PAXG became live on Aave V4 as collateral for borrowing USDG on Ethereum, announced 10 September 2026 (Gate News). A Kamino Finance lending market for PAXG on Solana was reported on 27 July 2026.
- Institutional trading: Wintermute launched OTC execution for PAXG on 16 February 2026 (The Block). B2C2 followed on 18 March 2026 with spot and CFD OTC exposure (B2C2).
- Yield-bearing derivative: Paxos Labs launched PAXGy on 24 September 2026. It is a PAXG-backed token whose value accrues in gold terms, with income from institutional gold leasing reflected in an exchange rate rather than in higher token balances (PR Newswire).
Who is behind PAX Gold and where is it based?
Paxos was founded in 2012, released Paxos Standard (PAX) in 2018 and launched PAX Gold in 2019 (Kraken). The team is named rather than anonymous. Charles Cascarilla is identified as CEO and co-founder of Paxos and author of the PAX Gold whitepaper (PAX Gold Whitepaper). Kraken also names Rich Teo as a founder. The sources gathered do not confirm the role of Bhau Kalra, who is sometimes associated with the company.
The issuing legal entity is Paxos Trust Company, N.A., a national trust bank supervised by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC approved the conversion of Paxos's New York trust company into a national trust bank, Charter Number 25379, and Paxos completed the conversion on 12 December 2025 (OCC; Paxos Newsroom). Before the conversion, Paxos operated under a New York limited-purpose trust charter. The OCC letter gives the company's location as New York, New York.
Paxos also holds licences outside the United States. Paxos Global Pte. Ltd. received a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in November 2022 (PR Newswire). No acceptance of PAXG by the Abu Dhabi Global Market regulator was confirmed in the sources reviewed.
Tokenomics
The CoinStats market snapshot lists PAXG at $3,897.35, down 0.11% over 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $1.74B (rank #65) and 24-hour trading volume of $27.06M. Total and circulating supply are both 446,111 PAXG. The token trades 30.64% below its all-time high of $5,619.09. Its 7-day change is -2.60% and its 30-day change is -7.00%.
PAXG has no emissions, staking rewards or scheduled issuance, and no hard cap or vesting schedule (Aave Governance). Paxos mints tokens when a customer's gold is deposited and burns them on redemption. Paxos's public repository describes the token as "Centrally Minted and Burned by Paxos," using a single supplyController address (GitHub). Under the PAX Gold terms, USD purchases are converted into an equivalent amount of gold to keep the one-to-one ratio (Paxos Terms). No holder distribution data was found in the sources reviewed.
Consensus mechanism and network security model
PAXG has no consensus mechanism of its own. Transaction security on the Ethereum token comes from Ethereum, and on the Solana token from Solana. Control of the token contracts rests on Paxos MPC-based keys, which require multiple parties to authorize actions (Aave Governance). This central control is a key difference from decentralized networks.
Reserve verification
Paxos publishes monthly attestation reports. Reports dated on or after 28 February 2025 were issued by KPMG LLP under AICPA attestation standards, and earlier reports were issued by WithumSmith+Brown (Paxos Transparency). An annual physical audit is conducted by Bureau Veritas (Paxos Blog). Aave's assessment names Brink's Global Services Ltd and ICBC Standard Bank as LBMA-approved vault providers. Paxos states that its vault provider maintains insurance against loss in storage and transit (Paxos Support).
An attestation confirms holdings at a point in time against stated criteria, which is a narrower check than a full audit (EMCD).
Issuer freeze capability
The issuer can freeze tokens. On 29 October 2026, a large theft from Binance hot wallets moved PAXG to a suspected attacker address. Paxos froze 1,906.67 PAXG at that address and stated that its systems were not affected and that reserves and redemptions remained intact (Paxos on X). Aave froze its markets on 29 October and reopened them on 30 October, and PAXG stayed at a 0% loan-to-value ratio for new borrowing (Aave Governance).
Key partnerships and ecosystem integrations
- Exchanges: Kraken, Coinbase, Gemini and Crypto.com list PAXG (BeInCrypto). Binance added PAXG to Dual Investment on 12 March 2026 (Binance). Bitget lists PAXG-linked precious metals futures (Bitget).
- DeFi: Aave V4 on Ethereum, Kamino on Solana, and Uniswap v3 PAXG/USDC pools.
- Infrastructure: Paxos Labs appears in the Chainlink ecosystem directory with CCIP and Data Feeds integrations (Chainlink).
Competitive advantages and unique value proposition
Paxos describes PAXG as the only federally regulated tokenized gold asset and as the only gold token redeemable for LBMA-accredited Good Delivery bars (PR Newswire; Paxos). The company also cites near-instant settlement, compared with T+2 for gold ETFs and LBMA bars, and no storage fee.
The main competitor is Tether Gold (XAUT), issued by TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V. in El Salvador and backed by gold in Swiss vaults (Tokensoft). BeInCrypto reports that XAUT is restricted for US retail, while PAXG is listed on US platforms (BeInCrypto). CoinGecko's RWA Report 2026 shows PAXG's share of tokenized commodities rising from 36.8% to 41.8%, with XAUT still in first place (CoinGecko). Phemex found that PAXG tracked the gold price more closely over 245 daily closes between 31 January and 2 October 2026, with a mean gap of 0.251% against 0.402% for XAUT (Phemex).
Current development activity and roadmap highlights
- January 2026: PAXG received more than $248 million in inflows, lifting its market capitalization above $2.2 billion, according to DefiLlama data (CoinDesk).
- June 2026: Solana launch, the first step in the multichain roadmap.
- August 2026: Real-time allocation engine replaces the two-hour batch process.
- September 2026: Aave V4 collateral integration and the PAXGy launch.
Paxos's stated direction is further multichain expansion, with the redesigned allocation system described as independent of any specific blockchain (Gate News).