PAX Gold is issued by Paxos Trust Company, founded in 2012 by Charles Cascarilla (a finance graduate of the University of Notre Dame, co-founder of Cedar Hill Capital Partners in 2005) and Rich Teo. Paxos launched its first stablecoin, the dollar-backed Paxos Standard (PAX), in 2018 — laying the technological and regulatory groundwork for its next step.
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September 5, 2019: PAX Gold launches — the first crypto-asset redeemable for physical gold, and the first officially regulated digital gold product. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) approved the issuance.
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Each token represents one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery gold, stored in Brink's vaults in London.
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An ERC-20 token, divisible to 18 decimal places, with a minimum entry level of 0.01 PAXG (roughly $15 at launch).
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There was no token sale (ICO) — PAXG is minted on purchase and burned on redemption, so supply always precisely matches the physical gold actually held.
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Auditing firm Withum provides a monthly attestation confirming that the total PAXG supply matches the gold actually held in custody.
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Shortly after launch, one early sign of credibility was a $5 million PAXG purchase by the crypto lender Nexo.
IMPORTANT: PAXG*'s issuer (Paxos) is NOT the same as Tether Gold'*s issuer (Tether/TG Commodities) — two separate companies, direct competitors in the tokenized-gold segment. Notably, Paxos is the same company that also issues Global Dollar (USDG) and PayPal USD (PYUSD), both covered earlier in this course — all three products run on the same underlying infrastructure and regulatory framework.