Stablecoins
Gold-Backed Stablecoins: PAXG and Tether Gold, Compared
A gold-backed stablecoin is a token tied to a quantity of gold rather than a dollar. Two verified tokens anchor the class: PAXG, one fine troy ounce per token in allocated vaults, and Tether Gold, with stated bar holdings and ounce divisibility. This page reads both on their documents and compares structure, not safety.
What a gold token is
A gold-backed token promises a quantity of metal. Not a quantity of dollars. One token stands for a stated amount of gold. The gold sits somewhere specific. The price then follows gold. That is the design working, not failing. It separates the class from every dollar stablecoin in this library.
Two tokens carry verified documents in this corpus. PAXG is issued by Paxos. Each token is one fine troy ounce of allocated gold [1]. Tether Gold is the second. Symbol XAUt. Issued by TG Commodities. Its issuer site states its holdings and terms [2]. This page reads both. Then it widens to the commodity class they anchor.
PAXG, on the July report
The July 2026 report is dated 25 August 2026. It counted 442,217 tokens. Against them, 442,217 fine troy ounces of allocated London Good Delivery gold [1]. The gold was purchased from StoneX Group Inc. It is stored at Brink’s Global Services and ICBC Standard Bank. LBMA-approved vaults [1]. KPMG LLP signed three reports. May, June, and July 2026. Each read as a PDF [1].
One report line deserves its own paragraph. The AICPA stablecoin criteria are not applicable, the report states. The token is commodities-pegged [1]. A dollar-stablecoin examination framework does not automatically cover a gold token. The report says so itself. That is exactly the kind of sentence that makes a document trustworthy about its own scope.
Tether Gold, on the issuer site
The issuer site states its holdings directly. 1,804 gold bars. 22,168.93 kilograms [2]. The site states no troy-ounce figure. The conversion on this page is our own arithmetic. About 712,748 troy ounces, labeled as ours. The site’s asterisked market value read $3,114,412,771. It carries the site’s own disclaimer marker [2].
The economics are stated in the site’s own terms. A fee of 25 basis points applies at purchase. It applies again at redemption. More redemption fees are possible. Physical delivery is offered to any address in Switzerland. The token divides to 0.000001 of a fine troy ounce [2].
The number that is not about gold
One conflation guard belongs on every reading of Tether’s documents. The consolidated Q2 2026 reserves report carries a Precious Metals category of $18,838,357,171 [3]. That line belongs to the USDT reserve report. It is priced at a stated LBMA gold price on 30 June 2026. It is not a Tether Gold backing figure. The gold token’s own holdings are the bar count above. Keep those two numbers apart. That is the most useful habit on this page.
The structural comparison
The two tokens differ in document structure. The difference is stated as structure. No safety verdict rides with it. PAXG publishes a monthly per-token examination. KPMG LLP signs it. It covers allocated gold in named vaults [1]. The Tether Gold issuer site states its bar and kilogram holdings. It routes to the consolidated group transparency page. A dedicated per-token attestation was not found on the issuer’s routes when they were checked, as of 11 September 2026 [2] [3]. That is a scoped negative. Dated. Nothing wider.
A provider read Tether Gold at $2,673,357,311 the same day. The site’s own figure read $3,114,412,771. A 14 percent divergence [2]. Both figures stand with their labels. The gap is not reconciled here. No document reconciles it.
The wider commodity class
Gold is the verified instance of a wider idea. Tokens backed by physical commodities. The definition travels. An issuer holds a commodity reserve. It issues tokens against it. Each token carries a quantity of the underlying asset. The two gold tokens above are the complete verified set in this corpus. Other commodities appear in older marketing copy. Oil and real estate among them. No verified token for them exists in this site’s research. So none is named here.
The class symmetry matters more than any example. A commodity token is not free of the underlying asset’s price. The commodity’s price drops. The token’s value drops with it. The old class copy conceded this itself. The same sentence rides this page. Commodity backing changes what the price follows. It does not change whether the price can move.
The old class copy also claimed commodity tokens escape the risks of fiat. Inflation among them. The correction is symmetry, not superiority. A gold token trades one exposure for another. A central bank’s policy out. A metal’s price in. The ordinary document and custody questions ride along, as they do for every backed token. Which exposure a reader prefers is the reader’s question. No page on this site answers it for them.
How to read the numbers on this page
Three habits carry this page’s figures. One: name the capture. The PAXG count is a report figure. It carries two report dates and a publication date, all stated. The Tether Gold bar count is an issuer-site figure. Asterisked by the issuer’s own marker. Read on a stated day [2]. Two: label conversions. The troy-ounce figure for Tether Gold’s bars is this site’s arithmetic from the site’s kilograms. It says so. Three: keep bases separate. The consolidated reserves report and the gold token’s holdings are different documents. They answer different questions. The conflation guard above is the worked example.
None of this is skepticism for its own sake. It is the difference between two kinds of numbers. A number that can be re-checked. A number that can only be repeated. This library publishes only the first kind.
Where this page sits
The PAXG token page holds that token’s figures and custody chain in full. The stablecoin intro places the gold class in the type map. The fiat-backed page carries the dollar class it diverges from. The stablecoins hub frames the pillar. The cryptocurrency hub is this page’s home root.
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