PAXG vs. XAUT: Who Can Buy, How Redemption Works, and Who Checks the Gold

PAX Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) are the two largest gold tokens. In our October 17 market snapshot, the two made up about 89% of the reported value of the 13 gold tokens we counted. On a price chart they are nearly the same line. The differences are in the paperwork.

Everything below comes from the issuers’ own pages and documents, the LBMA, and CoinGecko, which we link at the end. Where a statement is the company’s claim, we say so.

Side by side

	PAXG	XAUT
Issuer	Paxos Trust Company, N.A. (United States)	TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V. (El Salvador)
One token is	One fine troy ounce of a London Good Delivery bar	One fine troy ounce of a London Good Delivery bar
Where the gold is	“LBMA vaults in London,” Paxos says	A custodian’s vault in Switzerland, its disclosure document says. The custodian is a related party of Tether Gold.
Oversight the issuer cites	Paxos says it is regulated by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)	Authorized as a stablecoin issuer by El Salvador’s National Commission of Digital Assets (CNAD)
Reserve reports	Monthly, by KPMG LLP, under AICPA attestation standards	Quarterly, by BDO in Italy, under international assurance standards. The latest is signed by BDO Advisory Services S.r.l.
Smallest direct purchase	0.03 PAXG on Paxos.com, per its support page. Its product page lists 0.01 troy ounce.	50 XAUT, plus a non-refundable 150 USDT verification fee
Who the issuer will not serve	Not available in the EU	US persons may not purchase or redeem. Its terms bar Canadian and Singaporean persons from holding XAUT at all.
Storage or custody fee	None at this time. The terms let Paxos add one later (see below).	None. Its fee schedule says it can be changed at any time without prior notice.
Dormant account fee	$2.00 a month after 12 months with no issuance or redemption	None listed in its FAQ
Issuer fees	Creation fees waived through January 1, 2027. Redemption 0.125% to 0.500%, set by 30-day net redemptions, since September 1, 2026. 0.05% to convert into gold. No on-chain transfer fee.	0.25% on purchase or redemption, plus delivery costs
Blockchains	Ethereum and Solana	Ethereum and BNB Chain, per its FAQ
Look up your bar	Yes, by wallet address	Yes, by wallet address
Market value on CoinGecko, 22:47 UTC Oct. 17, 2026	$1.83 billion	$3.36 billion

Who can actually buy

This is the biggest practical difference, and it is easy to miss.

Tether’s FAQ says US persons are “prohibited from purchasing or redeeming” XAUT. Paxos says PAXG is “currently unavailable in the EU.”

Paxos’s limit is about dealing with Paxos. Tether Gold’s reaches further. Its disclosure document says anyone who holds XAUT is bound by its terms, including people who bought on an exchange. Those terms bar Canadian and Singaporean persons, and people in countries on its prohibited list, from holding XAUT at all. US persons, except some large investors Tether approves, may not open a Tether Gold wallet or use its services. What an exchange offers in your country is a separate question with its own rules. But if you cannot deal with the issuer, you cannot redeem with the issuer. Your only way out is selling to someone else.

Redeeming for real gold

Both issuers say you can turn tokens into metal. In practice that means whole bars.

A London Good Delivery bar weighs about 400 troy ounces, according to the LBMA, which sets the standard. At a gold price near $4,150, one bar is worth about $1.66 million.

Tether’s FAQ says redemptions happen only in full bars. It advises depositing 430 XAUT to be sure of covering one, because bars vary in size. It delivers to an address in Switzerland only. If you do not want the metal, Tether will try to sell the bar on the Swiss market and wire you US dollars, less its 0.25% fee. Its fee schedule says the sale may also carry a brokerage fee or dealer mark-up.

Paxos says PAXG can be redeemed for Good Delivery bars, that institutional customers can also redeem for unallocated gold in London, and that anyone with an account can redeem for US dollars at the market price. Its terms set the bar minimum: 430 PAXG per bar, plus a fee set in the Paxos user guide. Tokens above the bar’s actual weight are credited back. Only verified Paxos customers can redeem, and the tokens must first be sent to a Paxos address.

One claim does not line up. Paxos’s page calls PAXG “the only gold token you can redeem” for Good Delivery bars. Tether’s FAQ describes doing the same thing with XAUT, in Switzerland. Both statements are on the companies’ sites today.

For nearly all holders, redeeming for metal is not realistic. What matters more is whether you can redeem for cash, and whether the token trades enough to sell.

Paxos’s redemption fees since September 1

Since September 1, 2026, Paxos charges to redeem PAXG in bands, based on an account’s net redemptions over a rolling 30 days: 0.125% on the first $2 million, rising to 0.500% above $20 million. A new 0.05% fee applies to converting PAXG into gold. Creation fees are waived through January 1, 2027. These fees apply only inside a Paxos account, not to trades on an exchange. Details are in How PAXG Redemption Fees Work.

Two lines in the Paxos fine print

Paxos markets PAXG with “zero storage fees,” and today that is true. Its terms and conditions, last modified on December 12, 2025, keep a door open. Section 15.2 says Paxos “may charge storage fees to all token holders by issuing to Paxos new PAXG tokens, thereby diluting the value of existing PAXG tokens.” It promises at least 30 days’ notice of the method and timing.

Section 15.5 adds a separate charge. An account with a balance, and no issuance or redemption activity for 12 months, pays $2.00 a month.

The same terms describe what a holder owns. PAXG tokens are “akin to a warehouse receipt” for beneficial ownership of a share of the allocated gold. The terms mention insolvency once, about the clearing bank used for unallocated gold. We found no section on what happens to token holders if Paxos itself fails. Section 4.3 says the gold is held “on a segregated basis for the benefit of PAXG holders.”

Tether Gold’s FAQ and fee schedule list no custody fee and no dormancy fee. Its terms of sale, last updated September 9, 2025, have no storage-fee clause like Paxos’s. But its fee schedule says it “may be amended, changed, or updated by Tether Gold at any time and without prior notice.” Paxos’s terms, section 15.6, also let it change fees at any time, effective when posted.

Who checks the gold, and how often

Paxos publishes a report every month. Reports posted since February 28, 2025 come from KPMG LLP. Earlier ones came from WithumSmith+Brown. Paxos says the work follows attestation standards set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Tether Gold publishes a reserves report every quarter. Management prepares it. An accounting firm in the BDO network in Italy then reports on it under international standards for “reasonable assurance” engagements. The most recent opinions are signed by BDO Advisory Services S.r.l. The latest report on Tether’s site, as of June 30, 2026, showed 707,747.139 ounces held by the custodian against 707,747.09 tokens minted. Tether’s page also says the reports “are not financial statements.”

Monthly is more often than quarterly. Neither is a full audit of the company. We explain the difference in Attestation, Audit, or Proof of Reserves.

A small wording point: Paxos’s product page says the gold is “audited monthly,” while its transparency page describes monthly attestation reports. Those are different kinds of work, and the transparency page is the more exact of the two.

The regulator question

Paxos’s PAXG page says Paxos is “regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,” and the site footer names Paxos Trust Company, N.A. When we checked, its transparency page still named the New York State Department of Financial Services as the regulator that approved its accounting firms. We report both as we found them.

Tether Gold’s disclosure document says TG Commodities is authorized by CNAD in El Salvador as a stablecoin issuer and registered as a digital asset service provider, number PSAD-0032. The same document says registration “does not imply certification” of the token’s quality or the issuer’s solvency.

What this comparison does not tell you

We did not inspect any gold. We did not test a redemption. Fees, minimums, and eligibility change, so check the issuer’s page before you act. This article is not advice to hold either token.