Paxos Gold

Paxos Gold receives a B+ risk grade (20/100) from Hindenrank, where lower scores indicate lower risk. Moderate risk — real gold backing with monthly audits is strong, but regulatory shutdown precedent from BUSD creates existential tail risk A token backed 1:1 by physical gold bars stored in professional vaults, regulated by New York financial authorities. It holds $2.2B worth of gold and is one of two dominant tokenized gold products. Its B- grade comes from the precedent of Paxos being forced to shut down its BUSD stablecoin in 2023, proving regulators can terminate even compliant products.

The key risks identified for Paxos Gold are: (1) Paxos was forced by New York regulators to shut down its BUSD stablecoin in 2023 -- the same regulators oversee PAXG and could do it again (2) PAXG and one competitor control 80% of the $5.5B tokenized gold market -- a crisis in either product would devastate the entire sector (3) If Paxos announces a wind-down, early redeemers get their gold while latecomers may be stuck with cash at a discount

Paxos Gold scores 20/100 across eight risk dimensions: Mechanism Novelty: 0/15, Interaction Severity: 4/20, Oracle Surface: 0/10, Documentation Gaps: 1/10, Track Record: 0/15, Scale Exposure: 3/10, Regulatory Risk: 9/10, Vitality Risk: 3/10. The highest risk area is Regulatory Risk at 9/10.

Among 73 rated RWA protocols on Hindenrank, Paxos Gold ranks #1 by safety (lowest risk score = safest). Its 20/100 risk score and B+ grade place it among the safer RWA protocols.

Paxos Gold scores 0/15 on the Track Record risk dimension, indicating no significant exploits or security incidents in its history. However, past performance does not guarantee future security.