PAXG — Verification Runbook

Instrument: PAX Gold Issuer: Paxos Asset class: Commodity (physical gold, 1:1 backed) Last verified: 2026-06-03 Status: Live on Ethereum. Both OCB-side engineering gaps closed 2026-06-03.

1. Address provenance

Ethereum

• Contract: 0x45804880de22913dafe09f4980848ece6ecbaf78 (PAXG token, 18 decimals)
• Contract pattern: AdminUpgradeabilityProxy (Solidity 0.4.24, OpenZeppelin transparent proxy).
• Price model: peg_one (per troy oz). No onchain price oracle. Each PAXG = 1 troy oz of physical gold. Valuation = totalSupply() * offchain_gold_spot (LBMA PM fix via raw_external_rates, benchmark_id=lbma_gold_spot).
• Verification: Verified contract on Etherscan, 18 decimals confirmed.
• Governance: proxyOwner() = 0x3Af3e85f4f97De7AD0f000B724Fb77fE5ffc024B. Plain EOA — no Contract tab on Etherscan. Active Paxos operations key: issues Freeze txns on PAXG and BUSD, Schedule Next txns on Global Dollar (USDG). 215 transactions. Single EOA controls upgrades on a ~$464M token. Verified 2026-06-01.
• Confidence: ≥95%

PAXG is single-chain in our coverage (Ethereum only). Paxos may have multi-chain deployments — not in launch scope.

2. Provenance record — attestation source

source_kind:  issuer_primary_publication
url:          https://paxos.com/paxg-transparency
method:       Framer SPA. Page module JS (longest-name .mjs under /sites/{siteId}/)
              contains buttonText:`Mmm`,file:`...pdf` pairs. Year derived from
              Last-Modified HTTP header on each PDF (if Last-Modified month <= button
              month index → reportYear = publishedYear - 1, else publishedYear).
confirmed_by: Sarah inspected DevTools 2026-06-02, found framerusercontent.com PDF
              URLs in page module JS. Fetcher smoke-tested 2026-06-03: 5 reports
              ingested (Dec 2025 – Apr 2026), all real framerusercontent CDN URLs.
confidence:   95.0
auditor_rotation:
  - from: 2025-02-28 → auditor: KPMG LLP
  - before:           auditor: WithumSmith+Brown PC

3. Scoring evidence

Yield Accuracy — 15/25 (was 5/25)

• Approach: PAXG has no yield by design. Yield Accuracy scores against the LBMA PM gold fix (commodity-peg signal-only branch, Approach A per methodology v2.0 §3.1 deferral).
• Source: raw_external_rates where benchmark_id = 'lbma_gold_spot'. Normalizer writes norm_yield with computation_method = 'commodity_peg:benchmark_only', published_yield_pct = NULL, benchmark_yield_pct = <LBMA spot>, period_end = now().
• Score: 15/25 (pegWithPublishedRate rubric — independent benchmark exists). Resolved 2026-06-03.

Liquidity — 8/25

• Approach: Market liquidity vs supply.
• Score: Moderate. PAXG has real DEX liquidity but moderate vs ~$464M supply.

Transparency — resolved 2026-06-03

• attestationFreshness: Paxos publishes monthly reports via paxos.com/paxg-transparency. Fetcher: lib/jobs/collectAttestations.ts::fetchPaxosPaxgReports. Live — 5 reports ingested on first run (6-month lookback).
• disclosureConsistency: Will populate on next full scoring cycle after attestations accumulate.
• regulatoryStanding: Strong — Paxos is a regulated trust company.
• governanceQuality: Single EOA controls upgrades. Material concern reflected in governance score.

Concentration — 25/25

• Approach: Top-10 holders excluding documented protocol addresses.
• Score: 25/25. 89,556 total holders. Top-10 after exchange/infrastructure exclusions: ~0% concentration (migrations 0037, 0039).

4. Gap attribution

Both OCB-side gaps are closed. Remaining governance gap is Paxos's risk decision, not ours.

5. Change log

• 2026-06-03: Both OCB-side gaps closed. LBMA benchmark wired (yield 5 → 15). Attestation fetcher written (fetchPaxosPaxgReports) — Framer SPA approach, PDF URLs from page module JS, year from Last-Modified header. 5 reports ingested. Updated provenance record.
• 2026-06-02: First runbook draft. Both PAXG gaps identified as OCB-side engineering.