Auxite vs PAXG, Tether Gold and Kinesis: How Tokenized Precious Metals Actually Compare

If you're researching gold-backed tokens, you've probably narrowed it down to a handful of names: PAXG (Paxos Gold), XAUT (Tether Gold), KAU (Kinesis Gold), and AUXG (Auxite Gold). They all promise "1 token = 1 unit of physical gold." They all show you a custodian. They all publish some form of attestation.

So why pick one over another?

Below is the comparison we wish someone had handed us when we started building Auxite — the one that doesn't dodge the awkward details. Numbers and links are accurate as of June 2026; some product specs change quietly, so always verify with the issuer before allocating real capital.

The short answer

• PAXG is the most regulated and the most liquid on centralised exchanges, but it's gold-only and the on-chain footprint is Ethereum mainnet — fees and finality reflect that.
• XAUT is operationally similar to PAXG with a larger but less independent custody story; redemption is theoretical for most retail holders.
• KAU lives inside the Kinesis Monetary System ecosystem and pays a yield from network fees, but only inside that ecosystem; portability is limited.
• AUXG (and its siblings AUXS, AUXPT, AUXPD) covers all four monetary metals, settles on Base for low fees, and pairs each issuance with a daily NAV feed on rwa.xyz plus a third-party attestation rhythm.

The rest of this post is the long version.

What "tokenized gold" should actually mean

A tokenized precious metal worth holding has to clear four bars:

1. Allocated metal — your share is identified by serial-numbered bars, not a pooled claim on a balance sheet.
2. Segregated custody — client metal is legally separated from the issuer's own balance sheet, so an issuer insolvency doesn't sweep your gold.
3. Independent attestation — a real auditor (not the issuer's own staff) confirms the metal exists at a published cadence.
4. A working redemption path — you, or an institution acting for you, can actually take the bar.

Anything missing one of these is a gold-flavoured IOU, not allocated metal.

Side-by-side

	AUXG (Auxite)	PAXG (Paxos)	XAUT (Tether Gold)	KAU (Kinesis)
Issuer	Aurum Ledger Ltd (Hong Kong)	Paxos Trust Company (US, NYDFS-regulated)	TG Commodities Ltd (BVI)	Kinesis Money Ltd (Cayman / Liechtenstein)
Unit of account	1 token = 1 gram	1 token = 1 troy ounce	1 token = 1 troy ounce	1 KAU = 1 gram
Other metals on same platform	Silver, platinum, palladium (AUXS / AUXPT / AUXPD)	Gold only	Gold only	Silver (KAG) only
Vault location	Singapore (Silver Bullion SG)	London (Brink's)	Switzerland	Switzerland, UK, US
Custody model	Allocated, segregated, bankruptcy-remote	Allocated, bankruptcy-remote	Allocated, segregated	Allocated, segregated
Attestation	The Network Firm (monthly)	WithumSmith+Brown (monthly)	BDO (semiannual)	Bureau Veritas / inventory audits
Settlement chain	Base (L2)	Ethereum L1	Ethereum L1, Tron	Kinesis Blockchain (Stellar fork)
Transaction cost (typical)	~$0.01	$2–$20 (gas-dependent)	$2–$20 ETH / ~$1 Tron	<$0.01 internal
Issuance fee	0.35% trading fee	0.02% creation / 1.49% buy via Paxos	None disclosed; built into spread	0.22% mint, 0.45% transfer
Redemption to physical	Through institutional partner, 100g+ allocations	430-oz London Good Delivery bars only	1 kg bars, 4–7 day notice	1g+ via Kinesis Direct
Yield on holdings	Optional structured lease (90 / 180 / 365 day)	None native	None	Holder + minter yield from network fees
Public NAV feed	rwa.xyz, daily	Paxos site	Tether reserves page	Kinesis dashboard

Where each product quietly falls short

PAXG

PAXG is the institutional benchmark and deserves the reputation. Paxos Trust is a chartered New York limited-purpose trust company, and the monthly attestations are the cleanest in the space. The trade-off is everything else: it's gold-only, you settle on Ethereum L1 (so a 5-gram transfer can cost more than a small purchase), and physical redemption is gated to 430-oz London Good Delivery bars — a structural choice that prices retail holders out of the redemption story.

For an institution that just needs a regulated, auditable gold position on Ethereum, PAXG is hard to beat. For anyone who actually wants to move metal in and out, it's a holding instrument, not a payment one.

XAUT (Tether Gold)

XAUT is operationally similar to PAXG: 1 token = 1 troy ounce, allocated bars, Swiss vault. The harder question is the issuer. TG Commodities is a Tether-affiliated BVI entity, attested semiannually by BDO. The metal exists; the governance and disclosure cadence are lighter than Paxos's, and BVI law gives less recourse than New York trust law if something goes wrong.

Redemption is real — 1 kg bars, 4–7 day notice — but functionally retail-inaccessible. Most XAUT changes hands on centralised exchanges and is held for price exposure rather than as a claim on bars.

KAU (Kinesis Gold)

Kinesis is a different design entirely: it runs its own blockchain (a Stellar fork) and pays a yield on holdings, sourced from the transaction fees of its proprietary network. Allocated metal is real, audits are conducted. The catch is portability. KAU lives inside the Kinesis ecosystem; it doesn't ship to mainnet liquidity, it doesn't compose with DeFi, and the yield only exists as long as the network's own transaction volume holds up.

If you're committed to using Kinesis as a daily-spend metal-backed currency, the model is internally consistent. If you want a token that travels — to Base, to Ethereum, into DEX liquidity, into a custodian's reporting stack — KAU is the wrong tool.

AUXG (Auxite)

We'll be direct about our own gaps because nothing here is closer to magic than the others:

• Custody concentration: AUXG metal currently sits with one custodian (Silver Bullion Pte Ltd, Singapore). We have a second-vault commitment on the roadmap, but as of this writing it's single-custodian.
• Issuer geography: Aurum Ledger Ltd is a Hong Kong limited company. Hong Kong is a credible commercial jurisdiction but is not a chartered trust jurisdiction the way New York is for Paxos.
• Attestation maturity: We publish monthly attestations from The Network Firm, but our public attestation history is short relative to PAXG's multi-year cadence.

What we believe we do better:

• All four monetary metals on one rail. AUXG, AUXS, AUXPT, AUXPD share custody, settlement, and reporting. Reallocating between gold and silver is a single on-chain transaction, not a sell-buy round trip.
• Base, not Ethereum L1. A real transfer costs about a cent, so the token is usable, not just holdable.
• Daily NAV published to rwa.xyz, with the yield rate sourced from our public lease-rates endpoint. The custodian field on rwa.xyz says "Silver Bullion SG"; the attestation field says "The Network Firm." No anonymised intermediaries.
• Optional structured yield, 90 / 180 / 365 day leases, opt-in, not on by default. Holdings are not lent unless the holder explicitly enters a lease.

What "fully allocated" actually requires

A useful sanity check before allocating real money to any of these tokens:

• Bar list or weight list: ask the issuer for it. Allocated metal has serial numbers.
• Auditor identity and engagement scope: not just "audited" — who, how often, and do they verify physical existence or just records.
• Insolvency walk-through: if the issuer fails tomorrow, name the legal entity that holds the bars and the trust instrument that protects them.
• A redemption test: even if you have no intention of redeeming, the redemption path tells you whether the bar story is real.

If any of those four answers come back slow, defensive, or "contact our sales team," that itself is information.

Practical takeaways

• You want regulated, gold-only, Ethereum-native, willing to wear the gas costs? PAXG.
• You're an institutional XAUT user with an existing operational pipeline to Tether? XAUT works.
• You're committed to the Kinesis monetary thesis and want yield from inside that ecosystem? KAU.
• You want all four metals, low-cost settlement on Base, daily public NAV, and the option to lease for yield? AUXG / AUXS / AUXPT / AUXPD.

There's no single "best" tokenized metal — there are different design choices, each with real trade-offs. Pick the one whose trade-offs you can defend.

If you want to look at the AUXG side of that comparison in detail, the Trust Center lays out custody, attestation, and reserves; the Whitepaper covers the legal and technical architecture; and vault.auxite.io is the platform itself.