New York – September 24, 2026 -- Paxos Labs has launched PAXGy, a gold-backed token that accrues value in gold terms by routing reserves into the multi-billion dollar institutional gold leasing market that has set bullion lending rates for four decades.
PAXGy deploys PAXG reserves into a market previously closed to retail holders
Holders deposit PAXG or swap accepted stablecoins for PAXGy, which is redeemable for PAXG at any time. The underlying gold is deployed to a network of vetted institutional borrowers -- refiners, jewelry manufacturers, miners and bullion banks -- through the same leasing market that has priced bullion lease rates for decades. As reserves are deployed, value accrues to the PAXGy exchange rate, meaning each token becomes worth more PAXG over time and holders can exit with more notional ounces than their principal.
Central banks and $530 billion in gold ETFs highlight the yield gap PAXGy targets
Central banks hold close to one-fifth of all gold ever mined, and in the World Gold Council's 2026 survey, 37 percent said they actively manage those reserves through lending and swaps. By contrast, roughly $530 billion of gold sits in ETFs whose investors pay annual fees of up to 40 basis points to hold a metal that generates no return for them.
Tokenized gold trading volume already surpassed all of 2025 in Q1 2026
Tokenized gold now exceeds $5 billion in value and traded $90.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, surpassing full-year 2025 volume. Paxos Labs argues that turning bullion into divisible, transferable, programmable tokens allows fractional holdings to be pooled into institutional-size positions, opening leasing-market economics to holders of any size.
OKX is the only centralized exchange listing PAXGy at launch
PAXGy is live on OKX -- the sole centralized exchange offering it at launch -- through OKX Gold Earn and X Layer, alongside on-chain platforms X Layer, 0x, Uniswap and Ether.Fi. Chainlink's CCIP serves as the exclusive cross-chain messaging provider, allowing holders to move a PAXGy position across chains without first unwinding it. Additional venues are expected to follow.
Executives frame PAXGy as extending institutional gold economics to retail holders
"Gold has been lent for thousands of years, and institutions have earned on their bullion reserves for decades," said Bhau Kotecha, Co-Founder of Paxos Labs. "That market has never been accessible to ordinary holders of gold globally. PAXGy brings its economics to a token anyone can hold, with the assets in the reserve growing in ounce terms, redeemable for PAXG at any time."
Walter Hessert, Head of Strategy at Paxos, said the firm made gold move at the speed and transparency of the blockchain as issuer of PAXG, and that PAXGy "makes it work like capital." Jason Lau, Chief Innovation Officer at OKX, said gold is often the first asset investors reach for to preserve value but has never earned, and that OKX customers will have access to that yield from day one through X Layer and eventually the exchange.
PAXG remains the only federally regulated tokenized gold asset, backed by investment-grade gold held in LBMA vaults and independently attested by KPMG.