# PAX Gold (PAXG) Quantum Readiness Report

> PAX Gold has a QRI score of 1/100 and is assessed at Stage 1 (Quantum Risk Assessed) with medium evidence confidence.

Evaluation date: 2026-06-05. Review status: draft. Evaluated scope: ERC-20 tokenized gold asset on Ethereum mainnet, including token-specific admin/governance keys (owner, supplyController, assetProtectionRole, feeController). User transaction authorization is inherited from Ethereum L1 per QRI Section 7.2 (Token Inheritance)..

PAX Gold (PAXG) is a standard ERC-20 tokenized gold asset on Ethereum, issued by Paxos Trust Company. Per QRI Section 7.2 (Token Inheritance), PAXG inherits Ethereum L1's quantum vulnerability for all user transaction authorization (ECDSA/secp256k1). Beyond inherited L1 risk, PAXG has critical token-specific quantum vulnerabilities in its centralized admin keys. The owner, supplyController, assetProtectionRole, and feeController are all standard Ethereum ECDSA addresses. These admin addresses have transacted on-chain, permanently exposing their public keys. A quantum adversary recovering any of these private keys could mint unlimited PAXG tokens, freeze or wipe any user's balance, or upgrade the proxy contract to a malicious implementation — compromising the entire ~$100M+ token supply integrity. Paxos has published no cryptographic inventory, no quantum risk assessment, no post-quantum migration plan, and no evidence of quantum-resistant admin key protection. The PAXG contract contains no custom post-quantum cryptography and relies entirely on Ethereum's native ECDSA for all authorization paths. The QRI Score is 1, reflecting the complete absence of quantum preparedness at the token-specific level.

## Core resources

- [PAX Gold QRI report](https://qrindex.org/projects/pax-gold/): Human-readable assessment with score, stage, evidence, blockers, risks, and assurance notes.
- [PAX Gold structured report data](https://qrindex.org/projects/pax-gold/report.json): Complete report as JSON for deterministic machine processing.
- [QRI methodology](https://qrindex.org/methodology/): Scoring model, evidence handling, readiness stages, confidence, assurance, and report status.
- [All QRI project reports](https://qrindex.org/llms.txt): Score-ranked index of every published project assessment.
- [PAX Gold official website](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/pax-gold): Project-maintained website.



## Evidence sources

- [Evidence source 1](<https://github.com/paxosglobal/paxos-gold-contract>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 2](<https://www.paxos.com/pax-gold>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 3](<https://www.paxos.com/terms-and-conditions/pax-gold-terms-conditions>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 4](<https://etherscan.io/token/0x45804880de22913dafe09f4980848ece6ecbaf78>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 5](<https://github.com/paxosglobal/paxos-gold-contract/blob/master/contracts/PAXGImplementation.sol>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 6](<https://etherscan.io/address/0x45804880de22913dafe09f4980848ece6ecbaf78>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 7](<https://github.com/paxosglobal/paxos-token-contracts>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 8](<https://github.com/paxosglobal/paxos-gold-contract/blob/master/README.md>): Public source cited by the PAX Gold QRI assessment.