Research summary
XGZ is an Ethereum token meant to track one gram of gold. GoldZip Digital Pte Ltd, a Singapore company owned by the Hong Kong Gold Exchange group, issues it, and redeems 1,000 tokens for a 1 kg bar collected at Brink’s in Singapore. About 39,017 XGZ were outstanding on 2026-09-23, roughly 39 kg of gold or $5.3 million. The name of an old exchange stands behind the token, but the terms give the holder almost nothing. They say no holder has “a proprietary interest in any of the Good Delivery Bar(s) held by the Administrator,” so the holder owns no gold and is an unsecured creditor with a right to redeem on GoldZip’s terms. If GoldZip winds down, the tokens become “perfunctory and without legal effect” and every claim is extinguished. Redemption takes a whole kilogram, about $135,000, a signed waiver of all claims, and a trip to Singapore. On chain, the owner contract can freeze any address and then burn its balance, and can raise the transfer fee from 0.01% to as much as 100%. GoldZip publishes no attestation of the bars. The assessment is adverse.
Observable review triggers
- GoldZip amends its terms to give holders a proprietary interest in allocated bars that survives its winding down
- An independent firm publishes an attestation or bar list covering the gold behind XGZ
- The owner contract caps the transfer fee well below 100% or removes forceBurn, or the implementation changes
- GoldZip freezes or force-burns an address, or publishes a suspension or wind-down notice
- Redemption opens below one kilogram or at a site outside Singapore
Facts on file
- Research assessment
- Adverse
- Client selection
- Not considered
- Exposure
- tokenized commodity
- Chains examined
- Ethereum
- Instruments
- XGZ
- Reviewed
- Next review