Tokenized Gold and Market Closures: Evidence on Information Transmission Across Trading Infrastructures

This study examines how the informational relationship between tokenized gold and traditional gold futures varies when traditional markets are temporarily inaccessible. Focusing on recurrent trading-hour discontinuities in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) gold futures market, we analyze information transmission between the continuously traded tokenized gold asset PAX Gold (PAXG) and CME gold futures. Using hourly data from February 2024 to December 2025, we implement complementary empirical analyses, including Granger causality tests during overlapping trading hours, market gap regressions across closure intervals, and downside sensitivity analysis. Three principal findings emerge. First, during concurrent trading hours, PAXG does not exhibit statistically significant information leadership over gold futures. Second, PAXG returns accumulated during extended market gaps exceeding 40 hours are positively associated with subsequent gold futures reopening returns, whereas the corresponding association is not statistically significant during short market gaps. The interaction with market gap duration is also not statistically significant. Third, PAXG exhibits a higher estimated beta during periods of negative gold futures returns than in the full sample. Overall, the results suggest that continuously traded tokenized assets may provide complementary price information under specific conditions of traditional market inaccessibility rather than serving as substitutes for established market infrastructure.