I have followed the rolls in many futures markets over many years. (I used to make a living out of squeezing the close in AUD interest rate futures in the 1980's)
I have been following the gold closely since August last year when it looked like there was a significant drain of physical supply into the Eastern sovereign funds and the likely preconditions for arbitrage. I wasn’t all that surprised when nothing happened. The market in gold derivatives is very deep and mature.
I think the "paper gold" story wilfully misleading. Derivatives shouldn’t be that hard to understand but people seem happy to parrot ignorance from the internet, so I took some time out this morning to give the idea another kick.