Norilsk Nickel CEO Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s richest men, wants to tokenize palladium. Potanin owns a third of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer. Palladium is a rare metal used in car catalytic converters and is currently worth $1550 per ounce, more than gold ($1,318).
According to Bloomberg, Potanin sees the utility in tokenizing contracts for trading. So if someone commits to buying a certain quantity of the metal and finds they don’t need it all, by tokenizing it might be easier to transfer part of the contract.
The billionaire is waiting for Russia to pass new laws relating to digital financial assets, but the current draft legislation requires digital platforms to be run by banks or exchanges. He hopes that will change.
Several blockchain projects target commodities and metals. Many of the metals projects focus on supply chains such as the Ford / IBM cobalt project and the broader Canadian Minehub startup. Others aim at “post-trade” including the LME backed and Mercuria-led network revealed today.
But for gold and silver, there are several projects targeted at trading. One of the highest profile is the Tradewind trading platform where the gold is custodied by the Royal Canada Mint. The UK’s Royal Mint had similar plans, but they abandoned the idea. Tradewind is backed by IEX Ventures, Agnico Eagle, Wheaton Precious Metals, Goldcorp and others. In Indonesia, the Jakarta Futures Exchange is working one of many tokenization projects for gold and silver.
