Tradewind, a financial technology company, announced today that it has launched a new digital gold platform that combines world-class exchange technology with VaultChain, a tailored blockchain application expected to remodel the trading, settlement, and ownership of physical gold.
The Tradewind platform went live on March 23rd, 2018, commencing the integration of a network of authorized liquidity providers and dealers.
The first gold registered on the Tradewind platform will be vaulted by the Royal Canadian Mint, a Crown corporation of the Government of Canada. The Royal Canadian Mint will facilitate the registration of investment grade physical gold on the Tradewind platform as VaultChain Gold by confirming that it is in possession of the physical gold that underlies the platform.
Together with the authorized liquidity providers and dealers, the Mint will recognize the Tradewind blockchain as the authoritative record of title for ownership. The Mint will also contractually guarantee the option for physical delivery of the gold underlying the program to the network of authorized liquidity providers and dealers.
Matt Trudeau, President, and co-founder of Tradewind said:
“We believe that the ownership and trading of vaulted precious metals will go digital, and our open-architecture platform will lead this transformation allowing market participants to quickly and easily adapt. Gold and blockchain technology form a uniquely compelling marriage, and we created our platform to enable the gold market to respond to a number of systemic challenges and remove prior limitations.”
Sandra Hanington, CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint commented:
“The Royal Canadian Mint is pleased to have worked with Tradewind to combine our world-class vaulting services with their innovative technology solution aimed at digitizing and modernizing the physical precious metals trading market.”
Mike Haughton, co-founder of Tradewind, said:
“The Tradewind blockchain can directly link precious metals’ producers, custodians, market makers, dealers, and investors. This will unlock opportunities for market participants to conduct business more efficiently, securely, and profitably across existing business operations, and enable future utility including provenance tracking and collateral management.”
Tradewind’s investors include industry leaders in precious metals and exchange technology, including IEX Group, the next-generation stock exchange; Sprott Inc., a global precious metals asset manager; and, Goldcorp Inc., one of the world’s largest gold producers.