Tag: technology

Banking, Blockchains, Decentralized, Digital Currency, finance, Gold, International Finance, precious-metals, tokenization, Yogi Nelson

Gold, the UNIT, and mBridge: How Tokenization May Rewire Global Settlement

Yogi Nelson

Today, gold is once again being repositioned—not as a domestic currency, but as international settlement infrastructure. This time, however, it is being paired with something previous systems lacked: blockchain-based verification and settlement rails.

The emerging combination of gold, the proposed UNIT, and the mBridge settlement system, strengthened by tokenization, represents a new and potentially powerful evolution of gold-backed money—one designed for a multipolar, digital world.

This is not a return to the gold standard. It is something more modern, more flexible, and more structural.

Gold’s Role Has Always Been About Trust

Gold earned its monetary role long before central banks existed. Its appeal was never ideological. Gold worked because it was scarce, durable, and politically neutral. It allowed settlement between parties that did not trust one another.

As economies expanded, gold’s form changed. Coins gave way to paper claims redeemable for metal. Later, convertibility faded, but gold remained central as a reserve asset—anchoring confidence rather than enforcing discipline.

Each transition reflected the constraints of the era. What remained constant was gold’s function as trust infrastructure. That function is being revisited today.

Why the Current System Is Being Questioned

The modern global monetary system is built around two pillars:

  1. The U.S. dollar as the dominant settlement and reserve currency
  2. SWIFT as the primary global financial messaging network

This system is efficient, liquid, and deeply entrenched. But it also creates structural asymmetries. Nations that do not control the system (90%+ of the world) remain dependent on it for trade settlement, reserves, and cross-border payments.

For the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—those asymmetries have become increasingly visible:

  • Trade volumes have grown faster than monetary influence
  • Sanctions and payment restrictions have highlighted vulnerability
  • Correspondent banking adds cost, delay, and political exposure

The response has not been to abandon fiat currencies or dismantle existing systems. Instead, BRICS policymakers have explored parallel architectures—systems that coexist with the current order but reduce dependency on it. Gold naturally reenters the picture here.

The UNIT: Gold-Referenced Settlement Money

The proposed UNIT is not a retail currency and not a replacement for national money. It is best understood as a trade settlement and accounting unit, designed primarily for use within BRICS trade corridors.

Publicly discussed models describe the UNIT as being backed by a hybrid structure:

  • 40% gold
  • 60% fiat currency, divided evenly among the five founding members

This design is intentional. Gold provides neutrality and credibility. Fiat components preserve flexibility and continuity with existing monetary systems.

The UNIT does not seek to dethrone the dollar globally, at least not yet. Instead, it challenges the dollar’s default role in BRICS trade settlement, offering an alternative reference unit that reduces reliance on any single sovereign currency. But money alone does not create a system. Settlement requires infrastructure. This is where mBridge enters the story.

mBridge: The Settlement Rail

mBridge is not money. It is infrastructure—a blockchain-based, multi-CBDC settlement platform designed to enable direct value transfer between central banks and large institutions.

Unlike SWIFT, which transmits payment instructions, mBridge is designed to settle value itself. It reduces the need for correspondent banks, shortens settlement times, and increases transparency.

The distinction is critical:

  • SWIFT answers the question: Who should pay whom?
  • mBridge answers the question: Has payment occurred?

mBridge does not replace SWIFT outright. But it introduces a parallel settlement pathway, particularly attractive to countries seeking to reduce exposure to existing financial chokepoints.

On its own, mBridge is a powerful tool. Combined with a gold-referenced unit like the UNIT, it becomes something more and when tokenization is dropped into the mix, a challenger appears on the horizon.

Tokenization: The Force Multiplier

Gold-backed systems historically failed for predictable reasons: opacity, centralized control, and political override. Trust depended on promises rather than proof. Tokenization changes that equation.

Tokenization allows physical gold held in sovereign vaults to be:

  • Digitally represented
  • Cryptographically verified
  • Independently audited
  • Programmatically referenced in settlement

In a UNIT–mBridge framework, tokenization could serve as the verification layer that binds money and infrastructure together.  Rather than relying on declarations that gold exists, tokenization allows systems to prove it.

How the System Could Work in Tandem

In combination, the components align naturally:

  • Gold provides neutral, non-sovereign credibility
  • The UNIT provides a shared settlement and accounting unit
  • mBridge provides the blockchain-based settlement rail
  • Tokenization provides verification, transparency, and enforcement

Under such a framework:

  • Gold remains physically stored within national vaults
  • Each nation retains sovereign custody over its reserves
  • Tokenized representations confirm the existence and allocation of gold
  • mBridge settles obligations using verified balances
  • The UNIT functions as the accounting and pricing reference

This structure does not eliminate fiat currencies. It operates above them, coordinating settlement without replacing domestic monetary systems.

Challenge or Revolution?

It is important to be precise. This system does not overthrow the dollar or dismantle SWIFT overnight.  Instead, it introduces functional competition:

  • Competition to SWIFT in settlement infrastructure
  • Competition to the dollar in specific trade corridors
  • Competition based on architecture, not ideology

Tokenization is what makes this competition real. Without it, the UNIT is an accounting idea and mBridge is an experiment. With it, they become a coherent, auditable system. This is how monetary systems change—not through abrupt replacement, but through parallel adoption.

Why Gold Fits This Moment

Gold is uniquely suited to this role:

  • Central banks already hold it
  • Custody practices are established
  • It is not consumed or degraded
  • It functions naturally as collateral

Unlike other commodities, gold does not need to circulate to be useful. Its credibility increases when it remains immobile and verified. Tokenization allows gold to be digitally active without being physically mobile.

Historical Continuity, Not Regression

Seen in historical context, this evolution is logical:

  1. Gold as physical money
  2. Gold as paper backing
  3. Gold as reserve asset
  4. Gold as digitally verified settlement anchor

Each stage reflects technological capability and political reality. Tokenization does not restore the gold standard. It modernizes gold’s role as trust infrastructure.

The UNIT and mBridge are not anomalies. They are contemporary expressions of an ancient instinct: when trust is uneven, systems seek neutral anchors.

Conclusion: Tokenization as the Enabler

Gold-backed money has always depended on credibility. What has changed is how credibility can be demonstrated. By combining gold, the UNIT, mBridge, and tokenization, BRICS nations are exploring a system where backing is verifiable, settlement is direct, and trust is structural rather than discretionary.

This does not replace existing systems. It pressures them. It offers alternatives. And once alternatives exist, they tend to persist.

Tokenization is not the headline. It is the enabler—the quiet force that allows gold-backed settlement to function in a digital, multipolar world.

That is why this moment matters.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Uncategorized

Rhodium as an RWA: Rare, Essential, But is it Tokenizable

Yogi Nelson

by Yogi Nelson

Prior to entering the metal space, I assumed only gold and silver were considered precious metals. Wrong. Rhodium is a precious metal, as are all members of the platinum group metals, of which rhodium is a part. However, rhodium sits at the extreme edge of the precious-metals universe. Unlike metals traditionally associated with wealth preservation or adornment, rhodium lives almost entirely in the industrial shadows—embedded deep inside technologies that modern life depends on, yet rarely seen or discussed by investors. That combination of scarcity, opacity, and industrial dependence makes rhodium fascinating, essential—and, at least for now, an uneasy fit for tokenization..

As real-world assets (RWAs) migrate onto blockchain rails, the natural question arises: can an ultra-rare, thinly traded metal like rhodium realistically function as a tokenized asset? Or does its very rarity make it unsuitable for digital abstraction?

Tag along to explore that question in depth.

What Is Rhodium

Let’s start with a bit of metallurgy.  Rhodium is a silvery-white, highly reflective metal.  It belongs to the platinum group metals (PGMs), alongside platinum, palladium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium. Chemically inert, extremely hard, and highly resistant to corrosion, rhodium possesses physical properties that make it indispensable for certain industrial applications.  It may be almost entirely invisible to the public but not to chemists.

Unlike gold or silver, rhodium is not mined for its own sake. Rhodium is a by-product.  Of what you ask?  Almost exclusively of platinum and nickel mining.  If someone is trying to sell you a rhodium mine, run fast because there are no rhodium-only mines! This structural reality has profound implications for supply, pricing, and ultimately, tokenization.

Rhodium is scarce. Annual global production typically measures in the tens of metric tons—not thousands. By comparison, annual gold production exceeds 3,000 metric tons. This extreme rarity has driven rhodium prices to extraordinary levels during periods of supply disruption or regulatory change.

What Is Rhodium Used For

I think of rhodium as a white hat character in the battle to reduce air pollution.  After all its primary use—accounting for the vast majority of demand—is in automotive catalytic converters. Its chemical properties make it exceptionally effective at reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, a key regulatory target in vehicle exhaust systems.

However, rhodium is not a one-trick pony.  Nope. Beyond automotive catalysts, rhodium has several secondary uses:

  • Chemical processing, where it acts as a catalyst in specialized reactions
  • Electronics, including electrical contacts and thermocouples
  • Glass manufacturing, particularly in high-temperature furnace components
  • Jewelry, almost exclusively as a plating material to enhance durability and reflectivity

What rhodium is not used for is equally important. Central banks are not buyers.  Retail investors are nonexistent.  There is no such thing as a rhodium-based coin. Rhodium’s value exists almost entirely because modern industry and environmental protection laws require it.

Where Is Rhodium Mined

What do rhodium and Nelson Mandela have in common? Both are from South Africa.  That’s why if you want to see where rhodium is most plentiful travel to South Africa.  Russia, Zimbabwe, and Canada also are minor producers. In other words, rhodium supply is geographically concentrated and that’s important to keep in mind.

This concentration introduces structural fragility:

  • Labor disputes in South Africa can disrupt global supply
  • Energy shortages directly affect mining output
  • Geopolitical tensions can restrict exports
  • Environmental regulations can alter production economics

Given rhodium is a byproduct metal, miners cannot easily respond to price signals. Even when rhodium prices spike dramatically, production cannot be ramped up independently. This supply inelasticity is one of the defining features of the rhodium market.

Rhodium’s Price History

Rhodium’s price history is best described as a roller-coaster.  Let’s dive into that claim using the last 10 years as the test case.

For years, rhodium traded quietly at relatively modest levels. Then, beginning in the late 2010s, a combination of stricter vehicle emissions standards, declining mine output, and supply disruptions triggered an unprecedented surge. Prices skyrocketed from under $1,000 per ounce to peaks exceeding $20,000 per ounce in a remarkably short period.  Somebody made a ton of money during those years!  As substitution efforts increased and demand cycles shifted, rhodium experienced sharp declines—often with little warning.  Meaning, some speculators went home crying with large losses.  This volatility reflects rhodium’s structural characteristics:

  • Thin spot markets
  • Limited liquidity
  • Minimal futures infrastructure
  • Heavy dependence on regulatory demand

For investors, rhodium behaves less like a monetary metal and more like a highly specialized industrial input with speculative overlays. You are now on notice!

Is Rhodium a Viable Candidate for Tokenization

Tokenization thrives on clarity: clear ownership, clear custody, clear valuation, and clear redemption mechanisms; rhodium has some of those aspects. On the positive side:

  • Rhodium is high-value and compact, making custody efficient
  • It has industrial relevance, anchoring demand to real-world use
  • Its scarcity creates a compelling digital-scarcity narrative

However, significant obstacles exist:

  • Price discovery is opaque, with limited transparent spot markets
  • Physical settlement infrastructure is underdeveloped
  • Liquidity is thin, making fractionalization less meaningful
  • Regulatory classification is ambiguous, especially for retail access

Tokenized rhodium is theoretically possible.  However, we don’t live in the world of theory.  Hence, better to say it’s practically complex and probably impossible; at least for now. Any credible implementation would need institutional-grade custody, verified assay processes, and a conservative issuance model.  A bridge too far.

Tokenized Rhodium Versus Traditional Rhodium Exposure

Traditional rhodium exposure is limited and inefficient. Investors typically access rhodium through:

  • Physical bars held via specialized dealers
  • Indirect exposure through mining equities
  • Occasionally, structured products in select jurisdictions

Tokenization could improve access by:

  • Enabling fractional ownership
  • Providing 24/7 global transferability
  • Integrating rhodium into broader digital portfolios

Yet tokenization does not solve rhodium’s fundamental liquidity constraints. A token can represent rhodium, but it cannot create market depth where none exists. Unlike gold or silver, rhodium tokens would likely remain niche instruments—used selectively rather than broadly.

Industrial and Supply Use Cases

From an industrial standpoint, tokenized rhodium could serve as:

  • Inventory financing tools for manufacturers
  • Supply-chain collateral for automotive producers
  • Hedging instruments tied to emissions-related demand

In theory, smart contracts could align rhodium tokens with industrial delivery schedules or regulatory compliance metrics. In practice, adoption would require significant coordination between miners, refiners, manufacturers, and regulators—an ambitious undertaking.  In other words, unlikely. 

Restraints, Constraints, and Realism

Rhodium’s biggest limitation as a tokenized asset is not technological—it is structural. Key constraints include:

  • Supply that cannot respond to price incentives
  • Demand driven by regulation rather than consumer choice
  • Extreme volatility unsuitable for many token investors
  • Limited public understanding and trust

Tokenization excels where assets are already widely held, liquid, and understood. Rhodium meets none of those criteria today. 

Long-Term Outlook: Rhodium’s Digital Role

Rhodium is unlikely to become a flagship tokenized metal. It lacks the monetary history of gold, the industrial breadth of silver, or the transitional narrative of copper. However, that does not mean rhodium has no digital future.

In a mature RWA ecosystem, rhodium tokens could exist as specialized instruments, embedded within industrial finance platforms or emissions-compliance frameworks. They may serve corporations rather than retail investors. They may be used for settlement rather than speculation. In that sense, rhodium’s digital role mirrors its physical one: essential, invisible, and highly specialized.

Tokenized rhodium will not democratize wealth. But it may quietly modernize one of the most critical—and fragile—metal markets in the modern economy.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

This post is part of an ongoing weekly series on the tokenization of precious metals, published on BlockchainAIForum and LinkedIn, examining custody, regulation, issuer structure, and settlement infrastructure.

Austrian economics, Banking, Blockchains, Decentralized, Digital Currency, finance, International Finance, Mining, palladium, tokenization, Yogi Nelson

Tokenized Palladium: A Digital Asset for a High-Tech Age

Yogi Nelson

Gold tells the story of money.
Silver tells the story of versatility.
Palladium tells the story of technology, regulation, and fragility.

Long before catalytic converters made palladium famous, it was already a high-tech metal—used in electronics, chemical catalysis, and dentistry. What changed everything was environmental regulation. As emissions standards tightened, palladium became indispensable to gasoline-powered vehicles, eventually accounting for roughly 80% of global demand.

At the same time, supply remained extremely constrained. Palladium is mined primarily as a byproduct, with production concentrated in just two nations. That combination—industrial necessity and limited supply—has made palladium one of the most volatile precious metals of the past two decades.

This is precisely why palladium is a compelling candidate for tokenization.

Tokenized palladium can provide:
• Transparent, on-chain ownership
• Faster settlement in volatile markets
• Fractional access to a scarce industrial asset
• Improved supply-chain visibility

Unlike traditional futures or ETFs, tokenization is not synthetic exposure layered on top of complexity. It is direct, verifiable access to a real-world metal that modern technology depends on.

Palladium is not a monetary metal. It does not rely on mythology or tradition. Its value comes from physics, chemistry, and regulation—and in a high-tech age, that makes it a natural fit for blockchain-based infrastructure.

Tokenized palladium is not about hype.
It is about alignment—between physical reality and digital systems.

This article is available in long form at: https://yogapuertorico.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2636&action=edit

—
Yogi Nelson

Austrian economics, Banking, Blockchains, Decentralized, Digital Currency, finance, palladium, precious-metals, tokenization, Uncategorized, Yogi Nelson

Tokenized Palladium: A Digital Asset for a High-Tech Age

Yogi Nelson

by Yogi Nelson

Every metal has a unique story. The story of gold is money. The silver story is about versatility, monetary and industrial. Platinum will eloquently explain its necessity in industrial processes. Palladium too has its story. Follow along and listen to palladium as it recites how its story is centered on technology, regulation, mother nature, and fragility.

It turns out few people outside mining, automotive engineering, or commodities trading think much about palladium. Why would they? Palladium is literally, an inside-the-machines story! Yet during the last 20 years, palladium often, albeit quietly, traded at prices higher than gold. Why? Was it monetary demand? No. Could tradition explain? No, try again. It’s because modern technology—and modern regulation—left the world with no easy substitute.

As blockchain technology matures and real-world asset tokenization expands beyond obvious candidates, palladium deserves a closer look, much closer. Again, not as a monetary metal, nor a general industrial metal, but as a high-tech constraint metal—one whose supply, demand, and price behavior reveal exactly why tokenization exists in the first place. Let’s not get ahead of the story. We need to start with the basics–what is palladium.

What Is Palladium?

Palladium is a silvery-white precious metal belonging to the platinum-group metals (PGMs), alongside platinum, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium. I call them the “UM” family! Palladium is chemically stable, highly catalytic, and resistant to corrosion—properties that make it ideal for industrial applications where efficiency matters and margins are thin. Do you see where this is going?

Unlike gold or silver, palladium has no historical monetary role. Discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston while refining platinum ore from South America, it never circulated as coinage or reserve money. Palladium’s value has always been functional. That distinction matters. Palladium is not concerned with narratives or sentimentality. Palladium say: physics and chemistry make me who I am.

What Is Palladium Used For?

The vast majority of palladium demand (approximately 80%) comes from one place: emissions control. Palladium is a critical component in catalytic converters for gasoline-powered vehicles, where it helps transform toxic exhaust gases into less harmful emissions. (Prior to catalytic converters palladium was used in: electronics, dentistry, medicine, chemical catalytics, jewelry as reflected below). As governments tightened emissions standards across North America, Europe, and Asia, palladium demand surged. Given the environmental damage caused by gasoline-powered vehicles, I say, hurray for palladium!

While emissions control dominate, there are other uses, including:

  • Electronics, particularly multilayer ceramic capacitors
  • Chemical processing and industrial catalysts
  • Dentistry and medical devices
  • Hydrogen purification and storage
  • Jewelry, a relatively minor use

Even so, palladium remains deeply tied to automotive production and environmental regulation. When gasoline vehicle demand rises, palladium demand follows. When supply tightens, due to geopolitical events or disruptions in the few productive mines, prices can move sharply. Electric vehicles (EVs) may pose a long-term threat to palladium demand. However, slower-than-expected EV adoption and stricter emission rules, along with rising hybrid vehicle sales, sustain significant demand for palladium.  In other words, palladium isn’t about to disappear any time soon.

Where Is Palladium Mined?

If scarcity gives metals value, concentration gives them risk. Palladium is no exception. Palladium production is extraordinarily concentrated. Roughly 80% of global supply comes from just two countries: Russia and South Africa. Russia alone accounts for a significant share of primary palladium production, largely as a byproduct of nickel and platinum mining. Given palladium is mined as a byproduct, production decisions are driven by nickel and platinum economics rather than palladium demand itself. This rigidity explains much of palladium’s historical volatility—and why transparency matters so deeply in this market.

Palladium as a byproduct creates several layers of vulnerability, including:

  • Geopolitical and sanctions risk
  • Supply-chain opacity
  • Limited ability to increase production quickly
  • Dependence on the economics of other metals

Palladium’s Price History: A Lesson in Constraint

Palladium prices can experience dramatic changes! Ups, downs, a real roller coaster. In fact, in the late 2010s, palladium prices surged well above gold, driven by tightening emissions standards, strong automotive demand, and constrained supply growth. At its peak, palladium traded at more than twice the price of gold—an almost unthinkable outcome for a metal few people could easily identify.

Then came gigantic price reversals. Technology shifted. Electric vehicles gained momentum. Recycling increased. Demand softened. Prices fell sharply. Volatility is not a flaw in the palladium market. It’s the defining feature. Now that we know what palladium is, how it’s used, where it comes from, we turn to the BIG question: why is palladium a tokenization candidate?

Why Palladium Is a Serious Tokenization Candidate

Let me answer the question directly with the following observations: tokenization works best where markets are opaque, fragmented, and slow to adapt. Palladium fits that description perfectly.

Transparency Where It Matters Most

Physical palladium inventories are difficult to track and often reported with delays. Tokenization allows specific, assayed, vaulted palladium to be represented on-chain, with ownership and inventory visible in near real time.

In a market where supply disruptions have immediate consequences, visibility is not a luxury—it is infrastructure.

Liquidity Without Distortion

Palladium markets are relatively small, and large trades can move prices. Tokenization enables fractional ownership and broader participation without forcing physical delivery or disrupting industrial supply chains. Tokenization is liquidity without leverage.

Faster Settlement in a Volatile Market

In fast-moving markets, slow settlement amplifies risk. Blockchain-based settlement reduces transaction times from days to minutes, limiting counterparty exposure during sharp price swings. For palladium, which is a relatively small market, this is especially important.

Tokenized Palladium vs Traditional Palladium Exposure

Today, palladium exposure typically comes through futures contracts, exchange-traded products, or mining equities. These instruments provide price exposure, but they remain abstractions layered atop clearinghouses, custodians, and jurisdictional complexity.

Tokenized palladium offers something different and more importantly, better:

  • Direct ownership of physical metal
  • On-chain auditability
  • Reduced reliance on intermediaries
  • Global accessibility without brokerage friction

Where traditional instruments offer price exposure, tokenization offers asset exposure. A critical distinction during periods of market stress.

Industrial and Supply-Chain Use Cases

Tokenized palladium is not primarily an investment concept. The strongest case for tokenized palladium falls to automotive manufacturers, chemical processors, and industrial users. Here is how they could use it:

  • Hedge raw-material costs directly
  • Maintain verified strategic inventories
  • Improve supply-chain traceability
  • Reduce settlement and financing friction

As ESG reporting and regulatory scrutiny increase, on-chain tracking of critical materials becomes a competitive advantage rather than a novelty.

Risks, Constraints, and Realism

Only two sure bets in life: death and taxes. Tokenized palladium is neither of those, therefore it is not risk-free. Below are four risks:

  • Demand is sensitive to technological shifts
  • Electric vehicle adoption introduces long-term uncertainty
  • Market size limits liquidity
  • Regulatory clarity remains uneven

Tokenization does not eliminate these risks–but it does force transparency. Ownership is explicit. Inventory is verifiable. Prices respond faster to reality. Markets become less forgiving—but more honest. A reasonable trade-off.

Long-Term Outlook: Palladium’s Digital Role

Will palladium become a household name? Don’t count on it. Besides, by its very nature, palladium doesn’t seek the spotlight; it does not aspire to monetary status or cultural symbolism. Palladium is the sensible sister, dedicated to solving technical problems efficiently and quietly. That makes palladium a strong representative of the next phase of tokenization.

As real-world asset tokenization matures, attention will shift from symbolic assets to functional ones. From narratives to necessities. From ideology to infrastructure. A tokenized future is one in which palladium belongs.

The facts all point in one direction: palladium is shaped by high-tech, regulation, and Mother Nature. In such a world, an asset that can be tokenized benefits immensely from transparency, speed, and verifiability–in other words, tokenization on the blockchain.

To conclude, tokenized palladium is not about hype. It is about alignment—between physical reality and digital systems.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

This post is part of an ongoing weekly series on the tokenization of precious metals, published on BlockchainAIForum and LinkedIn, examining custody, regulation, issuer structure, and settlement infrastructure.

Sources

World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) – Palladium Market Reports
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) – Mineral Commodity Summaries: Palladium
International Energy Agency (IEA) – Emissions Standards and Technology Transition

Austrian economics, Banking, Blockchains, cryptography, Digital Currency, finance, Mining, precious-metals, Silver, tokenization, Yogi Nelson

Tokenized Silver: Where Sound Money Meets Industrial Demand

Yogi Nelson

by Yogi Nelson

For hundreds of years, perhaps more, silver has lived in gold’s long shadow as a store of value. That’s why some folks call silver “poor man’s gold”. Silver stackers don’t mind being called “poor”. Lol! And yes, it’s true silver is more volatile than gold. And it’s also true silver has often been overlooked except during brief moments of speculative frenzy. Fine. But the question we face today is what will tokenized silver mean for utility, value, use, and price? Since tokenized silver is clearly a possibility, let’s explore all those questions and more. Remember, tokenized silver is not merely about price appreciation. It is about structure, accessibility, industrial relevance, and a monetary metal finally finding a digital form that suits its dual identity.

Silver’s Dual Personality: Money and Machine

Silver is unique among precious metals because it straddles two worlds. On one side, it is a monetary metal with thousands of years of history as coinage, savings, and settlement. On the other, it is an industrial metal embedded in the modern economy—electronics, solar panels, medical devices, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing all depend on it. A combo all investors love.

This dual role has long complicated silver’s investment narrative. Gold is a safe haven; it often thrives when fear rises and trust erodes. Silver responds to monetary stress, industrial cycles, technological adoption, and supply bottlenecks. The result is volatility—sometimes dramatic, sometimes punishing. For instance, in 1980 silver surged to $50 only to crash to $10 by 1982.

Yet that same complexity makes silver a natural candidate for tokenization. Does a blockchain ask whether an asset is “purely monetary” or “purely industrial?” Nope. Blockchains only ask whether ownership can be clearly defined, transparently recorded, and efficiently transferred. Silver checks every box. Read on, to understand why silver lagged gold in tokenization.

Why Silver Lagged Gold in Early Tokenization

Destiny ensured that gold was always going to be tokenization’s first success in the metals space. Central banks hold it. Vaulting standards are globally harmonized. The market is deep, liquid, and culturally entrenched. In other words, silver can’t compete with gold’s resume. Moreover, unlike gold, silver production is a by-product of other mining activities. While silver has a greater retail base, which means coins are preferred, industrial users care about delivery timing and purity specifications rather than symbolism.

Early tokenization projects prioritized simplicity and that gave gold the advantage. One token equals one ounce of vaulted gold, audited and insured. Silver’s logistical reality—greater bulk, higher storage costs per dollar of value, and more complex industrial flows—made it a less obvious starting point. But tokenization technology has matured. Smart contracts now accommodate fractional ownership, batch settlement, and multi-use claims. Custody providers have expanded their silver vaulting capabilities. What once looked like friction now looks like opportunity.

The Industrial Case for Tokenized Silver

Silver’s industrial demand is no longer a footnote; it is the headline. Solar energy alone consumes a meaningful and growing share of global silver supply. Each photovoltaic panel requires silver paste for conductivity. As nations push for electrification, grid upgrades, and renewable deployment, silver demand becomes structural rather than cyclical. It may sound unbelievable, but true–there are hundreds of millions of people around the world without reliable electricity. They want it, and silver is required.

Tokenization introduces a powerful new mechanism here. Industrial users can hedge future silver needs using tokenized inventory. Manufacturers can settle supply contracts on-chain. Producers can tokenize output before it leaves the ground, creating pre-financing structures that reduce reliance on debt.

This is where silver begins to differentiate itself from gold in the RWA universe. Gold is stored. Detractors say it only collects dust. Silver is used. Tokenization allows the same ounce to move fluidly between investment, collateral, and consumption states without leaving the digital ledger.

Accessibility: Silver’s Hidden Advantage

Gold’s price per ounce (about $4,400) is both a strength and a barrier. It conveys seriousness, but limits participation to the wealthy. Silver’s lower unit cost makes it inherently more accessible to the 99%—especially when paired with fractionalized tokens.

For younger investors, emerging-market savers, and on-chain participants accustomed to granular positions, tokenized silver feels intuitive. It aligns with the ethos of decentralized finance: small units, high velocity, global reach. This accessibility matters. Tokenization is not only about efficiency; it’s also about democratization. Silver has always been the people’s metal. Tokenization creates a 21st century distribution channel to the natural union of silver and blockchain.

Trust, Custody, and the Importance of Standards

Let’s be honest, no discussion of tokenized metals is complete without addressing trust. The promise of tokenization collapses if the underlying metal is not real, allocated, and verifiable. Tokenization adheres to the old Russian proverb: trust but verify.

Silver investors, perhaps more than gold investors, are acutely aware of paper claims, re-hypothecation, and opaque inventories. Are the Commodities Exchange (COMEX) and the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) trustworthy institutions? Silver investors wary; hence, they will gravitate to a technology based on zero trust where independent audits, clear redemption rights, and transparent reporting are transparent and the industry standards. Tokenization embeds the standards into code. This is big!

Here is the takeaway: The winners in this space will be those who understand that blockchain is a trust amplifier, not a trust substitute.

Monetary Reset Narratives and Silver’s Optionality

Plain and simple, gold dominates conversations about monetary reset, de-dollarization, and central-bank accumulation. Silver is rarely mentioned in the same breath, yet history tells a more nuanced story. For centuries, silver was money—not a derivative of gold, but a parallel standard. In fact, in the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1, says: “No State shall … make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” That was then what about now? India, the world’s most populous nation, has announced its bank can accept silver as collateral. Some things never go out of fashion!

In a world where sovereign currencies face structural debt burdens and confidence erosion, silver’s optionality becomes valuable. It offers monetary exposure with embedded industrial demand. Tokenization enhances this optionality by making silver portable, programmable, and interoperable with digital financial systems.

If gold is the anchor, silver may be the bridge.

Silver vs. Gold Tokens: Complement, Not Competition

It is tempting to frame tokenized silver as a challenger to tokenized gold. That framing misses the point. These assets serve different functions within a tokenized portfolio.

Gold tokens excel as long-term reserves, collateral for large settlements, and institutional balance-sheet assets. Silver tokens shine in liquidity, payments experimentation, industrial hedging, and retail participation. Together, they form a digital precious-metals stack that mirrors their historical relationship—distinct, complementary, and mutually reinforcing.

In this sense, silver’s underdog status becomes an advantage. It is not burdened by expectations of perfection. It is free to innovate, and innovators change the world.

Risks and Realism

No asset story is complete without acknowledging risk. Silver remains volatile. Industrial demand can fluctuate. Tokenization introduces regulatory complexity, especially across jurisdictions. Custody failures or poorly designed token structures could undermine confidence.

Moreover, tokenized silver must avoid the trap of becoming merely “paper silver on a blockchain.” Without clear redemption mechanisms and enforceable legal claims, digital representations add little value. Yet these risks are not unique to silver. They are the growing pains of an emerging asset class. What matters is design discipline.

Conclusion

Is 2026 the year tokenized silver breaks out? I conclude yes, because of three powerful forces: 1) the long-term digitization of assets trend; 2) will electrification of the global economy march forward; 3) and the search for trustworthy stores of value outside fragile monetary systems. If those powerful forces occur, tokenized silver begins in 2026.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

*** This article is part of an ongoing weekly series examining the tokenization of precious metals—covering custody, standards, regulation, issuer structure, settlement infrastructure, and market design. The series is published on BlockchainAIForum and LinkedIn and is among the few sustained, multi-metal editorial projects focused on tokenized metals as financial infrastructure rather than product promotion.