NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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 revolutionize the trading, settlement, and ownership of physical gold. The first gold registered on the Tradewind platform will be vaulted by the Royal Canadian Mint, a Crown corporation of the Government of Canada.
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.”
The Tradewind platform went live on March 23, 2018 commencing the integration of a network of authorized liquidity providers and dealers. 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.
Customers will access the market through a network of authorized dealers and will be able to own VaultChain™ Gold in fractional quantities, in a segregated account (or “wallet”) directly on the Tradewind blockchain. VaultChain Gold will not be subject to the ongoing management and administrative fees associated with securities products like exchange traded funds.
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 to 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.
About Tradewind
Tradewind has built a technology platform for digitizing the trading, settlement, and ownership of precious metals. The Tradewind solution combines world-class exchange technology with Vaultchain™, Tradewind’s blockchain technology tailored for precious metals. Tradewind was formed in 2016 and is managed by a team of professionals with extensive experience in electronic trading, market structure, gold investment management, market operations, cryptography and blockchain technology. For more information please visit https://tradewindmarkets.com/.