coindesk.com
A company that already tokenized uranium, gold, cobalt and nickel is now testing the waters with 25 tonnes of copper stored in a warehouse in Hamburg, Germany.
Metals.io launched 25,000 copper tokens, known as xCu, each backed by one kilogram of refined metal. The initial batch is worth about $366,000, a small start for a company hoping to tokenize millions of dollars worth of copper over the next year.
“We’d like to reach the millions of dollars, but we’re deliberately starting small to test the water and build sustainably,” said Ben Elvidge, head of alternative assets at Trilitech, the London-based Tezos development company behind Metals.io's trading platform and technical infrastructure. Elvidge also leads Metals.io.
Unlike investments in copper mining companies or futures contracts, xCu gives buyers ownership of physical copper already held in storage. The tokens can be traded around the clock, with no minimum investment, Elvidge told CoinDesk.
Copper demand is expected to grow as power grids, electric vehicles and AI data centers expand. S&P Global projects global demand could rise 50% by 2040.
“An xCu holder owns a portion of branded copper cathodes located in Hamburg, Germany,” he said. “This is real, physical, refined copper, not unmined copper or concentrate still in the ground.”
Holders can redeem their tokens for physical copper, provided they have a suitable storage account and pass identity and anti-money laundering (AML) checks.
Each sheet of refined copper weighs approximately 125 kilograms, making that the minimum amount investors can redeem physically, Elvidge said.
Archax, a regulated digital asset platform based in the U.K. with a presence in the U.S., EU and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), acts as trustee and checks that the copper held matches the circulating token supply.
The company already has five other tokenized metals products trading on its platform.
Uranium leads with a market capitalization of about $9.2 million, followed by gold at $4.1 million. Copper's initial market value already exceeds the combined value of its nickel, cobalt, and rare-earth products.
Tokenized metals are not new. Tether's XAUT and Paxos' PAXG already offer tokens backed by physical gold, but copper remains a much smaller market for blockchain-based investment products.
The launch also differs from Bridgetower's $11 billion Arizona copper-gold tokenization project, which involves mineral resources that have yet to be extracted.
