Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin is planning to introduce digital currencies for the trading of palladium, revealed Bloomberg.
Potanin is the CEO of the Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC (Nornickel) and also owns a third of the company. Nornickel is the world’s top palladium producer.
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According to Bloomberg, the company is already in talks with Swiss authorities to issue the tokens by its Switzerland-based palladium fund. In addition, the company has plans to replicate the technique for other metals as well.
“People more and more tend to use decentralized networks and platforms that don’t have a main operator,” Potanin told the publication. “We want to be active participants of this process.”
The March 27 report detailed that with the new platform, the company is eying to make transactions more fluid as in the current system, a buyer with excess metal needs to hold on to it or renegotiate with the supplier on contracted volume. However, tokenization in this sector will enable the buyer to off-load the excess supply to a third party.
The company is aiming to start the digital platform by the end of the year if it gets all the necessary approvals, the billionaire revealed.
The mining company is also working on the development of a digital platform for streamlining inter-divisional transactions with the company. Potanin believes that such a system will allow the Russian central bank to test regulating blockchain-type system without affecting the economy of the country.
The approval for a law on digital financial assets is already pending with the country’s legislators as the next hearing on that had been postponed until April. If Russia fails to approve the proposed laws, the company is determined to move in other jurisdictions with its digital asset projects.
“The main problem of the draft is that it says that digital platforms should be run by banks and exchanges only,” the Russian billionaire added.
Metals on Blockchain
Palladium is not the first metal to get tokenized through blockchain technology as many precious metal-backed crypto projects popped up in recent years. Last year, an Australian precious metal publicized its plans to introduce a gold-backed cryptocurrency.
Earlier this week, Finance Magnates reported that commodity exchange CEDEX is set to start diamond trading on blockchain after securing $50 million worth of diamonds.