Germany’s oldest cooperative bank Volksbank has announced the launch of gold NFTs in a partnership with compliant blockchain platform Swarm.
The partnership allows Volksbank customers to buy NFT tokens which represent precious metals such as gold, palladium, platinum and silver.
Volksbank and Swarm launched the asset backed NFTs to customers on 17 April with no minimum investment size. Customers will be able to self-custody the tokens in their own crypto asset wallets.
Commenting on the launch, Thomas Otto, Blockchain-based business models at Volksbank MIttweida, said: “Tokenization is a key part of Volksbank’s digital strategy. It is essential to offer our customers the most cutting-edge investment products while keeping within essential regulatory structures. A partnership with Swarm was the natural fit to fill these requirements.”
Investors will be able to hold NFTs that correspond to specific gold bar serial numbers. The physical precious metal is held in the Development Bank of Saxony in Leipzig, Germany.
Volksbank says it has taken pains to make the process as seamless as possible for newcomers to blockchain-based investing. The bank has set up processes to help customers recover lost wallet keys and will pay upfront gas fees, plus a free online account for new customers.
Customers will be able to buy and hold tokens of any value according to their own investment needs. The assets are not partially owned or part of a collective stock but single individually custodied assets.
Philipp Pieper, Swarm’s co-founder, adds: “Partnerships between traditional and decentralized finance are breaking new ground in the digital assets market. Swarm is uniquely positioned to work with venerable institutions such as Volksbank, as a compliant platform offering a range of digital real-world assets (RWAs) and experience working on both sides of the sector.
“Precious metal investments are one of the oldest kinds of investment. It’s really exciting to bring those assets fully into the 21st Century with fully backed digital RWA ownership. The room for growth here is enormous as investors become more comfortable with the idea of self-custody and digital ownership.”
In February 2023, Swarm became the first organization in the world to offer digitized US treasury bills and Apple stock via a compliant and decentralized platform. Day to day, Swarm works with real-world-asset owners to tokenize collateral and build decentralized trading infrastructure in a regulatory compliant way.
About Swarm
Swarm is a blockchain platform that brings novel digitization and trading solutions to the world of traditional finance. It is the first organization in the world to offer digitized treasury bills and Apple stock via a compliant and decentralized platform. Day to day, we work with real-world-asset owners to tokenize collateral and build trading infrastructure in a compliant way.
Swarm is a hybrid, embracing the advantages of blockchain-trading – flexibility, speed and efficiency – and pairing it with the trust and asset-range typically enjoyed by traditional exchanges. Swarm aims to integrate TradFi with DeFi so that everything becomes “Fi”. For more information, visit the website.
