Trilitech broadens tokenized commodities push on Tezos with Metals.io

Update March 30, 1:20 p.m. UTC: This article has been updated to include a section on the wider tokenized commodities market.

Trilitech, a London-based development company focused on the Tezos ecosystem, launched Metals.io on Monday, a new platform for trading tokenized commodities including uranium and gold, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The platform expands a commodities push that Trilitech and the broader Tezos ecosystem began with Uranium.io, a retail-facing uranium marketplace launched in December 2024 on Etherlink, Tezos’ Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer 2.

At launch, Metals.io is set to offer xU3O8 tokenized uranium, tokenized gold and Noemon Tech’s RARE token. Uranium.io describes xU3O8 as a tokenized physical uranium product, while RareTech materials describe RARE as a basket of strategic metals.

According to the release, the launch responds to growing investor interest in strategic materials tied to industrial use and artificial intelligence-related infrastructure demand. That logic echoes the pitch behind Uranium.io’s 2024 debut, which Tezos framed around uranium’s role in powering nuclear energy and supporting rising electricity demand tied to AI.

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Metals.io aims to reduce the investment barriers to uranium trading, which was previously reserved for institutional investors. The new platform is built on the same underlying technology as uranium.io, launched by Tezos in December 2024.

“One of the founding principles behind the launch of that platform was to level the playing field by making a previously inaccessible critical asset widely available to all investors,” Ben Elvidge, head of commercial applications at Trilitech, told Cointelegraph.

Elvidge said around 9,000 retail investors have acquired the tokenized uranium product since the platform’s launch.

In August 2025, Digital asset custody firm Hex Trust integrated Tezos’ Etherlink to offer institutional custody for tokenized uranium. In January of that year, Transak also partnered with the platform to let retail investors buy tokenized uranium via crypto or credit cards for as little as $10, a sharp decrease from the $4.2 million minimum over-the-counter market limit.

Crypto exchanges enter tokenized commodities

Investor demand for tokenized commodities is on the rise. Tokenized commodities surged to $7.7 billion in cumulative market capitalization on March 6, but retraced to $7 billion as of Monday, according to data from RWA.xyz.

Tokenized gold represented the majority of this value, with Tether Gold (XAUT) accounting for 38% of the market share at $2.5 billion and Paxos Gold (PAXG) accounting for 34% at $2.2 billion.

Julio Moreno, head of research at analytics platform CryptoQuant, attributed the rising tokenized commodities demand to tariff-related uncertainty, higher interest rates and stronger safe-haven demand in a report published on March 5, adding that “crypto exchanges are becoming global venues for TradFi derivatives.” 

More crypto companies are launching tokenized products. On Wednesday, Vienna-based crypto broker Bitpanda launched Vision Chain, an Ethereum Layer-2 for European banks and fintech to issue tokenized assets under Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).

On March 20, Coinbase launched stock perpetual futures for eligible non-US users, extending round-the-clock access to equities alongside crypto and prediction markets. Crypto exchanges Binance and Kraken have also launched tokenized perpetual futures trading for non-US traders.

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