Metals.io adds cobalt and nickel tokens, widening Etherlink commodities lineup

In Brief:

• Metals.io, built by Tezos development firm Trilitech, runs tokenized uranium, gold, cobalt, nickel and a strategic metals basket on Etherlink.
• The platform bought and tokenized seven tonnes of cobalt and nickel for its June expansion, issuing them as xCo and xNi.
• Roughly 9,000 retail investors have bought the tokenized uranium product since uranium.io went live in December 2024.

Metals.io added tokenized cobalt and nickel to its platform in late June, buying and tokenizing seven tonnes of the two metals and issuing them as xCo and xNi.

Both metals have sat almost entirely outside retail reach, traded by industrial buyers and large trading houses. Token holders own physical metal held in industry-certified bonded warehouses in the Netherlands.

Ben Elvidge, lead for metals.io and head of alternative assets at Trilitech, said the launch lets the firm “streamline access to these essential commodities,” making them available to a new profile of buyer.

What’s on the platform

Trilitech, the London-based Tezos development company, launched Metals.io on March 30 with three assets: xU3O8 for uranium, VNX Gold (VNXAU) for allocated bullion and Noemon Tech’s RARE token.

RARE gives exposure to a basket of five strategic metals: hafnium, rhenium, indium, neodymium oxide and praseodymium oxide. The roadmap points to silver, palladium and other additions.

Account creation is free, with no sign-up fees, monthly subscriptions or minimum purchase amounts. Fees apply only on buys and sells.

Custody and storage

Archax, an FCA-regulated digital asset custodian, holds the underlying assets. Uranium sits in regulated facilities operated by Cameco, with each xU3O8 representing a unit of ownership of U3O8 held in the account of Archax Ltd acting as trustee.

Proof of reserves is published on the site and updated with monthly statements from Cameco. Curzon Uranium handles sourcing and logistics for the uranium leg.

The other assets sit elsewhere. VNXAU gold is in segregated storage in a high-security Liechtenstein vault, and RARE is held in a Frankfurt vault at Metlock GmbH, ISO 9001 certified and insured by Mannheimer Versicherung AG.

Fees and pricing

Trades carry a fixed 0.1% protocol fee plus a liquidity provider fee of up to 0.5%, which varies by metal and project. Network fees are paid in XTZ on Etherlink, and Metals.io says it receives no share of them.

Custody and administration fees run up to 1.1% a year. There are no asset management fees.

The platform’s own materials carry a caveat: approved tokenized metals trading venues serve as price discovery venues with no formal peg to spot prices, though market makers and arbitrageurs are likely to keep prices broadly aligned. Trilitech says Tezos smart-rollup technology delivers sub-50ms latency.

Built on the uranium product

Metals.io extends the technology behind uranium.io, which launched on Etherlink in December 2024. Elvidge said around 9,000 retail investors have acquired the tokenized uranium product since then.

“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,” Elvidge said.

Institutional plumbing followed. Hex Trust integrated Etherlink in August 2025 to offer institutional custody for tokenized uranium, and xU3O8 can be posted as collateral to borrow USDC on Oku Trade, powered by Morpho.

The push arrives with tokenized commodities market capitalization at roughly $7 billion as of March 2026, down from a peak of $7.7 billion. Trilitech says demand for strategic materials tied to industrial use and AI infrastructure buildout drove the platform’s expansion.

Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman put it plainly: “Tokenization streamlines ownership and transfer of these assets at a global scale.”

The access gap is the pitch. A Transak partnership lets retail buyers pick up tokenized uranium with crypto or a credit card for as little as $10. The over-the-counter market’s minimum is $4.2 million.