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(Kitco News) - The DMCC free zone in Dubai has entered a deal with a real estate fund to build a 100,000 square feet precious metals refinery and storage facility. The facility is to be built to back 'stablecoins', namely GoldCoin, SilverCoin, PlatinumCoin, PalladiumCoin and RhodiumCoin which are all Ethereum based. This will make stablecoins that will have tangible backing like the U.S. dollar before Nixon ended dollar convertibility to gold.
The DMCC free zone entered a deal with the real estate fund to build a 100,000 square feet precious metals refinery and storage facility which the largest of its kind in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It will be the first such to be “completely enabled” by blockchain. As part of the agreement, REIT Development, which is the real estate fund, has acquired industrial land in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) vibrant business district.
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and CEO of DMCC "The gold and precious metals industry is expected to witness significant growth in the coming period and through similar agreements, we can advance the industry as a whole,".
The point of this is to create more transparent tracking of the metals, and “ensuring there is no ‘dirty gold’ in circulation and illicit trades,” according to Mike De Vries, Chief Operation Officer, REIT Development. He also added “Our refinery and storage will create a decentralised immutable record of all transactions, making it possible to track all precious metals that are refined in our refinery and eventually sold.
Lastly he said. “Customers who buy our products or use our storage can verify all the information in the blockchain. We believe that by 2025 every precious metals refinery and storage facility will be in the blockchain, let us lead the way.”.