A venture-backed blockchain startup is betting on an unusual way to cash in on the surging value of gold: keeping it in the ground.
Singapore-based Nature’s Vault LLC hopes to sell blockchain tokens backed by the mining rights to 150,699 ounces of gold—equal to about 344 gold bars—located underground in the northern reaches of the Canadian province of Ontario. The deposit, if it were all extracted, would be worth roughly $286 million in total value at current gold prices. But instead of mining the gold, the company will leave it untouched.
