Nornickel will become the first issuer on the industrial asset tokenisation platform Atomyze, which is based on Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology. A test launch of the platform took place in Zug, Switzerland — the centre of blockchain innovation, commonly referred to as “crypto valley”.

Atomyze is powered by distributed ledger technology that digitises physical assets and simplifies the trading process by achieving faster processing times. Nornickel will become the first industrial company to issue tokens on Atomyze and plans to use the platform’s capabilities to tokenise part of its contractual supply volumes, thereby offering a new class of investment product to a wide range of investors interested in digital assets.

Nornickel’s move to digital trading will be gradual and issued tokens will be backed by regularly audited metal reserves. In the first stage of digitisation, Nornickel will test tokens backed by palladium, cobalt, and copper, with plans to expand to other metals in the future. It is expected that the total volume of tokens issued in the first year of digitisation will constitute up to 10% of Nornickel’s total sales.

During the trial period, Nornickel’s partners, including Trafigura, Traxys, and Umicore, will have access to the platform. As soon as Atomyze is granted all the necessary licenses, access will be opened to other issuers and the platform will become fully operational.

“The economy is being digitalized, with financial flows moving from the traditional economy to the digital one. Nornickel invests in the development of various digital solutions for industrial applications, including solutions for the tokenisation of mutual payments. Nornickel is the first industrial leader to use tokens in sales. We find this project interesting because it will allow us to popularise our metals thanks to digital trading methods,” said Nornickel CEO Vladimir Potanin.

“The key idea of tokenisation is not the trade of cryptocurrency, but the creation of a modern and transparent mechanism for digitising assets and the formation of new digital markets where tokenisation is a service that helps issuers digitalise their rights to their assets,” said Atomyze CEO Marco Grossi.

IBM was the main technology partner for the Atomyze project, participating both in the development of the platform and in the integration of the BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus-building mechanism. Integrating the BFT feature to the platform was an innovation that will allow for the creation of a Hyperledger Fabric-based open user management system. Atomyze will launch in the IBM Cloud, ensuring user data security and broader protection against external and internal threats.

“Working together with technology and industry experts from Atomyze and Nornickel has allowed us to further raise our levels of technical innovation and increase our confidence in the Hyperledger Fabric framework. We have jointly developed an advanced consensus-building mechanism that will significantly reduce the likelihood of malicious activity around transactions,” said Iris Jeba, CEO of IBM Russia and the CIS.

Earlier last year Nornickel joined the global blockchain consortium Hyperledger Fabric in a collaboration that allows the company to develop distributed ledger solutions to be accessed by businesses worldwide.

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Atomyze is a Swiss blockchain platform designed to digitise and tokenise commodities across industries. Based on Hyperledger Fabric distributed ledger technology (DLT), Atomyze provides simple, fast, and transparent online trading capabilities for industrial and institutional players.

IBM is an innovative global technology company and the world’s largest IT employer serving customers in 170 countries. IBM offers AI solutions and cloud platforms with a commitment to delivering value to its customers and the world at large. A leading provider of advanced solutions and services to customers in a variety of industries, from the public sector to telecommunications, from healthcare to finance and insurance, from retail to oil and gas production, IBM has been doing business in Russia and the CIS for over 40 years.