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The proposed precious metals refinery and storage facility will take up prime spot in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, which comes under DMCC's jurisdiction. Image Credit: Supplied
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Dubai: The blockchain movement is picking up speed in the UAE – and now it’s in precious metals refining too.

The DMCC free zone has entered a deal with real estate fund to build a 100,000 square feet precious metals refinery and storage facility – the largest of its kind in the GCC. It will be the first such to “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.

The facility will be completed in the last quarter of 2022. The facility will refine and store precious metals - gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium - which will be tokenised on goldexchange.com.

Gold Exchange DMCC, a trading platform, will provide access to financial assets in the form of 'stablecoins', namely GoldCoin, SilverCoin, PlatinumCoin, PalladiumCoin and RhodiumCoin. Each Ethereum-based token will represent the current value of one gram of each metal and can be traded on the exchange. The tokens will be physically backed by the precious metals at DMCC’s secure storage facility, "meaning they can be traded with confidence".

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Raise prospects

"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," said Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and CEO of DMCC.

Point of blockchain

Deploying this will create more transparent tracking of the metals, and “ensuring there is no ‘dirty gold’ in circulation and illicit trades,” said Mike De Vries, Chief Operation Officer, REIT Development. “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.

“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.”