Tech giants need nuclear power, and these wealthy investors are using crypto to make sure they get it

A handful of wealthy investors, some with specialist knowledge of commodity markets, are backing a blockchain-based uranium trading platform, getting ahead of surging demand for nuclear fuel as governments and Big Tech race to power a data center revolution.

Startup company Uranium Digital, which is set to become fully operational later this quarter, is backed by the likes of billion-dollar family office Knollwood; investment firm Karatage, which manages founder Marius Barnett's personal wealth; and German billionaire Christian Angermayer, perhaps best known for co-founding a steroid-enhanced version of the Olympics.

The platform uses the Solana blockchain in its bid to create a transparent, streamlined marketplace for base uranium – traded by the pound in barrels and known as “yellow cake” – which includes an agreement with the only U.S. conversion facility that can store and enrich the radioactive metal.

The uranium is stored at ConverDyn, a conversion facility in Illinois, and is sourced through resource partners including brokers, uranium trading firms, and others. Each token is backed by a single pound of uranium, audited and proven through a chainlink proof-of-reserves oracle.

Since the early days of blockchain innovation, the tech has been tested as a transparent way to share information, including across a range of manual, opaque and highly intermediated processes. This has included not only financial instruments but also things like letters of credit in trade finance and even lettuce, in a bid to quickly pinpoint E. coli outbreaks.

Since starting out a couple of years back and raising 6.1 million seed rounds, Uranium Digital has been focused on leapfrogging just those sorts of typically opaque and manual processes associated with certain niche commodities, said the startup’s CEO, Alex Dymala-Dolesky.

The current process of trading uranium comprises a minimum lot size of 100,000 pounds for about $7.8 million, takes about three weeks, and is “a nightmare between lawyers, emails, phone calls,” Dymala-Dolesky said in an interview.

Uranium Digital’s aim is to use an open, transparent order book to rapidly replace the outdated, opaque method by which uranium is currently priced and, ultimately, fully financialize uranium, similar to other, more widely traded commodities like gold, silver, coal, and oil.

“We have a platform that allows a participant to physically settle uranium as a physical market trader, but for the first time, from our tech stack, allows cash traders to access that same order book,” Dymala-Dolesky said.

Initially, uranium was used for medical purposes, but today a large portion of it is used as nuclear fuel in reactors around the world. There exists a shortfall in the supply of uranium needed for nuclear reactors as it currently stands, without taking into account the massive build-out and investment cycles in reactors both in the U.S. and abroad, according to Dymala-Dolesky.

Uranium Digital is not the only firm trying to update over-the-counter uranium dealing by applying blockchain tech, and there are also a number of uranium ETFs that provide investors with exposure to the nuclear energy fuel cycle, including mining, exploration, and development.

But with the help of key backers like Marius Barnett of Karatage, Uranium Digital has brought on specialist knowledge to shine a light on commodities markets. Barnett lived through the gradual modernization of coal trading as an executive at the giant mining and commodities trading firm Glencore. Now also a seasoned crypto investor, he sees the potential of combining a nascent, opaque commodity marketplace with a super-fast blockchain like Solana.

“Back in the early days in coal, when you talked about shipments and prices week to week, there were a lot of bullshitters in that world,” Barnett said in an interview.

“Today, you’ve got the ability onchain for everybody in a transparent manner and on a consistent basis to see that price. When you overlay that with the nuclear infrastructure that's being built, personally, I'm just massively, massively bullish.”