Wall Street is hot on "Uranium prices," is Uranium Digital looking to leverage Blockchain to promote uranium financialization programs?

In stark contrast to the importance of uranium is the backwardness of its market infrastructure, and how to make the uranium market truly enter the modern financial system? That's exactly what Uranium Digital is trying to solve. (Synopsis: Zelensky: You can sign a "mineral agreement" at any time, what precious mineral rare earth resources does Ukraine have? (Background added: Decentralized Energy Track (DER) Is there a show? An in-depth look at current blue-chip projects Uranium has been called "one of the most important metals in the world", the heaviest primary element found in nature and the main fuel for nuclear power generation. Under the tide of global energy transition, nuclear power is ushering in a resurgence, and uranium, as the core resource of this clean energy, its market demand is continuing to grow. Uranium trading is also becoming one of the hottest categories on Wall Street, attracting large financial institutions and hedge funds such as Goldman Sachs. However, in stark contrast to the importance of uranium, its market infrastructure, lack of efficient spot trading mechanisms, low price transparency, and limited liquidity are far inferior to traditional commodities such as oil and natural gas. How to make the uranium market truly enter the modern financial system? That's exactly what Uranium Digital, the U.S. team, is trying to solve. Through blockchain technology, Uranium Digital is trying to build the world's first 24/7 compliant uranium spot trading marketplace, providing real-time pricing, physical and non-physical settlement, derivatives trading and more, giving uranium the same market infrastructure as other commodities. Global nuclear renaissance ushers in new opportunities for uranium market Global demand for future electricity and energy is expected to rise sharply, driven by growth in emerging economies. At the same time, the limitation of total greenhouse gas emissions further highlights the importance of clean energy. With the continuous improvement of safety, production efficiency and reactor power in the nuclear industry in recent years, nuclear energy has become one of the core issues in the international community's energy policy discussions. In December 2023, at the COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference, 22 countries, including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, jointly issued the Triple Nuclear Energy Declaration, the core of which includes joint efforts to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. Later, at COP29 in 2024, the number of countries committed to supporting the goal increased to 31, and another 140 nuclear companies and 14 major global banks expressed their support. In March this year, at the global energy forum CERAWeek, Amazon, Google, Meta, Dow and other energy "consumers" signed the "Large Energy User Commitment" to support the implementation of this goal, which is the first time that major companies outside the nuclear energy field jointly and publicly support the extensive and coordinated expansion of nuclear power. 22 countries launch 2050 Triple Nuclear Energy Declaration At present, the global nuclear power production capacity has been steadily increased. At an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based think tank, International Energy Agency Administrator Fatih Birol said global nuclear power generation is expected to reach a record high by 2025, while more than 40 countries have plans to build or expand nuclear capabilities. According to the IAEA, as of September 2023, a total of 410 nuclear power reactors were in operation in 32 countries around the world, with another 57 under construction. Uranium prices have been bullish over the past few years due to the continued increase in demand due to the global recovery in nuclear power, as well as the impact of long-term insufficient capital spending and strong supply rigidity and frequent disturbances. In the second half of 2023 and early 2024, uranium prices accelerated from $59/lb to a high of $107/lb. With the shortage of supply and the continuous rise in prices, physical uranium and related securities products have been popular, and uranium trading has once become the hottest category on Wall Street, including investment banks Goldman Sachs, McQuarrie and some hedge funds are actively participating in uranium trading. Key commodities and uranium lagging behind market mechanisms Amid the global energy transition, uranium, a key clean energy commodity, is matched by a highly inefficient market. Today, the uranium market is traded at about 190 million pounds a year, worth more than ten billion dollars. However, due to the dominance of long-term contracts in uranium trading, futures prices are difficult to fully reflect the true supply and demand of the market, and the uranium market lacks the basic financial market facilities commonly found in other commodities, such as real-time spot pricing, financial and physical settlement, derivatives trading, and effective price discovery mechanisms in open markets. At present, the trading mechanism of the uranium market is relatively backward, the transparency is low, the liquidity is poor, and the infrastructure that modern financial markets should have, and its main pain points include: Lack of spot market and high transaction threshold: Individuals and institutions who want to have direct contact with the uranium market need to become licensed dealers or brokers and purchase uranium products through over-the-counter (OTC) transactions. Another option is to invest in uranium-related ETFs or mining company stocks, but this does not provide a true uranium price position; Lack of financial instruments and lack of room for speculative trading: uranium market prices fluctuate sharply and should theoretically be an ideal market for speculative traders. However, due to the lack of futures, forwards, swaps, options and other derivatives in the market, it is difficult for speculative capital to enter, which limits the trading depth and liquidity of the market. Opaque price discovery mechanisms: Current uranium prices are mainly determined by private bilateral agreements, and price information is highly opaque, affecting the pricing efficiency of the entire nuclear fuel supply chain. In contrast, the coal market is 7 times larger than the physical market, the natural gas market is even 23 times larger, and the uranium market has almost no similar financial market size. In this context, Uranium Digital is committed to building the world's first 24/7, compliant, institutional-grade uranium spot trading market with blockchain technology at its core, providing uranium with the same financial trading infrastructure as other commodities. Uranium Digital's ideas have also been quickly embraced by VCs – last December, Uranium Digital raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed round led by Portal Ventures, Framework Ventures and Karatage, and multiple angel investors. In March, Uranium Digital announced it had raised $6.1 million in seed funding, led by Framework Ventures. Uranium Digital Completes $6.1 Million Seed Round Reshaping Uranium Spot Market with Crypto Infrastructure Uranium Digital is building a modern, blockchain-based uranium trading marketplace that gives uranium the same trading mechanisms and liquidity as other commodities, and is expected to launch later this year. Uranium Digital adopts a dual-track model of physical settlement and non-physical settlement, in which Physically Settled is designed for licensed institutional traders and warehousing delivery is achieved through Uranium Digital's partners; Financially settled is specifically for institutional and retail investors, giving them direct access to uranium market prices without having to deal with complex regulatory processes. In the derivatives market, Uranium Digital plans to launch futures, options...