Tenbin Gold (tGLD)

Research, firm shelf, model-client eligibility, and advisor selection are recorded separately. The scheduled date is the outside bound; new evidence can reopen the file sooner.

tGLD is an Ethereum token that pays the dollar value of one troy ounce of gold. Tenbin AssetCo (BVI) SPC Ltd. issues it as an unsecured note of its gold portfolio. There is no gold behind it: the issuer holds USDC and buys CME gold futures to match the exposure. About 139.7 tGLD were outstanding on 2026-09-23, roughly $0.6 million, in 73 wallets. The terms bar US persons from holding the token at all, not only from buying it from Tenbin, so no US client can own it. For anyone else, the holder is an unsecured creditor of a British Virgin Islands cell company whose only promise is to pay spot in stablecoin on demand. No proof of reserves exists yet; Tenbin says one is coming. The terms reserve wallet blacklisting and forced cancellation, which the deployed contract does not have, so a new contract could add them. The assessment is adverse.

Research triggers: events that reopen the assessment or shelf decision
• Tenbin opens tGLD to US persons
• An independent firm attests the USDC and futures positions behind tGLD
• Tenbin deploys a replacement contract with freeze, blocklist, or forced-burn powers, or the owner multisig changes
• Tenbin suspends redemption or revises the Terms of Use

The research file

What the holder owns

The Terms of Use say each token is “a direct, unconditional, unsubordinated, and unsecured obligation of the relevant Issuer Portfolio,” and that tGLD entitles the holder to repayment on demand of the spot price of one troy ounce. The docs call it an unsecured note meant to be read as a debenture, and the contract itself carries the note terms as a text field, TOKEN_NOTE, which makes the token a controllable electronic record under Delaware UCC Article 12: control of the token is the evidence of ownership, and no separate register is kept.

The issuer is a segregated portfolio company. A cell structure keeps each portfolio’s assets for that portfolio’s creditors, so a tGLD holder has no claim on Tenbin’s other products but also no claim on anything outside the gold cell. The cell holds USDC, part on chain in Morpho vaults through a CollateralManager, part at Ripple Prime and a futures broker as margin for CME gold futures. The docs say holders have “no exposure to, interest in, or ownership of the underlying hedge positions.” If the hedge loses money, through a margin call, a broker failure, or a gap between futures and spot, the loss falls on the cell and so on the noteholders.

How redemption works

Only whitelisted Eligible Investors who pass KYC or KYB mint or redeem, through the Tenbin Controller contract. Redemption pays the spot value in an approved stablecoin or by fiat; the terms say physical delivery is “not available unless explicitly offered,” and no token terms offer it. There is no fee by default beyond execution costs, with an extra fee outside market hours, and Tenbin may suspend or limit redemption “at any time, without notice.” A holder who is not whitelisted can only sell in the Uniswap v4 pool, which Tenbin does not list, and the terms bar resale except as Tenbin permits.

Who controls the contract

tGLD at 0x6a547b25…6F4 is a plain ERC-20 with permit, not a proxy, verified on Sourcify. It has no freeze, blocklist, allowlist, pause, or forced burn. The owner, a 3-of-5 multisig on 2026-09-23, sets the minter, which is the Tenbin Controller; the docs say the minter key sits in a hardware security module run by Tenbin’s backend. So the owner controls supply, and supply is backed only if the Controller mints against collateral.

The terms go further than the code. Section 3.1 lets Tenbin use “protocol-level blocks, wallet blacklisting, and/or force-redemption or cancellation” against ineligible holders. The deployed contract cannot do this; only the Controller’s registry can refuse to mint or redeem for an address. Because the contract is not upgradeable, adding those powers would take a new token and a migration, which the file’s review triggers watch for.

Who may hold it, and what is published

US persons and residents of about 46 listed jurisdictions may not mint, redeem, trade, acquire, hold, or transfer tGLD, and the services are for professional, institutional, or otherwise eligible investors. No minimum is stated. The docs say the formal proof-of-reserves framework is “coming soon” and that financial audits are in process; on 2026-09-23 Tenbin published no attestation of the USDC or the futures positions.

Comparison and decision

Against PAX Gold, tGLD swaps title to allocated bars for an unsecured promise to pay spot, backed by a futures hedge nobody attests. Against a gold futures ETF, it adds issuer credit risk and removes the regulated fund wrapper. The US-person ban decides the question for Ketju’s clients on its own. The assessment reopens if Tenbin opens tGLD to US persons, publishes an independent reserve attestation, or the terms or contract change.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Tenbin Foundation: Terms of Use (last updated July 13th, 2026) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: unsecured obligation, US persons barred from holding, stablecoin redemption, blacklisting reserved, suspension without notice
• Tenbin docs: Legal and Regulatory · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: BVI segregated portfolio company, debenture characterization
• Tenbin docs: Key Trust Assumptions · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: no interest in hedge positions
• Tenbin docs: Proof of Reserves · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: proof of reserves not yet published
• Tenbin docs: Core Addresses · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: tGLD and Controller addresses
• tGLD contract on Ethereum (Blockscout verified source) · primary · accessed 2026-09-23
  Supports: TOKEN_NOTE text, no freeze or forced burn, owner sets minter

Inherited controls

The research above describes the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The most administered layer sets the position’s effective control grade; that is a control description, not a quality or suitability score.