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Tokenized commodities

Tenbin Gold (tGLD)

Not approved The evidence weighs against it
Verdict
Not approved
The evidence weighs against it
Who can freeze it
No freeze key
Withdrawals
Only whitelisted Eligible Investors who pass KYC or KYB mint or redeem, through the Tenbin Controller contract.
Reviewed
2026-09-23 · next 2026-12-23
Researched memo

Summary

Ketju does not approve Tenbin Gold (tGLD): Tenbin’s terms bar US persons from holding the token, and the issuer holds no gold behind it. 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. 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 tGLD at all, and also from buying it from Tenbin, so no US client can own it. Any other holder is an unsecured creditor of a British Virgin Islands cell company. The company’s only promise is to pay spot in stablecoin on demand. Tenbin has published no proof of reserves yet and says one is coming. The terms reserve wallet blacklisting and forced cancellation. The deployed contract lacks those powers, but Tenbin could add them in a new contract. We judge the research to weigh against the token.

Research

How it works

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 Tenbin writes the note terms into the contract as a text field, TOKEN_NOTE. That makes the token a controllable electronic record under Delaware UCC Article 12. Control of the token is the evidence of ownership, and Tenbin keeps no separate register.

The issuer is a segregated portfolio company. A cell structure keeps each portfolio’s assets for that portfolio’s creditors. A tGLD holder therefore has no claim on Tenbin’s other products and 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.” The hedge can lose money through a margin call, a broker failure, or a gap between futures and spot. Any such loss falls on the cell and so on the noteholders.

Withdrawals

Only whitelisted Eligible Investors who pass KYC or KYB mint or redeem, through the Tenbin Controller contract. Tenbin pays redemptions at 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. Tenbin charges no fee by default beyond execution costs, and an extra fee outside market hours. 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 it

tGLD at 0x6a547b25…6F4 is a plain ERC-20 with permit and no 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 that Tenbin’s backend runs. The owner therefore controls supply, and supply is backed only if the Controller mints against collateral.

The terms give Tenbin more power than the code does. Section 3.1 lets Tenbin use “protocol-level blocks, wallet blacklisting, and/or force-redemption or cancellation” against ineligible holders. The deployed contract has no such functions; Tenbin can only refuse to mint or redeem for an address through the Controller’s registry. The contract is not upgradeable, so adding those powers would take a new token and a migration. The review triggers below cover that case.

Eligibility

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. Tenbin states no minimum. The docs say the formal proof-of-reserves framework is “coming soon” and that financial audits are in process. On 2026-09-23, Tenbin had published no attestation of the USDC or the futures positions.

Comparison

PAX Gold gives the holder title to allocated bars. tGLD gives an unsecured promise to pay spot, backed by a futures hedge that no outside firm attests. Compared with a gold futures ETF, tGLD adds issuer credit risk and removes the regulated fund wrapper. The US-person ban alone keeps the token from Ketju’s clients. Ketju will review it again if Tenbin opens tGLD to US persons or publishes an independent reserve attestation, or if the terms or contract change.

Sources

Each claim above comes from one of these sources. Where Ketju could not verify a number, the memo states that.

The asset and the chain

This memo covers the protocol. A position also holds an asset and settles on a chain. Whichever of the three holds the most power over the position decides who can freeze it. These tables describe control and do not judge quality.

ChainVerdictFreezeWhat it can do
EthereumApproved No freeze key Ethereum has no sequencer, no upgrade key and no operator who can be compelled to act; rule changes require social consensus.
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