# Track precious metal provenance end-to-end

> Swiss technology provider aXedras AG, together with the World Gold Council and partners including the Royal Canadian Mint, piloted a blockchain solution for tracking gold bullion bars. Using the permissioned Bullion Integrity Ledger, gold bars are digitally documented from refining and transport through to secure vaulting. The participating stakeholders can verify ownership transfers and provenance data in real time without risk of tampering.

**Sector:** Secondary sector · **Industry:** Metal industry · **Organisation:** aXedras AG, World Gold Council, Industry consortium members (refiners, logistics, vault operators) · **Maturity level:** Pilot

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/axedras-herkunft-edelmetallen-lueckenlos-nachweisen

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Pilot
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

aXedras AG provides the Bullion Integrity Ledger, a decentralised platform on which refineries such as the Royal Canadian Mint securely document the journey of gold bars against tampering. Until now, proof of purity and ownership in the precious metals trade often relied on isolated paper documents and manual verification steps between trading partners. By using a shared distributed ledger, all authorised actors in the value chain can verify the status and history of a bar in real time.

Within the Gold Bar Integrity pilot project, aXedras, the World Gold Council, as well as refineries, logistics providers and vault operators cooperate to increase transparency in the global gold market. The technological basis is the Bullion Integrity Ledger, a permissioned distributed ledger network in which aXedras operates a so-called Governance Node. Refineries such as the Royal Canadian Mint record the refining and issuance of gold bars directly in the system and link physical bars with cryptographic data sets. Every subsequent ownership transfer or storage in authorised vaults is immutably recorded in the ledger and validated by the network nodes. This eliminates media discontinuities along the entire supply chain and reliably protects traders and end customers from counterfeits or unclear sources of origin.

## Benefits

- Accelerated ownership transfers in B2B trade
- Simplified compliance with regulatory ESG and supply chain laws
- Increased certainty about the authenticity and origin of purchased gold bars
- Complete traceability from the melting process to the vault
- High tamper resistance through cryptographic logging
- Reduction of media discontinuities and manual document reconciliation
- More efficient goods inspection on receipt and dispatch
- Fewer manual investigations in case of discrepancies in bar data

## Challenges

- Harmonisation of existing ERP and warehouse systems with the ledger
- Clarification of data access rights among competitors
- Need for broad industry acceptance by competing players
- Reliable linking of physical bars with the digital data set
- Transition of established workflows to digital capture tools

## Technology foundation

The solution is based on a permissioned distributed ledger network called Bullion Integrity Ledger, in which aXedras operates a Governance Node to ensure transaction rules and data security for all industry participants.

## Sources

- [Bullion Integrity Ledger](https://www.axedras.com/bil)
- [aXedras' role within Gold Bar Integrity Pilot](https://www.axedras.com/milestones)
- [The Royal Canadian Mint Transforms its Gold Refining with New Distributed Ledger Technology Solution](https://www.numismaticnews.net/world-coins/the-royal-canadian-mint-transforms-its-gold-refining-with-new-distributed-ledger-technology-solution-that-traces-metal-from-mine-to-vault)
- [FAQs | Frequently asked Questions](https://www.axedras.com/faqs)