Uranium Digital raises $16.5 million to bring uranium trading on-chain

The New York startup's Blockchain Capital-led Series A will fund a Solana-based platform that tokenizes physical yellowcake for institutional traders Uranium powers reactors that keep the lights on. Trading it still involves phone calls, emailed contracts and a lot of waiting. New York-based Uranium Digital wants to change that. The startup has raised $16.5 million in a Series A round led by Blockchain Capital, with several earlier backers returning. The goal is to scale an electronic trading platform that tracks ownership of physical uranium on a blockchain. The timing is not accidental. Data centers built for the AI boom need enormous amounts of power. That appetite is reviving interest in nuclear energy, and in the fuel that makes it run. A commodity market stuck in the fax era Most major commodities trade on large, automated markets. Oil, gold and wheat all have screens, order books and instant price discovery. Uranium is the odd one out. A buyer typically phones a broker to get a price. Contracts move around by email. Then the parties coordinate with a storage facility to formally transfer ownership of material that never physically moves. Spot trades usually require a minimum...