At the start of April, Ampersand Markets, the company working on making an ecosystem for keeping silver on blockchain with a new type of virtual assets, launched the Ampersand Consortium as another step towards achieving their goal.
As part of the ecosystem, the company also plans to create an exchange.
The Consortium members
Several big-name companies have joined the newly-created Ampersand Consortium. These giants mainly work with virtual assets and precious metals. Among them are Zaner Metals, LLC, DrawBridge Lending, etc, as well as Toronto-based heavyweights of the mining financial community.
Handler Thayer, LLP and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP have joined the organization to solve its legal issues and matters related to compliance with regulators.
With the help of all these assistants, the Ampersand Consortium hopes to take mineral economics to a new level by putting it on the blockchain and pairing minerals with "Digital Rights" for which the value tracks the growth of the ecosystem.
A hybrid silver token
The Consortium has also created its own virtual coin – Ampersand’s Vaulted Silver Token (AXSI). It pairs silver with a first-of-its-kind Digital Right, instead of pegging the token to the value of silver.
Ampersand is also busy studying opportunities for creating a digital exchange for DLT-based hybrid mineral tokens, assisted by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
This platform, if ever created, will be chasing an ambitious goal of tokenizing in-ground deposits of minerals and providing a venue for trading AXSI tokens, as well as other hybrid virtual assets made by Ampersand.
The CEO of Ampersand Markets, Seth Patinkin, said in an interview that the new token, as well as those that will be created in the future, is a response to the volatility of virtual assets not tied to physical assets on one side. On the physical side, the goal is to come up with a precious metal-backed asset. In the past, tokens pegged to metals, such as those offered by SLVR and Digix, have failed to attract significant adoption.
EOS platform is chosen
The digital token of the Consortium (AXSI) will be launched on the EOS network. Upon launching, the tokens will be sold to US investors at 50 cents per coin, as well as payment for 1 gram of silver at a relevant market rate.
Ampersand reckons that the AXSI tokens will not be traded on regular crypto exchanges, since the concept of the Digital Right has never been used before and so far it will be functioning separately from the rest of the crypto market.
