Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., has added custody support for Etherlink and seven Tezos Layer-2 network assets. Among them are xU3O8, a token representing physical uranium, as well as wrapped XTZ (WXTZ), liquid staking token stXTZ, stablecoins USDT, USDC, and USDSM, and wrapped ether (WETH). Institutional clients will be able to store these assets in segregated accounts of the federal bank, using the same infrastructure as for other digital assets, without a separate custodial agreement for the new network.
xU3O8 provides holders access to physical uranium through a blockchain token operating on the Uranium io platform in the Etherlink network. The token represents uranium held in storage: Curzon Uranium is the supplier, and Cameco provides storage. Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman introduced uranium as the first step towards bringing a broader set of commodities, including metals, into blockchain infrastructure. Uranium io allows fractional access instead of the large minimum deals typical of the physical uranium market. According to CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of xU3O8 is just over $9 million.
Anchorage notes that traditional operations with physical uranium involve specialized intermediaries, lengthy settlement times, and high minimum investment sizes. Tokenization allows for the transfer and settlement of assets in minutes instead of weeks.
"Institutions are not lacking interest in tokenized real assets. They lack places to store them that meet their risk framework," said Anchorage Digital CEO and co-founder Nathan McCauley. According to him, adding Etherlink allows institutions considering tokenized uranium or on-chain dollars to store assets in a federal bank, applying already used controls.
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