Bitfinex Securities Completes Record 50 Million USD Tokenized Raise Backed by Nickel
Bitfinex Securities has completed a record 50 million USD tokenized capital raise for the metals company Alkemya, the platform’s largest raise to date and a fresh milestone for tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, as the sector pushes beyond Treasuries and into industrial commodities.
The raise involved ALKN, a tokenized security representing limited partnership interests in Luxembourg-based Alkemya Metacore SCSp, the companies announced on Thursday. The partnership owns roughly 7 million meters of 99.99% pure nickel wire, an asset the companies said was independently valued at about 1.64 billion USD.
The completion of the raise marks a significant step up in scale for Bitfinex Securities. The platform told Cointelegraph that the 50 million USD raise surpassed its previous record of 30 million USD for USTBL, a tokenized United States Treasury product issued under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Law. The platform has now completed seven capital raises and listed 16 assets in total.
First tokenization for Alkemya
For Alkemya, ALKN is the company’s first tokenization project. The token gives investors fractional, digitally transferable interests in the partnership, allowing the company to raise capital against its physical nickel asset base without selling the metal itself. An Alkemya spokesperson confirmed the milestone and emphasized the novelty of the structure for a traditional industrial firm.
The choice of nickel as backing collateral is notable. Nickel is a critical input for stainless steel and, increasingly, for battery and semiconductor applications, which gives the asset a tangible industrial demand story that many tokenized products lack. Alkemya said it plans to use the proceeds of the raise to commercialize engineered nickel products for applications including semiconductors.
The offering is not entirely closed. Additional ALKN tokens will remain available to eligible investors through Bitfinex Securities until October 15. Secondary trading will not begin until at least the completion of the next fundraising tranche, meaning early buyers should expect a period of limited liquidity and should size their positions accordingly.
The eligibility restriction also matters. Because ALKN is a security, participation is limited to investors who qualify under the applicable regime, a deliberate choice that keeps the raise on the right side of securities law while still offering global distribution that a private placement could rarely achieve at this cost.
A record that keeps moving
The new high-water mark underscores how quickly the tokenized real-world asset sector is scaling. What was a niche corner of crypto a few years ago, dominated by experimental debt issuances, now regularly clears tens of millions of dollars per raise, with asset classes spanning Treasuries, real estate, credit and now industrial metals.
Bitfinex Securities has positioned itself at the regulated end of that trend, issuing tokenized instruments under established securities frameworks rather than through unregulated channels. The platform operates alongside a wave of competitors racing to tokenize traditional assets, with major financial institutions increasingly experimenting with blockchain-based issuance for bonds and funds.
The Alkemya raise also illustrates a second trend: the geographic breadth of tokenization. A Luxembourg-registered partnership holding a physical commodity in industrial quantities, issuing digital securities through a platform associated with the Bitfinex and Tether ecosystem, to eligible investors around the world, is precisely the kind of cross-border capital formation that legacy settlement rails handle slowly and expensively.
Why it matters
For tokenization advocates, commodity-backed tokens like ALKN are an important proof of concept. Tokenized Treasuries demonstrate that blockchain rails can distribute yield-bearing instruments; tokenized industrial assets demonstrate something harder, that physical, hard-to-divide property can be fractionally financed by global retail-adjacent capital without a traditional syndication process.
There are caveats. Investors in ALKN are exposed to nickel price risk, the operational risk of storing and authenticating 7 million meters of wire, and the valuation assumptions behind the 1.64 billion USD appraisal. The absence of secondary trading until the next tranche completes adds lock-up risk that buyers of liquid exchange tokens do not face. And unlike a Treasury-backed token, the underlying asset does not generate yield on its own, so returns depend on Alkemya’s ability to commercialize its engineered nickel products on schedule.
Still, the record speaks for itself. Bitfinex Securities’ largest raise has roughly doubled its previous best, the platform’s listed asset count keeps climbing, and a traditional metals company has chosen tokenized issuance over conventional financing for its first capital markets foray. If commodity-backed issuance continues at this pace, the gap between traditional securities issuance and its tokenized counterpart will keep narrowing, one record at a time.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
7 million meters of nickel wire sitting in a vault backing a token. 2026 is wilder than the 2021 NFT era ever was
1.64 billion valuation but they only raised 50m, so the token holders own like 3% of the partnership? someone check my math lol
your math roughly checks out, ~3%. limited partnership interests use the metal as collateral, nobody claims token holders own the wire
went from 30M with USTBL to 50M with ALKN in what, a year? tokenized RWAs are quietly eating the boring part of finance
the boring part of finance is the only part with real cash flows tho. 30 to 50M in a year beats every nft marketplace combined
7 raises and 16 listings total now. its the base growing, the 30M to 50M record jump is just the headline part
seven raises in and the biggest one is industrial metals, not treasuries. the boring end of rwa is where the durable money actually shows up
raising against nickel without selling it is basically a commodity backed loan with extra steps. works until someone needs to actually value 7 million meters of wire in a hurry
thats the risk with any commodity backed note, the mark is only real when someone bids. 7 million meters of wire has a very thin secondary market
thats why the raise was only 50M against the 1.64B mark. the haircut already assumes nobody is bidding for 7 million meters all at once
true but nobody marks 7 million meters to a panic bid. the valuation only has to hold at liquidation and hopefully that day never comes
fair, but the 1.64B mark getting third party scrutiny every quarter beats a whitepaper saying trust us. the haircut math is doing quiet work here
7 million meters of nickel wire backing a token. try explaining that to a 2017 ico investor lol
a 2017 ico investor would have asked where the nickel lives and who audits the vault. 2026 just reads 1.64B valuation and apes
^ at least you can physically touch nickel. beats another jpeg treasury
50M beats their old 30M USTBL record. rwa quietly outgrowing all the noise
raising 50M against 1.64B of nickel without selling a single meter is what tokenization promised industrial firms years ago. USTBL was the warmup act
the wire stays as collateral and Alkemya keeps operating, so its basically inventory finance with a token wrapper. honestly fine if the vault audits hold
50 million raised against 1.64 billion of collateral reads conservative until you remember the haircut IS the risk model. still cleaner than every synthetic commodity note ive seen
from USTBL treasuries to nickel wire in roughly a year. the 30M to 50M jump matters more than the record, rwa deal sizes keep creeping up
ALKN tradeable while the wire sits in a luxembourg vault is neat, but what happens to the token if nickel dumps 30 percent. someone publish that stress test
the LP structure means token holders eat the mark first though. nickel dumps 30 percent and that ~3 percent equity cushion is basically gone overnight
its inventory finance at the end of the day. nickel dumping 30 percent hurts the refinancing terms long before token holders feel anything
3 percent cushion is thin, agreed, but nickel does not depeg to zero over a weekend either. completely different risk shape than the usual rwa wrapper
lme nickel futures exist, hedging the mark is trivial if they bother. the question is whether the partnership actually hedges or just watches the vault
1.64b mark on nickel wire in a luxembourg vault. fungible, industrial, priced daily. better collateral than most stuff defi calls tbv