Altura launches Onchain Gold Arbitrage Vault for retail users.
Altura, a decentralized financial protocol founded by former Fidelity and PwC employees, is launching an onchain gold brokerage strategy aimed at retail investors, targeting 20% annual returns, according to a Thursday release shared with Cointelegraph.
According to Altura, the product places users in a re-usable repository of short-term physical gold trading capital. Unlike platforms like Robinhood or Revolut that offer gold price exposure, Altura says it's self-certifying the original arbitrage process.
The company said it had secured $4 million in funding and was able to facilitate the movement of 185 kilograms of gold, representing a total transaction volume of $28.5 million.
Altura co-founder and CEO Matthew Pinnock told Cointelegraph that the goal is to “bring an institutional gold strategy onchain within the reach of retail investors.”
That start came as gold traded at record highs after hitting a high of more than 5,300 ounces in January, though it has since pulled back sharply. Altura's startup projects not only exposure to commodities, but also signals a new phase in real-world assets where they are trying to package institutional trading strategies as they offer products like onchain DeFi to retail users.
A strategy typically reserved for institutional traders
Pinnock said Altura's “income trading strategy” has historically been used by institutional trading desks, and high capital requirements, legal complexities and the risk of traditional bullish arbitrage have kept smaller investors away from this type of business.
Gold bought by its business partner Inessa on Altura's behalf is marked at the time of purchase, Pinnock says, and those marks are recorded with two cryptographic signatures at each trade and custody transfer. Depositors do not hold direct ownership of bullion but gain exposure to the revenues generated by the trade flows, he added.
Altura's setup depends on a network of off-chain actors. The company said it is partnering with Aurelian Labs and Inessa, along with air cargo specialist Zell Global, to execute and verify transactions.
RELATED: Gold Hits Record Above $5K, Wider Than Bitcoin
At a target yield of 20%, Pinnock said the strategy is structured to be “close to delta-neutral” with trading terms prior to logistic execution, resulting from price differentials between affiliates rather than directional bets on gold prices.
Each arbitrage cycle is completed in one to two days, allowing capital to be recycled more often and limiting exposure to spot movements, he said.
Related: Tokenized gold moves weekend price signals CME futures close.
Increasing interest in real world products
The launch comes amid growing interest in “real-world” DeFi products, as tokenized assets and RWA protocols are expected to grow to about $17 billion in total value by December 2025, according to Defillama data.
However, in a joint report released by RWA.io and Veritas Protocol in the same month, losses from on-chain operational failures in tokenized RWA markets rose to $14.6 million in the first half of 2025, a 143 percent increase over the previous year.
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