A full day at the Bullion Integrity Forum 2026 in Zürich, hosted by aXedras.
Some notes from the day.
After a first keynote by Ruth Crowell of the
@lbmaexecutive association,
@GOLDCOUNCIL opened with a great presentation on how artisanal gold mining (1/8th of yearly production) can increasingly be brought into responsible supply chains.
Centralized processing plants, responsible buyers, and origin verification technology working together with xTrace is one concrete example of how we get there eventually. Find their fascinating 2025 report on WGC's website.
The Early Adopters panel that followed, with Argor-Heraeus, Rand Refinery,
@DynacorGold and OCIM, moderated by aXedras, made the point that chemical fingerprinting of gold isn't new.
What's new is that the tooling is cheaper and fast enough to scale, and it opens a world of possibilities by shortening the distance between the exit of the mine and the compliance officer's desk.
Argor-Heraeus pointed out that a supermarket egg in Europe is more traceable today than a kilobar of gold. Their app ties a chemical fingerprint at the mine to an optical fingerprint on the finished bar, recorded on a blockchain.
The bar identifies itself, and that would be a theme of presentations to come too.
The ASMP announced the upcoming public launch of the Swiss Precious Metals Transparency Platform, built with aXedras, which will disclose Swiss gold import data at a level of granularity that would have been unthinkable just a while ago.
The closing morning panel with MKS PAMP Ticino, the Precious Metals Control Office and
@Metalor insisted on the point that transparency is more a competitive advantage for Swiss refining than a reputational risk.
The afternoon was more applied:
@bficapital showed how they take the integrity ledger all the way to the end client, with the Primorum Initiative.
@alitheon demoed FeaturePrint, a "biometric" treatment for objects that recognizes individual bars, even damaged. aXedras walked through new additions to their product suite for dealers and vaults.
And
@EY_Switzerland closed with a reminder that redesigning the work around AI is where the value is.
Across the day, the theme: a lot of the industry is going from "take our word for it" to "here's the proof, check it yourself."
The Swiss industry, with its careful approach, strong regulatory environment and precision in engineering, is well positioned.
We at
@DGLD_Official firmly intend to be a part of this quiet shift.