Streamex (NASDAQ:STEX) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Monday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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Summary
Streamex reported its first income of $146,000 from gold lease, marking the first revenue since the launch of its tokenized gold platform, GLDY.
Operating expenses decreased by 57.1% to $15.2 million, resulting in a reduced net loss of $14.6 million, with a strong balance sheet showing $41.8 million in liquidity and no debt.
The company introduced GLDC, a new gold-backed token that expands the market beyond accredited investors and adds a new revenue stream, with expectations for significant growth.
Streamex formed five strategic partnerships to enhance its distribution and custody infrastructure, including Orca, CBER Financial, tZero, Eisner Amper, and Wintermute, aiming to attract institutional investors.
The company plans to focus on converting institutional allocations into GLDY, launching GLDC, and completing integrations with retirement account custodians over the next 90 days.
Management emphasized its capital-light model with high operating leverage, and the importance of organic marketing for GLDC's retail market strategy.
Full Transcript
Jordan, Operator
Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time I'd like to welcome everyone to the Streamex Q2 2026 business and quarterly update call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. If you'd like to ask a web question, please type your question into the Q and A box. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Adele Carey, Senior Vice President of Alliance Advisors IR.
Please go ahead.
Adele Carey, Senior Vice President, Alliance Advisors IR
Great. Thank you so much, Jordan, and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Streamex second quarter 2026 earnings and corporate update call. I'm joined today by Henry McPhee, co‑founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Christine Plummer, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's call will contain forward‑looking statements based on our current expectations and assumptions. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed today.
Please refer to the cautionary language on slides 2 and 3 of today's presentation as well as risk factors detailed in our most recent filings, Form 10‑K and Form 10‑Q filed with the SEC. The team will also reference certain non‑GAAP financial measures during this call. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our filings and the appendix to today's deck. And now I'm more than happy to turn the call over to Henry McPhee.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Adele, and thank you everyone for joining us. I'm super excited to be able to get into it. In the first quarter we proved the product; in the second quarter we built the distribution around it. Five partnerships that between them give an institution a way in, a way to verify what they own, a way to custody it, and a way out. What has not yet followed is scale and assets. GLDY assets outstanding were broadly unchanged in the second quarter, and I'm going to spend real time today on why, what we're seeing from the market, and why we think the next phase looks very different from this one.
I'm also going to spend some time introducing GLDC because it's the most commercially significant thing that we have built. It opens up the product to everyone and adds an entirely new revenue line for the company. Before we start I would ask you to review our disclosures, which are on the screen and in our filings. As stated by Adele, today's presentation and our remarks contain forward‑looking statements. Again, please review our disclosures here.
Past performance is not indicative of future results, and any comparisons given throughout the presentation are there to explain the difference in structure, not to project a return. Okay, now getting into it. Here's the shape of the call. Christine will start by taking you through the second quarter results, the balance sheet, the liquidity, the cash runway, and capital structure. Then I will come back in and cover four things: what we built this quarter; where GLDY stands and how institutional adoption happens in this category; GLDC and what it means for our revenue; and the market that we're building into. I will finish this with the specific things to hold us to over the next 90 days, and then we'll take questions. We collected questions submitted ahead of this call. Most of them are answered inside these sections, but we will also be taking live questions during the Q and A period at the end. So, 60 seconds of context before we get started because some people are new to the story and because we still routinely are misfiled on some sites.
First, Streamex is a financial technology company. We built and we operate a tokenization platform for commodity capital markets, and we are the issuer of the assets on it, which means the economics stay with us rather than being paid away to a third‑party platform. We built the legal structure, the ecosystem, and the independent attestation framework before we scale, not after. We are not a cryptocurrency company. We are not a gold ETF. GLDY is a tokenized security with a yield mechanism.
We are not a mining or royalty company. We take no exploration or resource risk, and we are not a single‑product story. Gold is the first commercial proof of a platform designed to be repeated. We are Nasdaq‑listed with no debt, $41.8 million of total liquidity at June 30, a product live and selling since February, and a note on the last line on the left of this page. This is a recurring‑revenue platform. Revenue scales with asset growth and with trading volume.
With that, over to you, Christine.
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Henry, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start with the headlines on this page, then take you through the detail. I will spend most of my time on liquidity because that is where the questions were. Four things on this page: we recognized our first income, 0.1 million of gold lease income, the first income earned under the tokenized gold platform. Operating expenses came down by 20.4 million, or 57.1%, against the first quarter. Net loss came down by 32.2 million, or 69%, on the same basis, and the balance sheet stayed strong, debt-free.
A 41.8 million liquidity position, 32.8 million of working capital, and a net decrease in cash of $14.7 million across the first half. Just one note on the period comparison because it runs through this whole section. We are comparing the second quarter with the first quarter of 2026, not with the prior-year quarter. We acquired Streamex Exchange Corporation on 28 May in 2025, so the prior-year periods contain only about one month of the acquired business and do not give a meaningful basis for comparison.
The prior-year comparatives are in the Form 10-Q for anyone who wants them. So moving on to the right of the page, the operating markers: GLDY assets under management of 3,111 ounces as of 30 June; external ownership of GLDY up to 9%; 27.3 ounces of dividends earned with 19.4 ounces paid in the quarter; our first attestation completed; the partnership ecosystem live across custody, distribution, liquidity, secondary markets and derivatives; and GLDC expected to launch in the second half.
In the second quarter we recognized $146,000 of gold lease income; that is the first income in the company's history. I want to be precise rather than promotional about it. Approximately $12,000 relates to first-quarter income recognized in the second quarter as an immaterial correction. So income earned in the quarter itself was approximately 134,000. It is a small number, but what matters is that the mechanism is proven and repeatable. Loss from operations was 15.2 million in the second quarter against 35.7 million in the first.
Operating expenses came down by 20.4 million, or 57.1%, driven principally by a lower stock-based compensation charge and lower consulting and platform development costs. Net loss for the quarter was 14.6 million against 46.7 million in the first quarter, a reduction of 32.2 million, or 69%. Loss per share was $0.08 for the six months. Net loss was 61.2 million and the net decrease in cash was 14.7 million. And I want to be clear about what is inside that loss because at face value it could be misleading.
It includes 32.5 million of non-cash stock-based compensation, approximately 12 million of non-cash interest, and a $3.1 million loss on extinguishment, the last two both relating to the convertible debt debentures we settled in February, neither of which will recur. The cash cost of running this business is materially lower than the loss line suggests, and that is the bridge into the pages that follow. The balance sheet is the reason we can focus on growth rather than financing: total assets of $159.6 million as of June 30th against $173.3 million as of 31st of March; total liabilities of $12.4 million, down from $14 million; total stockholders' equity of $147.1 million; working capital of $32.8 million; and no debt at either date. What moved during the quarter was deliberate. We reduced marketable securities by 10.9 million and redeployed that capital: 6 million to USDC, 5 million of which is expected to be disbursed as the loan to Wintermute. We also funded a $2 million subscription for 2,000 non-voting shares of Meta Layer Digital Fund 1.
We recorded a gold-denominated receivable for in-kind lease yield and contractual revenue share earned in the second quarter but not settled in it. And we entered into a non-cancellable operating lease for office space in Winter Park, Florida, which is what brings the right-of-use asset and the lease liability onto the page. The objective behind all of that is on the page and it is straightforward: de-risk the balance sheet, fund growth, and reposition capital towards tokenized commodity infrastructure and the digital asset ecosystem.
A number of shareholders asked us to be concrete about liquidity, so I'm going to give you two numbers rather than one and tell you why they are different. Our total liquidity position at June 30th was $41.8 million: cash and marketable securities of $18.5 million; digital assets of 6 million; physical gold carried at cost of 15.5 million; and our Meta Layer investment at 1.8 million. Of that, approximately 19.5 million is immediately available today.
The difference is three specific disclosed items, and I'd rather you hear them from me than derive them from the filings. 5 million of our digital assets is on loan to Wintermute. It is contractually returnable, but not until 365 days after the first day of GLDY trading, which was on May 27, 2026, so we do not treat it as available. Our Meta Layer investment is subject to a lock-up. The earliest redemption date available to us is 30th of September 2026.
The physical gold is inventory backing the GLDY reserve. It is a real asset and it is monetizable, but selling it is a capital decision rather than a cash balance. Alongside that we have working capital of $32.8 million, total equity of $147.1 million, and no debt of any kind. We retired $38 million of convertible notes in February and all related security interest and liens were released. Now moving on to the question that was actually asked: how many years?
Our operating cash burn in the second quarter was approximately 1.6 million a month. Within that we can identify roughly half a million dollars a month of items we do not expect to repeat: accounting and other consulting services, one-time personnel cost, and a marketing program that has now run its course. Stripping those out gives us an expected run rate of approximately 1.1 million a month going into the third quarter. At that run rate, our immediately available funds alone cover approximately 18 months.
The total liquidity position covers approximately 3 years, and it is important to note that this is assuming no revenue, which, as you can see, we have begun to generate as of this quarter. So to answer directly: it is years, not months, with no debt and before any of the additional levers available to us. Those levers, none of which are assumed in the figures I've just given: the Meta Layer redemption becomes available at the end of September; we have a stated capital strategy of monetizing portions of the company's GLDY holdings, which we executed on during the first half; and we have engaged an advisor to evaluate strategic alternatives for the Pure EP patent portfolio, where we have not received a definitive offer and therefore assume nothing. One thing that is not on the slide: we are not managing this business toward the end of a runway. We are managing it toward a fee base, and the operating leverage is genuine. The cost base is largely fixed and built, and the fee streams scale with assets and with turnover. I would now like to address the items on this page.
First, the share counts, which are presented as of June 30: 112 million of common shares outstanding; 69 million of exchangeable shares that convert 1 for 1; and 182 million fully diluted, including the exchangeables. There are also three items we have been asked about. Share repurchases: on July 1, the Board authorized the repurchase of up to 10 million shares at a price not exceeding $2.00. No shares have been repurchased to date. Timing and execution remain at the Board's discretion and are subject to the trading restrictions that apply to us.
I'm not going to signal our intentions beyond confirming the authorization is live and the Board is actively engaged with it. Internal controls: the material weaknesses disclosed in our 2025 Annual Report were not remediated as of 30 June. Accordingly, we concluded our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of that date. To be clear about what that does and does not mean: this did not result in any identified misstatement and there were no changes to previously released results.
Remediation is underway. They will not be considered fully remediated until the controls have operated for a sufficient period. We have tested them. I expect to report progress each quarter until they are closed. Our auditor: effective July 1, the Audit Committee appointed EisnerAmper, succeeding Cdis. There were no disagreements on any matter of accounting principles, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedure. With that, I will hand back to Henry.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Christine. So let me start with what we actually did this quarter. Five partnerships and initiatives done since May, and I would ask you to look at them in sequence rather than a list because each one removes a specific reason a potential GLDY investor could not participate. On May 27, Orca, a 24/7 decentralized exchange venue for tokenized securities with GLDY as the inaugural asset. Compliance enforced automatically at the venue level and a revenue-share stream back to Streamex — that is trading infrastructure.
On June 29, CBER Financial and tZero: brokers can now offer GLDY to their clients for trading on an SEC-registered ATS across approximately $20 billion of network assets. This is the first traditional brokerage channel into the product. On July 1, our independent reserve attestation from Eisner Amper occurred, with monthly attestations continuing and an annual audit. This was the single most requested item in institutional due diligence and it's now on track to grow every month.
On July 21, Inspira Financial: qualified custody for GLDY so RIAs and wealth managers can hold the asset inside frameworks that they already operate in — $63 billion dollars and more than 8 million accounts within Inspira. On July 23, Wintermute: instant liquidity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with roughly $12 million of seeded liquidity across institutional-grade venues and settlement moved from T+2 to T+0. We have the venue, then the brokerage, then verification, custody, liquidity.
That is a complete institutional stack, and six months ago we had none of it. This is what it adds up to. The strategy here is leverage. We're not trying to acquire investors one at a time. We are enabling brokerages, custodians, and retirement platforms to offer our assets to their own clients, which takes the addressable opportunity from thousands of investors to millions without us having to reach any of them directly. Everything on this page is live except Equity Trust, which covers U.S. tax-advantaged retirement accounts and is in progress. There's more than 359,000 accounts and over $72 billion worth of capital. That is a very large pool of gold-allocating capital, and it's still a major channel that is open. With that, I want to address something directly because I think it's the most misunderstood part of our story. There's a perception that buying GLDY requires an investor to have a view on tokenization. That is not the case.
It does not, and increasingly it does not require them to interact with the technology at all. First, through their broker or advisor, an advisor can allocate to GLDY the same way that they would allocate to anything else through CBER, reported in the statements their client already receives. The token is an implementation detail they never have to touch. Second, exposure through swap structures that now gain exposure without holding the token directly removes an operational objection that has gated the largest pools of gold capital.
The allocator gets the full economics without having to onboard a new instrument at all. This is especially important for ETFs and hedge funds and is now available. And third, a path that is purely quantitative: the carry funds looking for a spread between GLDY and the gold futures funding are buying a return, not a thesis. They do not need a view on tokenized gold as a category at all, which is exactly what makes that a useful entry point for us right now.
The trade itself gets superpowered by GLDY adding a 3.5% yield to the long leg of the trade and makes it better than anything before. I wrote an article on this that can be found on my X. If you want more information on the trade idea, we are in active discussions for allocation across all three of those paths, and the product the allocator actually buys is straightforward: a gold that pays them a yield, held by a custodian they already trust, tradable around the clock.
Everything else is our problem, not theirs. Which brings me to something that we've been investing in pretty heavily and not talked about enough. Cory Handy joined us in May as VP of Product and Design. He had 18 years designing fintechs and payment products at PayPal, Microsoft, and DraftKings, and he was the founder and CEO of Kepler Savings. He owns the Streamex experience from end to end, and I want to explain why that is a priority rather than a polish item.
Every additional step between interest and a funded account is a place where an investor stops. For a first-of-its-kind product, that friction compounds because the buyer is already doing something unfamiliar. Reducing it is one of the highest-return uses of engineering time that we have. So Cory has rebuilt the account opening and accreditation flow with fewer steps between arriving and being verified. He simplified the funding paths, added functionality for instant liquidity to allow investors to get in and out of the asset at any time.
He's built a clear view of what you own, what it's worth, and every distribution you received in ounces and in dollars. And he is building purpose-built flows for advisors and custodians who have entirely different requirements from a direct investor. The distribution is built. The experience is what converts it. Now into the GLDY update on performance. The product has done everything that we said it would. The net asset value has tracked the gold price one-to-one exactly as designed.
Since launch we have paid four yield distributions, every one on schedule, and more than 27 ounces distributed to holders in total. And we paid them in gold. The yield is funded by gold leasing, and we have independent reserve attestation by Eisner Amper every month with an annual audit on assets. We ended the quarter with 311 ounces behind GLDY and 3,096 at the end of March, broadly unchanged. I'm giving you that in ounces deliberately. You will get an ounce count every quarter from here, whichever way it moves.
Here is the important point and the one that I want you to take away. The product is not the constraint. GLDY does everything that we said it would, and we believe it remains the best gold asset available anywhere. It is the only one that pays its holders, and the work this quarter was clearing what stands between it and institutional capital. So let me tell you what we've learned about how the capital actually arrives. Institutional allocation to a new asset class does not arrive on a slope.
It arrives in steps. Look at what this category actually looks like. Comparable yield-bearing tokenized products — real products run by serious institutions — have 688 and 2.25 billion of assets with 56 and 101 holders respectively. The largest tokenized treasury fund in the world, run by the largest asset manager in the world, has roughly 115 holders. These are products where a very small number of investors move billions of dollars. This is how the market works right now, and it's worth understanding before drawing conclusions from a holder count or quarterly change.
There's three things that follow from that. First, Wall Street rewards a fast follower. Allocators are not paid to be the first into the new structure; they are paid to be early into a proven one. That's rational institutional behavior and not a verdict on the asset. Second, our partners are telling us the same thing. The consistent message that we get back from our brokerage and custody partners, including through the CBIRD network, is that a visible institutional alloc is the signal their clients are waiting for.
Third, and this is the part that matters, we have spent two quarters removing every reason to wait: custody, attestation, brokerage access, qualified custody, 24/7 liquidity. Those are precisely the things that our allocator points to when they justify going first, and they are now in place. So with all that being said, we expect the first institutional allocation to be an inflection, and as this page says, we expect that in the third quarter. In a market this concentrated, the second and third orders follow much faster than the first, and we are positioned for that.
Now into the gate scoreboard. So here is the list — every gate that sits between an announced partnership and funded assets and exactly where we stand against it. The legal wrapper, physical custody, institutional digital custody, independent attestation, and secondary liquidity are complete. Brokerage access is live through CBIRT and tZero. Qualified custody for RIAs and wealth managers is live through Inspira. Three rows are not marked complete: the U.S. retirement accounts for Equity Trust is in process. Our attestation track record is continuing to build and accrues one month at a time, and the accreditation barrier, which is Rule 506(c) excluding most investors from buying, is removed by GLDC. We're also going to republish the scoreboard with every status change at each quarterly update, adding more lines as additional partnerships and integrations go live. Importantly, this lets you measure us against the work done.
Now into something that I am especially excited about: GLDC. This is truly the most commercially significant thing that we are building right now. Each GLDC is backed one-to-one by GLDY or other gold assets which are backed one-to-one by physical gold. It is permissionless, meaning anyone anywhere with no minimum, no creation fees, no redemption or transfer fees, and it's issued by an independent Auriferous Foundation. Streamex acts as the servicer to the foundation; it is not itself the issuer. We carry monthly attestations with Eisner Amper for GLDY and an annual audit and proof-of-reserve oracle. There's three reasons why this matters. It is, one, reserve. Every GLDC minted requires a GLDY to be minted behind it. So GLDC assets are GLDY assets. This is not a second product competing with the first. Growth in GLDC is growth in the exact number that you have been watching. It opens the product beyond accredited investors, which is the single largest constraint on our buyer base today.
And the reserve behind it is productive. Because that reserve is GLDY, it accrues 3.5% through gold leasing. PAX and Tether Gold sit on idle bullion. Structurally they have nothing to be able to fund an ecosystem with. We do. And that changes what we can build on the token — a full on-chain ecosystem with borrow/lend markets and deep liquidity. This is the most important part that I want shareholders to understand because it is an entirely new revenue line for this company and it's not in anyone's model.
Walk through it with me. First, someone buys GLDC and capital comes in. A GLDY is then minted behind it, backed one-to-one by physical gold. Because the reserve is GLDY, that reserve is productive. It earns 3.5% through gold leasing and Streamex benefits because GLDC assets drive GLDY assets, which is our base, as our own fee that streams are earned on. The reserve income itself accrues to the foundation and pays Streamex its servicing fee and funds the incentives that build out the ecosystem.
Look what that means at scale: a 3.5% reserve rate — $100 million of GLDC is roughly 3.5 million in annual reserve income; 250 is 8.8; 500 million, 17.5; and 1 billion, 35. Those figures are obviously illustrative and they're not guidance, but are gross of costs and before any amounts are applied to holder incentives or ecosystem program. But the shape is the point. That model — if it sounds familiar, it should. A stablecoin issuer earns the yield of the reserves that are backing its token, and holders are not paid for it.
The reserve income is overwhelmingly the majority of a company like Circle's revenue, and it scales with supply at close to zero marginal cost. This is that model with gold in the place of Treasuries, and through the servicing agreement with the foundation, service fees accrue on top of the three fee streams that we already earn on every GLDY token issued — the tokenization fee, the annual lease-rate fee, and the transfer fee. It does not replace them.
It is additive. Here's how the three sort of sit against one another. GLDC is the only gold token built on a productive reserve. GLDY is the only one paying a yield to holders. We are the only ones with a permissionless gold token backed by a yield-bearing one, and the only ones with no fee to enter or exit on GLDC. And now the bottom row. The incumbents have between 39 and 82,000 holders and billions in assets. They're much bigger than us today, but look at what they are: tens of thousands of holders and they pay nothing.
Nobody has a yield-bearing gold token and a permissionless one. That gap is the entire opportunity. And these two products together are exactly what we built to be able to close it. Now, briefly on silver because several people asked. In May we guided to a silver launch in the third quarter. We've moved it to 2027. It was a capital allocation decision. The highest-return use of our engineering capacity and our balance sheet right now is depth on gold, GLDC, and the on-chain functionality around it, not breadth across metals.
And the reason why we can make that choice cheaply is the thing that we've been building all along. The legal wrapper, the custody, the attestation process, and the venue all exist and are proven. Launching silver is now a launch decision rather than a build project — weeks of work rather than quarters. That optionality is exactly what the platform was designed for. Silver is sequenced. The last line on the page is an honest summary of why gold and GLDC have more upside per dollar of effort, and we would rather be the definitive product on one commodity than an early entrant in two.
Now getting into the end, I want to step back for a couple minutes because the size of what we're building into is why we're doing this at all. Tokenized real-world assets on chain now stand at roughly 38 billion excluding stablecoins, up from 11.8 billion just two years ago, with holders past 1.7 million. BCG and ADDX put out tokenized illiquid assets at around $16 trillion by 2030, roughly 10% of global GDP. And this is no longer a category that needs defending.
BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, WisdomTree — they all have live tokenization programs. JPMorgan has tokenized deposits and collateral settlements in production through Onyx. DTCC is piloting tokenized settlements across Russell 1000 equities index, ETFs, and Treasuries with more than 50 firms. The New York Stock Exchange has announced a 24/7 tokenized securities venue, and the Nasdaq has filed to list tokenized equities. The largest institutions in finance have decided that this is where the markets are going.
Now, point that at commodities: the size of the global commodities market at approximately $146 trillion in 2026. Inside that, gold alone is roughly $32 trillion, 11 trillion of which is financial gold, and $560 billion sits in gold ETFs earning nothing at all for the people who own it — actually costing them. This is one commodity. Commodity markets are among the largest assets on earth and the least modernized part of finance. They still run on paper ledgers and trust intermediaries, and we are simply not wrapping them — we are making them better than what exists today.
Physical gold and gold ETFs are non-earning assets that settle slowly and trade on a schedule. Ours pays a yield, trades around the clock, and settles instantly. Every asset we bring onto these rails inherits those properties, and we will earn three fee streams on each one for the life of every token issued. Whoever owns the rails when commodity markets move on chain owns the economics of that migration for decades. That is the company that we are building.
Gold is the first proof of it, not the whole of it. So here's what to hold us to over the next 90 days. First, convert the first institutional allocations into GLDY. That is the priority above anything else and is what turns a proven product into a growing one. Second, onboard our first institutional partners as holders with names on the register, not just in the distribution list. Third, launch initial liquidity bootstrapping for GLDC in the third quarter — the founding holder base built before the token exists.
GLDC will be launched once the initial liquidity bootstrapping is complete, and then complete the XV Trust IRA integration, and keep attesting, and keep distributing monthly yield without interruptions. A word on what initial liquidity bootstrapping is because the mechanism matters. This is the first step onto GLDC and a way for us to secure additional capital for GLDC so that there is a robust market at launch. Think of it like a waitlist where investors can subscribe to buy GLDC on launch and get incentives to be early.
Overall, the multi-year opportunity is in front of this company and is real. The way we earn right into it is the next 90 days. With that, this concludes the presentation portion of the call, and I want to say thank you to everyone for attending today. I'm extremely excited for the future of Streamex, and the next 90 days will be transformational. I feel truly like we are at an inflection point and can't wait to show you. Now, let us take questions.
We collected some questions ahead of the call, and you can also submit your questions live on the online link. We'll work through as many as possible. If we can't get to you, please feel free to reach out to [email protected] and submit them there. A member of the team will make sure to get back to you. Okay, now into the questions. First question — I'm going to give this to you, Christine. So, the revenue for the quarter was 146,000. When does this become a real revenue line?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Great. Thank you, Henry. Revenue scales with two things today: assets outstanding through the annual lease-rate fee and turnover through the transfer fee. Both are functions of adoption. So, Henry, when you describe GLDC as a third stream and as a different-shaped reserve income that scales with supply, what I would point to across all of them is the operating leverage. The cost base to run this platform is largely fixed and already built, and so we will continue to see, with growth, the growth of our revenue line.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Christine. And next question for you as well. So the 10-Q says Streamex holds 91% of GLDYs, so external holders are about 280 ounces. Is that true? And can you explain that?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Yes, yes, that is true, and let me explain that head-on. We seeded the reserve with our own capital deliberately because we're not going to launch a gold product and ask other people to fund the gold behind it. That is why the split looks the way it does. It is why our balance sheet carries the 15.5 million of physical gold at cost. It also means something useful about the mechanics with capacity in the reserve. Today, when an institutional order arrives, we are not starting from zero on sourcing and vaulting.
This infrastructure is already carrying the weight.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazing. Thank you very much, Christine. And now on to some live questions, which I believe both you and I, Christine, can answer. I'll let you go first. So the 1.1 million burn going into the third quarter — where do you focus spend as each dollar becomes incrementally more valuable? Since GLDY is a more retail‑focused product, how do you grow that while remaining tighter on expenses, keeping distribution costs low, and keeping marketing spend low?
Christine, I'll let you start, and then I'll hop in there too.
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
Yes, I think the key here is that, as we've said, we really have a cost basis that is foundational that we can grow on, so it is largely fixed. And so, with the launch of GLDC, we will be leaning on our current marketing partners. We will continue to focus on capital being attributed into our ... But overall we will continue to maintain the way that we manage costs today. And again, we've already laid the foundation from a cost basis that allows us to continue to do that.
Henry, I'll let you continue.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, no, 100%. Thank you, Christine, and thank you for the question. So I think something really important to note is when thinking about GLDC and looking to keep expenses low—and GLDC is obviously going to be an asset that we're going to market heavily to get out there in the market and make sure that people know about it—I think the best part about that is, as a retail asset, the most powerful marketing that you can do for a retail asset is organic.
And organic marketing itself is largely cheaper than paid marketing. It's something that our team—myself as well as our marketing team—we have a lot of experience in that space, especially within the crypto space. The marketing firm and myself, we've been working in the digital asset space for a very, very long time. Back when I was working in early-stage tokenization, with NFTs especially, we launched our product; we sold out multi, multi millions of dollars at a $300 marketing budget.
And so relationships are things that really matter in that space, and also organic buzz and marketing is also very important. And so for us, we 100% have a budget allocated towards GLDC that is included in the burn that we are expecting for the quarter. But it's also something that we can compound very much on our expertise and relationships within the crypto and digital asset space, which allows for much wider distribution than on something like GLDY, which has to be much more targeted and is for, you know, accredited investors and institutions.
And so I think that's something that's really, really important to note on that side. With that second question here from the live call—so an update on GLDY adoption within ETFs and institutional adoption. It looks like Q3 could be catalyst-rich. Are there any key dates or metrics besides asset value to look out for to gauge how adoption is progressing in the quarter? 100% and really, really good question. And so I'll take this one. When you look at the catalysts to look out for into the third quarter, a couple things that we've already obviously talked about: one is the initial liquidity bootstrapping for GLDC, which will drive GLDY adoption.
When we're talking about more institutional and ETF channels, I think some things like swaps being done on GLDY—that's been something that we've been working very, very heavily on for quite a while to give the ability for ETFs and hedge funds especially to be able to allocate to the asset through a means and an avenue that they really understand. Mitch, our CIO on our team, has really been leading that side of things and has done an amazing job working with some really good partners—really institutional partners—on that to be able to get that available.
And so showing that is definitely going to be something I'd look out for. I think continuing to build out the custody relationships that we have across institutional custodians—Equity Trust being one of them, some others as well that I think are very exciting and bring more institutional credibility to the asset—is definitely something to look for. And then I think also on the liquidity side, looking at how the liquidity that we've seeded within the market is enabling instant transactions of the asset.
I think overall the biggest thing that I would look for is that first significant institutional order that we've said that we want to bring in and will bring in in the next 90 days. As that comes, I think the dominoes start to fall, per se. And those are things that, from the conversations that we've been having with allocators, are very important—to get that co-sign from an institutional allocator to show, hey, we've done our research on this asset, we support it, and are allocating to it.
That is what gets people comfortable; that's what allows the hundreds of millions to follow after it. And so those are definitely things that I would keep an eye out for—and continuing, obviously, as those come, to watch AUM growth as that grows into the quarter and into the next year. Looking through some other questions—okay, here's a good one. One question is: Is GLDY adoption really an onboarding problem, or is investor demand below what we expect?
Really good question, and I think a pretty good answer. The evidence itself is that this is sequencing, not demand. The product itself—it does exactly what we said. The NAV tracks the gold price; the yield itself has been paid four times, and the asset is liquid. The distribution is built; the custody is built. And so when you look at similar assets in the category, they're primarily funded by large and chunky orders that get them up to that large size and essentially AUM.
And so with that, we haven't had any negative experiences with people about the asset. Primarily it's been: one, hey, how can I hold it? Two, can I trade it—can I get out of it? And three, how can I essentially custody and allocate it to my clients? Those are all things that we built this quarter. Bringing liquidity—and the $12 million that we seeded across Wintermute and Metal Layer across the multiple secondary liquidity avenues—is something very important for investors.
Regardless of if they do want to trade the asset, they want to know that they have the ability to get out of it. And so being supported by those institutional liquidity providers is a major benefit for us. And then expanding custody to Inspira pretty soon, Equity Trust, things like that—those are institutions that do not just custody and say that they'll custody any asset. For Equity Trust, for example, this is the first tokenized asset that they're actually going to be custodying.
It's something that I think is very powerful for us—to be able to lean on those levels—and it shows the quality of the asset, because they wouldn't even look at it if it wasn't something that they felt comfortable putting their clients into. And so I think that's definitely important to note. Something with that, too, is GLDC itself removes a lot of the friction points that we've had with GLDY in terms of accreditation, in terms of custody of the asset, because it is a fully decentralized, permissionless asset.
This means that anyone can hold it all around the world, barring certain jurisdictions. It's something that you can come in when we launch and buy $10 worth of GLDC if you want and hold it in your own wallet. You can trade it on a number of exchanges. We're going to build out essentially the most robust on-chain ecosystem for GLDC that exists. That's something that will obviously grow GLDY AUM, and I'm very excited to be able to bring it online. Okay, looking through—next question.
How is the GLDC reserve income recognized, and how much of it does Streamex keep? So Streamex itself—we are the servicer of the foundation; we are not the issuer. We provide services to the foundation in terms of marketing, consulting, support, a number of other services, and essentially help the independent foundation issue the asset. That foundation then is invoiced by Streamex, and we make money off those services. And so essentially the way to think about it is, as the reserve income accrues to the foundation and as the AUM and assets grow, we will be providing more services to the foundation.
And so revenue will flow back into Streamex as we provide more services there. Think of it very similar to a stablecoin issuer model like Tether, like Circle. It is a very powerful model. It is the one that the largest tokenization and stablecoin companies have built their whole model off of, where they create an asset that is valuable to people within the market, those people buy it, the AUM of that asset grows, and then the reserve that is backing it now has the ability to flow back into the servicer or the company that issues it.
And so I think it's something that we are very excited about. It's something that removes a lot of friction points for people to be able to participate in tokenized gold. And it's something that is going to, I think, really superpower both the ecosystem of not just GLDY, but of Streamex as a whole. And so definitely keep your eye out in terms of the announcements that will be coming out talking about GLDC, and we're very excited to be able to be working with the Auriferous Foundation to be able to bring it to life.
Next question. The question is: when your assets grow, it appears that you have one of the best capital allocation models in the business because you get the money up front from the token buyer. Can you explain a little bit of the positives about not having to raise capital because the tokens are funded, so you'll be able to raise fee income without significantly additionally having to be—with additional capital having to be raised—to fund the token growth?
So, to rephrase the question a little bit, essentially what you're asking is, the model itself and the model of Streamex and our revenue streams is capital-light—that is the best way to think about it. It's capital-light and with high operating leverage. What that means is that the capital provided to the fund to be able to create GLDY is provided by investors. Investors in GLDY are the ones purchasing the gold, the ones getting the asset. We take fee income from those assets that we have under management.
The three fee income streams—one being the tokenization fee up front, two being the management fee that is yearly of AUM, and then the trading fees—those fees themselves scale as AUM grows, especially with trading volume and trading fees themselves. And so it is a very capital-light model because we are not essentially providing the capital to be able to get those revenue streams. Our goal is really on growing AUM and growing assets under management.
And so when you think of Streamex, and even with GLDC and the other assets that we create, as we grow issuance size and as we grow AUMs of these assets, the fee income and the revenue that we get grows with them, and it compounds on itself and gets very powerful. Bringing it back into GLDC—that's one of the reasons why we created the GLDC asset: so that we can grow GLDY AUM exponentially by working with a partner to remove the restrictions that essentially GLDY has with accreditation and being a security, etc. It's just one example of us using the infrastructure that we've built to be able to bring this into a much wider audience and really grow distribution and grow assets under management and continue to supercharge the model itself. Couple more questions. I think we'll probably do one more. Christine, one more for you, and then we'll close it out. Okay, really simple question. Why did you change auditors?
UNKNOWN, Chief Financial Officer
So we changed auditors to consolidate our fund audit and attestation work with the corporate audit. We just wanted a single accounting team, which really allows us to streamline our processes. There were no disagreements on any accounting principle matters, financial statement disclosures, or auditing scope or procedures with CBIZ. It was purely just to focus on streamlining the processes.
Henry McPhee, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Christine. And now the last question before we, before we close it out. So why invest now? What makes this the moment really important one and, you know, I'll touch on this. And so we believe truly that we're at a pivotal moment not only for Streamex but also for the tokenization ecosystem as a whole. When thinking about Streamex, this is what you should look for. One, we have a team and tech in place that enabled us to gain real traction against building a scalable fintech platform to tokenize real world assets.
And aside from seeing the first investments into GLDY by accredited investors, we are actively cultivating institutional interest in GLDY. We work to eliminate a lot of the obstacles for allocators so that they compare the asset on its merits being a yield‑bearing gold token that provides the benefits of investing in gold plus a yield. And we also expect to benefit from a first‑mover advantage. We're supporting the launch of a permissionless token, GLDC, that will drive AUM growth into GLDY very soon.
And so not only is Streamex really at a pivotal moment, but we really believe that the wider tokenization ecosystem is right for investment and adoption globally. We are at the forefront of being ready to take advantage of it. As I mentioned earlier today, tokenized real‑world assets themselves, they stand at $38 billion on chain today. They were $12 billion two years ago. They're held by more than 1.7 million people. And this is growing rapidly.
The institutional investors like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, WisdomTree, they all operate in the tokenization space right now and are educating the community on what RWA tokenization is. You see JPMorgan settling tokenized products and tokenized deposits and collateral in production. DTCC is piloting tokenized settlements across the Russell 1000 and with 50 participating firms. The New York Stock Exchange has announced 24/7 tokenized securities trading and the Nasdaq has filed to tokenize equities.
The question itself is not whether tokenization is going to exist. It is going to, it is going to be and already is one of the fastest categories to grow in finance. And when you couple that with commodities, which is one of the largest industries in the world, tokenization is in a very early stage with a lot of room to grow. And very few companies are in the position of Streamex's. Very few companies hold the legal wrapper, the custody, the attestation from a tier‑one firm, and the distribution concurrently.
Streamex is one of these companies really positioned to be able to benefit from the wave that we're seeing. And so with that, in summary, I think we see a broad base of institutional adoption really across the category. And by removing our own access constraints and working on what we've done over the last six months, and we'll continue to work on beyond that, it will continue to drive growth, it will continue to drive revenue for the company. And we are positioned truly in the best spot that we can be.
And so with that, you know, I think that's, I think that's probably a pretty good place to end this off. I really appreciate everyone joining us today and really appreciate the questions that were, that were submitted. You know, as I said, if you have any other questions and wish to, you know, speak with us or ask questions to the team, you can ask them, you know, send an email to irmax.com. We'll be more than happy to get on a call or, you know, talk with you and answer those questions there.
And, you know, overall, I'm very excited about everything that has to come, you know, very excited about the spot that we're in and especially, you know, the next 90 days for where we're going to see this company go. And, you know, thank you very much for being involved and being a shareholder and continuing to support us. We're very excited about everything. And so thank you very much and have a great evening. We will. We'll talk soon. This concludes today's meeting.
You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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