Catenaa, Monday, February 10, 2025 – Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, has begun testing blockchain technology to modernize digital gold investments for retail investors.
The bank, which manages over $5.7 trillion in assets, recently completed a proof-of-concept for UBS Key4 Gold, a fractional gold investment product, on Ethereum layer-2 network ZKsync Validium.
UBS aims to address scalability, privacy, and interoperability challenges with this blockchain-based solution, which will support the global expansion of the product. The move reflects UBS’s continued efforts to explore how blockchain can enhance its financial offerings, according to ZKsync’s inventor, Alex Gluchowski.
Initially developed on UBS’s own permissioned blockchain, UBS Key4 Gold connects vaults, liquidity providers, and distributors. By running the solution on ZKsync Validium, UBS benefits from improved privacy, higher transaction throughput, and enhanced scalability, all thanks to offchain data storage.
The blockchain pilot comes just a few months after UBS launched a tokenized fund on Ethereum, marking the bank’s continued push to integrate blockchain technology into traditional finance.
ZKsync, which facilitates scalable and secure Ethereum transactions, has ambitious goals for 2025, aiming to process 10,000 transactions per second and reduce fees to $0.0001. These enhancements could significantly bolster the network’s appeal to developers seeking efficient blockchain solutions.
Privacy-preserving technologies, such as ZKsync, are seen as key drivers for institutional adoption of blockchain, with experts predicting the potential for substantial growth in the crypto space.
