Uranium Digital: A Modern Market for Modern Fuel

Nuclear power has the potential to drive forward a new era of energy abundance and industrial growth. The frontier will need far more power than we have today, delivered reliably and affordably. Nuclear can meet that demand with low-carbon energy at scale, while reducing dependence on fossil fuels. But while nuclear technology continues to advance, the market for uranium, the fuel powering that future, remains stuck in a paper-based past. We believe realizing the full promise of nuclear power will require modernizing the market that supplies its fuel.

For companies building AI data centers and new factories, access to reliable power shapes where they can build and how much they can expand. These are investments that need electricity for decades, with data centers running around the clock. Nuclear’s ability to supply that power is attracting a new generation of companies developing small modular reactors (SMRs) and building uranium enrichment facilities. That buildout requires a financial market with modern infrastructure that can support it at scale.

The uranium market still runs on phone calls and private quotes, with few of the trading and hedging tools common in oil, gas, and metals. That makes it harder for miners to secure the predictable revenues needed to finance new production and for utilities to procure fuel and manage fuel costs years ahead.

We invested in Uranium Digital because we believe it can modernize that market. Better trading and hedging tools let physical participants trade more effectively, while easier access brings in financial investors who haven’t had a good way to trade uranium itself. Uranium Digital’s opportunity is to grow that market and earn a share of its trading.

Why Now

After Fukushima, expectations for nuclear power growth declined, and uranium prices fell sharply. Producers closed mines and delayed new projects as low prices made investment harder to justify. Weak contracting and an uncertain growth outlook gave participants little reason to invest in new trading infrastructure.

Things have changed. China is building new reactors at scale, Japan is restarting reactors shut down after Fukushima, and the US and several European countries have renewed their commitment to nuclear power. The IEA reports 78 gigawatts of nuclear capacity under construction, roughly half of it in China. AI data centers add demand for power that runs around the clock, while SMRs could expand nuclear demand further, with a larger contribution expected after 2030.

But supply can’t respond quickly enough. Mines take years to permit and build, and the industry is still catching up on investment that didn’t happen after Fukushima. Historically, stockpiles, dismantled nuclear warheads, and recycled fuel also helped cover the gap between mine production and reactor demand. But available secondary supplies are shrinking: The major US-Russia warhead-conversion program ended in 2013, inventories are finite, and recycling still supplies only a small share of fuel needs. Enrichment plants once provided another cushion, using spare processing capacity to get more fuel from each pound of uranium. As Western buyers reduce their reliance on Russia, constraints on the enrichment capacity available to them limit that flexibility, and adding capacity also takes years.

There just isn’t enough material being mined, refined, and enriched to meet the nuclear power goals countries around the world have set. Turning those ambitions into abundant power will require sustained investment across the fuel supply chain. That gap between what we want to build and what the industry can supply is what makes this such an interesting sector to us.

We believe growing fuel demand and a slow supply response support higher uranium prices and greater investor interest: fertile ground for new market infrastructure. More fuel demand means more business for physical participants, while more money at risk makes hedging more valuable. Higher prices also give producers a reason to develop new mines; hedging future revenues can help them finance construction. Financing that buildout and managing its risks requires a modern uranium market.

How Much Could Uranium Trade?

Modern commodity markets help producers finance new supply and consumers manage future costs by allowing them to hedge prices. Financial investors take on some of that price risk and trade their own views, without needing to take physical delivery of the asset. In oil, gas, coal, and gold, repeated buying and selling by both groups generates trading volumes many multiples of the amount physically consumed.

Natural gas shows the scale this can reach. In 2025, trading volumes were roughly 60 times annual consumption in the US and 25 times that in the EU and UK. These markets matter globally: The US’s Henry Hub and Europe’s Dutch TTF are major pricing benchmarks used by participants around the world.

Uranium’s antiquated market structure holds that activity back. Miners, physical traders, and utilities negotiate through phone calls, broker quotes, and bilateral contracts, with little visibility into competing prices or how much uranium is actually available to trade. Buying and selling is cumbersome, costly, and inefficient, making opportunities to hedge limited.

For financial investors, direct ownership brings another set of barriers: opening an account at a conversion facility, passing its due diligence, paying storage fees, and buying in large lots. The cost and paperwork of holding a regulated nuclear material make physical ownership impractical for many investors.

Mining stocks and ETFs add the risks of running a mining business. The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SPUT) holds uranium, but the lack of physical settlement for holders of that asset means its units can trade significantly above or below the value of that uranium, and, much like GBTC before its ETF conversion, investors can’t redeem those units for uranium to close a discount.

The existing uranium futures contract settles in cash against UxC’s assessment of spot prices, drawn from that same thin, opaque physical market. With little trading and no physical delivery, it hasn’t developed into the active market that miners, traders, and utilities need. Listing a financial contract (rather than a true physical commodities future) left the underlying market’s problems largely intact.

Uranium Digital’s opportunity is to make participation in the uranium market practical. Easier access can bring in investors whose demand is poorly served today, while better trading and hedging tools give physical businesses more reasons to transact. Both can expand trading far beyond the uranium ultimately consumed by reactors.

What Uranium Digital is Building

Uranium Digital is building a uranium trading platform for physical participants and financial investors. It starts with digital warehouse receipts backed by and redeemable for physically stored uranium, giving customers an electronic way to trade the commodity while preserving a route to physical delivery for authorized participants.

A liquid spot market would make it easier to see the prices at which uranium actually trades. Over time, those transactions could establish a reference price for physical contracts and support futures and other hedging tools. Each group has a different reason to use it:

Miners use offtake agreements to secure buyers for future production, but many leave the sale price tied to the uranium market at delivery. Even with an agreed minimum and maximum price, the miner can face a wide range of possible revenues. Once futures trade actively for the dates a mine expects to produce, locking in prices could make it easier and cheaper to finance construction.

Physical traders have largely been limited to owning more uranium or less of it. Short positions would let them keep inventory for customers while protecting against a fall in price. That could free them to take on more physical trades without taking on as much price risk.

Investors and financial institutions would gain direct uranium exposure without the operating risks of mining stocks and ETFs. Uranium Digital’s receipts also provide a physical redemption route for authorized institutions, something SPUT lacks, helping keep their trading price connected to the underlying uranium.

Utilities need flexibility in when and how they buy fuel across the fuel cycle. A liquid spot market would help them adjust purchases and inventories alongside long-term contracts, while futures would let them hedge the cost of future purchases. Over time, that flexibility could extend across uranium, conversion, and enrichment, including managing the price differences between stages, much as refiners use crack spreads to hedge the gap between crude oil and refined-product prices.

Trading by miners, physical traders, and financial investors can build the liquidity that makes the market useful to utilities. As more buyers and sellers use Uranium Digital, it should become easier to find a counterparty at a competitive price, giving people a reason to return. That is how a useful product can become critical market infrastructure that is nearly impossible to replace.

Why Alex

Alex Dymala-Dolesky came to uranium as a frustrated customer. At Canaccord Genuity, he helped manage resource investments and private financings, learning how commodity businesses raise capital; he later became a managing director at Capital Y Management. Having traded commodities such as tin and coal through established spot and futures markets, he expected to be able to execute uranium trades too. Instead, he found financial products that didn’t give him the exposure he wanted, then discovered how difficult it was to buy physical uranium himself.

Alex went directly to the physical traders, meeting them in person and learning how uranium actually changes hands. Those conversations shaped his central insight: Solving physical participants’ trading and hedging problems is how you build the liquidity that attracts financial investors. He’s spent the years since building relationships with traders and facilities, designing Uranium Digital around the industry’s needs. His command of the market is extensive, and he’s spent years earning the trust of the traders and facilities this market depends on. That’s why we believe Alex is the founder who can make this market work.

A Modern Market

With abundant, affordable energy, we could power far larger AI systems, produce steel with far lower emissions, and even turn seawater into fresh water. Nuclear unlocks those futures. The uranium market needs to be ready to support that scale of ambition.

Uranium Digital is seeking to build that market, with better trading and hedging tools that will help miners finance new production and utilities manage future fuel costs, all while opening up the uranium market to a new class of investors. Together, those participants can drive trading volumes far beyond the fuel consumed by reactors. We believe Uranium Digital can become central to how a much larger nuclear industry prices and trades its fuel. We’re excited to back Alex and Uranium Digital to build the market behind that nuclear future.