I Bought Uranium at a Crypto Conference

Ever heard of vaseline glass?

No, it’s not something you rub on your lips.

It’s uranium glass. The kind your great-grandmother might’ve displayed on a shelf next to the good china. It’s glass with actual uranium dioxide mixed in—up to 2% by weight—giving it a green-yellow glow under UV light.

People made this stuff (on purpose!) in the 1800s.

Not because they wanted to power their house with grandma’s gravy boat. (The radiation is negligible and deemed safe.) But because it looked magical. Ethereal. Like someone bottled the northern lights.

They didn’t fear uranium back then. They celebrated it.

Then came the 1940s.

The U.S. government needed uranium for The Bomb.

So they banned it from consumer products. Uranium glass disappeared from dinner tables and reappeared in secret bunkers and desert test sites.

But people still collect uranium glass today.

In fact, I have one sitting on my bookshelf at home.

Here at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, I was introduced to a new way of “collecting” uranium: investing in tokenized uranium on the blockchain.

The team behind it even gave me a dollar’s worth.

This hits on one of the most exciting trends I’m seeing here at Consensus—and in crypto-at-large.

Here’s why. Why now. And the bigger picture.

Return of the Glow

In the postwar world, uranium became one thing: nuclear fuel.

In 2025, it’s having a renaissance.

• Over 60 new nuclear reactors are under construction worldwide.

• China plans to build 150 by 2035.

• The U.S. government is buying uranium for a $3.5 billion strategic reserve.

• Spot uranium prices? Up 350% since 2017, from $20 to over $90/lb.

Yet retail investors have been completely shut out.

Until now.

Introducing: xU3O8

This is where it gets interesting… 

There’s now a way to own uranium—the actual stuff, not a futures contract—on the blockchain.

It’s called xU3O8 (after uranium oxide, U₃O₈). One token equals one ounce of physical uranium, stored securely in licensed North American vaults.

Let’s break it down.

• Backed 1:1 with real uranium.

• Audited and secured in facilities by companies like Cameco.

• Traded via the Uranium.io platform.

• Custodied through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset custodian.

• Globally accessible. No hazmat license required.

It’s uranium markets for the Space Age. Digitized. On-chain.

Previously:

• You couldn’t trade uranium before unless you were a licensed utility.

• You couldn’t access these markets unless you had $50M+. (Smaller players might get access via equity vehicles, but not the actual commodity.)

Now?

You can own uranium like you own Bitcoin.

Of course, you can’t redeem the uranium unless you’re a licensed handler. But you can trade it.

And it’s the beginning of the emergence of something else:

Programmable Commodities

The first time you hear the phrase “programmable commodity,” it sounds like sci-fi.

The idea? Embed intelligence directly into traditionally static assets—enabling automatic execution, fractional ownership, self-enforcing compliance, transparent tracking, and more efficient price discovery. 

And it's already here. Gold was the gateway. Tokens like PAXG and CACHE let you own real, redeemable ounces of London-vaulted gold—tokens that move at internet speed but are backed by the Midas metal. 

Silver followed, with similar models.

Electricity is next. Projects like Powerledger provide a way for neighbors to sell solar power directly to each other—no utility needed. Your Tesla’s extra charge? That can become a revenue stream with a few lines of code.

Even your data—biometrics, location, voice—can be wrapped into tokens. Ocean Protocol and Filecoin are turning raw information into a tradeable, stakeable, income-producing asset.

It’s not a stretch to imagine getting paid every time your anonymized health data helps train a model or run a trial.

This is the quiet revolution in crypto few are really talking about… except at Consensus 2025. 

Commodities weren’t supposed to move like this. But once things like uranium get tokenized, the dominoes will start to fall.

We’re not just trading atoms anymore. We’re programming them. And the market won’t know how to price that—until it’s too late.