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Cargo vaults hold real-world assets as receipted, pledged inventory: goods with a standard grade, a deep reference price and a short path to a buyer. Soft commodities such as cocoa, coffee and sugar, metals such as gold, and anything else that passes the eight tests. Each asset is its own vault, with its own lots, NAV and vault shares.

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What Makes a Good Collateral Asset

Standard Grade

A graded bean, a sugar spec or a good-delivery gold bar means the same thing everywhere.

Deep Reference Price

An exchange or benchmark (ICE, LME, LBMA) gives a daily mark and a hedge.

Self-Liquidating

Goods are bought to be sold. Collateral turns into cash within weeks.
Physical assets are hard for four reasons: volatility, basis between physical and futures prices, quality decay and legal reach. Cargo’s structure answers each one, and the eight tests decide whether an asset qualifies at all.

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Custody and Verification

The same controls apply in every vault:
  • Collateral Manager: independent, with sole release authority. Goods leave only against payment.
  • Verification: an independent inspector weighs and grades every lot. A discrepancy above 0.5% suspends the lot until it is made good, and triggers a recount.
  • Reporting: weekly stock reports hashed on-chain; lot IDs, weights and grades public.
  • Insurance: all-risks stock cover on every lot.

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Eight Tests for Any Commodity

An asset becomes a Cargo vault only if it passes all eight:

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Which Assets Fit

Vaults are added one at a time. Coffee and sugar share the Genesis Vault’s rails, so they are the nearest candidates. See Vaults.

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The Genesis Vault

The first Cargo vault holds West African Grade 1 cocoa and issues cvCOCOA: one share is one kilogram, priced off ICE London Cocoa.

West African Grade 1

Fermented, dried and bagged beans of the top export grade.

ICE London Cocoa

The price reference and the hedge: 10,000 shares move like one 10 t lot.

$5.277 NAV

Per share at 9 Oct 2026, a 10.1% spread over receipted cost.
The issuer’s regulator has been asked to confirm how it classifies cvCOCOA. The venue will move to the matching licence, or to a licensed partner, if required. Residents of the CEMAC region are excluded from the Genesis Vault.
Physical backing does not remove credit, legal, liquidity or counterparty risk. Read the Risk Checklist before you bid.