How it works

Eleven stages, and what fails at each one

A doré trade has a shape. It also has a set of well-known places where it goes wrong, and most deals in this market die at one of them. This is the whole process — what each side does, what gets filed, where it gates, and which failure each gate is there to close.

0Both companies, before anything else

Business verification

Nothing on this platform starts with a conversation. It starts with both companies proving they exist, that they are what they claim, and that the people acting for them are authorised to do so.

Verification covers the certificate of incorporation, tax registration, proof of registered address, the ownership and control structure including beneficial owners, bank confirmation, and any export or trading licence the company holds. Each individual who will act for the company provides identity documents and a photograph, and receives a credential tied to that company and their role within it.

Documents are submitted into storage that has no read path back through the platform. Once filed, they cannot be downloaded again — not by a counterparty, not by us through the product, not by the company that submitted them. There is nothing to leak through the interface.

Filed at this stage

Certificate of incorporation
Tax registration
Proof of registered address
Ownership & control structure
Beneficial ownership register
Bank confirmation
Export / trading licence — where held
Representative passport & photograph
Authorisation letter

Where it gates

An unverified company cannot post demand, make an offer, or sign anything. This is enforced in the database, not by a warning in the interface.

The failure it closes

The chain of intermediaries. In this trade an offer typically arrives through three or four people who each claim a mandate, none of whom can produce the company they claim to represent. Verification at Stage 0 means the party on the other side of your deal is the party that did the paperwork.

1Buyer

Letter of Intent

The buyer posts what they actually want: product type — refined or doré — quantity in kilograms, whether that is a one-off or a recurring monthly or quarterly commitment and for how many periods, minimum acceptable purity, preferred origin, delivery location, and shipping method.

Pricing is expressed the way this market expresses it: either an absolute range in USD, or a discount to a benchmark, which is how most doré actually trades. The LOI carries an expiry date, and on that date it leaves the marketplace automatically rather than sitting there stale while sellers work on a deal that closed months ago.

If you already hold a signed LOI as a PDF — most institutional buyers do — attach it and the platform reads the terms out of the document to fill the form for you to check. The attachment itself stays private to your company.

Where it gates

The LOI is visible only to verified sellers, and only until its expiry date.

The failure it closes

The LOI that means nothing. Letters of intent circulate this market as currency, forwarded and re-forwarded until nobody can trace them to a buyer with funds. Here it is posted by a verified company, carries an expiry, and vanishes when it lapses.

2Seller

Soft Corporate Offer

Verified sellers see the demand and respond against it: origin of the material, shipping method — hand-carried or air freight — price on the same basis the buyer asked for, and a validity date on the offer itself.

Because both sides were verified at Stage 0, the buyer evaluating this offer is not deciding whether the seller is real. That question is already answered. They are deciding whether the terms work.

Where it gates

Offers expire on their validity date. A lapsed offer cannot be accepted.

The failure it closes

The offer that was never deliverable. Parcels are routinely offered in this market by people who do not hold them, on terms that were never achievable, in the hope of finding a buyer first and material second.

3Both parties

Sale & Purchase Agreement

On acceptance, the platform generates the SPA from the terms of the offer that was accepted. Nobody retypes it, and nothing drifts between what was agreed and what gets signed — the quantity, purity, price basis, delivery terms, and assay tolerance in the contract are the ones both sides actually agreed.

Both parties sign in the deal room. Signing authority follows the role structure of the company: a viewer cannot sign, and settlement authority is a separate privilege from role, granted deliberately rather than inherited by seniority.

Once the deal exists, its commercial terms are immutable. Neither counterparty can alter the fee, the parties, or the source records afterwards. That is a database constraint, not a policy.

Where it gates

The deal advances only when both signatures are recorded, each with its signatory and timestamp.

The failure it closes

Terms that shift between the LOI and the contract — a purity that quietly drops, a tolerance that widens, a delivery term that moves. Generation from the accepted offer removes the gap where that happens.

4Buyer

Settlement funding

The buyer funds a wallet they control themselves and registers its address against the deal. Nelum reads the chain to verify the deposit has arrived and matches what the SPA requires.

This is non-administered. There is no Nelum wallet in the middle of your trade, no private key we hold, no balance we could freeze or lose. We verify; we never touch. That also means a transfer to a wrong address is not something we can reverse — the security of your own wallet stays yours.

For the seller, this is the answer to the question that governs whether they ship: is the money actually there. They can see that it is, verified against the chain rather than asserted in an email.

Where it gates

The deal cannot progress to shipment documents until funding is verified on-chain.

The failure it closes

Shipping against a promise. Sellers in this trade carry the cost of documentation, export duty, and transport before they see anything, and are routinely left holding all of it.

5Seller

Pre-shipment documents

The document set required before a consignment moves, filed into the deal where the buyer can see exactly what has been provided and what is outstanding. The set differs by shipping method — hand-carried consignments need the accompanying representative's passport and flight ticket; air freight needs the packing list and air waybill.

Doré carries an additional requirement: a pre-shipment assay certificate, because doré is by definition unrefined and its content is the entire commercial question.

Filed at this stage

Commercial Invoice — 2 originals, to buyer
Certificate of Origin
Certificate of Ownership
Pre-shipment Assay Certificate — doré consignments
Certificate of Insurance
Export Permit / Export Licence
Seller's Invoice
Packing List — air freight — 4 copies
Air Waybill — air freight
Representative passport — hand-carried
Representative flight ticket — hand-carried

Where it gates

Every mandatory item for this shipping method must be filed before the stage advances. Not most of them.

The failure it closes

Discovering the paperwork is incomplete at the airport, with the metal already in transit and an export licence that does not cover it.

6Seller

Shipment

Flight number and date for a hand-carried consignment, or the air waybill for freight, recorded against the deal with a declaration timestamp. A customs declaration video can be attached where the seller wants the record.

Gold moves under strict security protocols for obvious reasons — a consignment worth millions occupies very little space. What the platform contributes is not security but continuity: the same deal record carries through from the LOI to the parcel now in the air.

Filed at this stage

Customs declaration video — optional

Where it gates

Shipment details are recorded before the deal can move to customs.

The failure it closes

A consignment in transit that nobody can tie back to the contract it was shipped under.

7Buyer

Customs

Clearance at the destination, with the customs receipt or exit entry filed against the deal. A photograph of the sealed parcel on receipt is optional but recommended — it is the cheapest evidence available if a dispute later turns on the condition of the consignment.

Filed at this stage

Customs clearance receipt / exit entry
Sealed parcel photograph — optional

Where it gates

Customs clearance is recorded before assay.

The failure it closes

Import complications discovered after payment has been released rather than before.

8Independent refinery

Refinery assay

The assay establishes what the metal actually is, and it comes from an independent refinery — not from the seller, not from the buyer, and not from us. Purity and weight are recorded and compared against the tolerance in the SPA.

This is the stage that decides the commercial outcome of a doré trade. The Miller process yields around 99.95% purity, the Wohlwill process 99.999%, but what matters commercially is the gold content of the doré that arrived versus the content the contract was priced on. A weigh-in or melt video can be attached where either side wants a record beyond the certificate.

Filed at this stage

Final Assay Report
Weigh-in / melt video — optional

Where it gates

The assay must be filed and matched against the SPA tolerance before payment.

The failure it closes

Paying on a purity nobody independently established. Fake or self-issued assay certificates are among the most common instruments of fraud in this trade.

9Both parties

Payment

With the assay filed and matched, the parties settle. Whoever controls the funded wallet releases the payment split themselves, off-platform — the seller's proceeds and the marketplace fee. Nelum sends nothing and can move nothing.

Both transfers are then verified on-chain against the addresses recorded on the deal. Verification is what the platform does here; the transaction is entirely between the counterparties.

Where it gates

Both transfers must verify before the deal can close.

The failure it closes

Partial payment, disputed payment, or a payment nobody can evidence six months later when it matters.

10Both parties

Title transfer and archive

The title transfer record is generated from the confirmations both parties have given, and the deal archive is sealed: every document, every stage advance, every signature, with its actor and timestamp.

That archive is the reason to run a trade this way. Two years on, when a compliance review, a tax authority, or an auditor asks how a particular parcel reached your refinery and on what basis you accepted it, the answer is a complete record rather than a search through mailboxes belonging to people who have since left.

Where it gates

The archive is sealed on completion and retained for the periods anti-money-laundering law requires.

The failure it closes

Reconstructing a trade from email two years after everyone involved has moved on.

Need to know

Who sees what, and when

Disclosure in this trade is a commercial matter, not just a privacy one. Knowing who is buying what, at what volume, is worth money to a competitor. So identity is released progressively rather than published.

On the marketplace: A buyer's demand carries its full commercial terms, but the buyer appears under a pseudonymous reference with their country, verification status, and how long they have been registered. Their legal name is not shown.
Once a deal exists: Legal names are exchanged between the two counterparties. Neither side sees the identity of anyone else who bid on that demand, or of any company they are not in a deal with.
Trade documents: Visible to the two counterparties on that deal, and to no one else. A seller cannot see what another seller filed; a buyer cannot see offers made to a different buyer.
Verification documents: Visible to neither side. They are submitted for checking into storage with no read path through the platform. Your counterparty's verification status is disclosed to you; their incorporation certificate is not.
Your own team: Scoped by role. A logistics user working the shipment checklist does not need the commercial terms, and a viewer cannot sign or confirm settlement.

Start at Stage 0

Register your company and begin verification. Every counterparty you meet on the platform will have completed the same process.