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Legal: what you hold

This page explains, in plain terms, what you hold when you deposit, and Trade Dollar's legal posture.

What you hold​

When you deposit, you receive a vault share token: an on-chain claim on the vault's Net Asset Value. The capital itself is deployed off-chain into trade finance deals. The token is transferable from launch and transfers are not restricted; interaction with the vault, depositing and redeeming, requires a verified, whitelisted address.

The custodian model. The vault is the beneficial owner of the assets. Because a smart contract cannot hold legal title, a dedicated special purpose vehicle (SPV), the financing vehicle, holds legal title on the vault's behalf as custodian. For metals trades the vehicle owns the goods outright; it is not merely a secured creditor. For the receivables product it instead holds an assigned receivable, so the buyer's payment obligation runs to the vehicle.

Your claim, link by link. The share token is a pro-rata claim on the vault's NAV. The vault holds the beneficial interest in everything the financing vehicle holds as custodian: legal title to the goods on metals trades, or the assigned receivable on receivables trades. Recovery in a default runs through the vehicle to those assets. See The non-credit model: default and recovery.

Separation by design. The financing vehicle is a special purpose vehicle: it exists to hold trade assets for the vault and does nothing else. It is designed to be bankruptcy-remote from Salus, the Curator, and Trade Dollar, so a failure of any of them is not designed to pull the vault's assets into its estate. The vehicle is incorporated in the UK. [Its registered name is published before launch.]

Regulatory posture​

  • Access is gated. Access is a verified whitelist, restricted by default and opened only on verification. Participation is limited to eligible participants in eligible jurisdictions. See Access.
  • No offer where it is not permitted. Trade Dollar does not market or offer its vault, tokens, or services in any jurisdiction where doing so would require a registration or licence it does not hold. Nothing in these docs is an offer or a solicitation to invest.
  • Not registered or approved in your jurisdiction. Unless it is stated explicitly with a specific, citable approval, Trade Dollar is not registered, licensed, or approved by any financial regulator in your jurisdiction.
  • Your responsibility. You are responsible for confirming that taking part is lawful for you. Passing verification does not, by itself, make you eligible.
  • Rules can be reapplied. Classifications can change: a token can be deemed a security, or a platform a money-services business, in a given jurisdiction. If that happens, access, transfers, or availability in that jurisdiction can change with it. The posture above, restricted by default and opened on verification, is designed to make such changes manageable rather than disruptive.

The binding documents​

The Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy are the binding legal documents for using Trade Dollar. They are prepared with legal counsel and linked here before launch.

  • Terms of Service. [To be published.] The rules for using the platform, eligibility, disclaimers, and the limits of liability.
  • Privacy Policy. [To be published.] What information is collected during verification, how it is used, and how it is protected.