Gold has value long before it reaches a jewellery store or a bank vault. It exists underground, where geologists can assess its location, quantity, and characteristics. Preserved Gold begins
Gold has value long before it reaches a jewellery store or a bank vault. It exists underground, where geologists can assess its location, quantity, and characteristics. Preserved Gold begins with a simple question: can that natural wealth support economic value while remaining in the ground?
For the nGRND Gold Protocol, which one of its treasuries is supported by Preserved Gold, this question connects the future of gold with digital participation, responsible land use, and a growing Staking & Rewards Ecosystem.
The scale of the question is not small. In his August piece on the push to tokenize everything, Forbes contributor Boaz Sobrado cited nGRND Group Chair David Lucatch's estimate that about $10 trillion worth of gold is still in the ground globally, and named nGRND among the ventures tokenizing gold that has not been mined.
Preserved Gold means verified gold that remains in its natural location rather than being extracted. The model involves assessing the resource, establishing the appropriate rights, and developing a structure that supports preservation. Geological evidence matters because a promising story about gold is different from a documented resource.
Recognised industry and government assessment methods and, where applicable, mineral-resource reporting frameworks help establish what is known, what is estimated, and what still requires investigation.
In a July interview with CCN at the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto, Lucatch described keeping the gold in what he called "nature's vault" rather than mining it, and said qualified persons sign off on reports verifying the amount and classification of the gold under Canada's National Instrument 43-101 disclosure standard.
There is also an important distinction between gold underground and a finished gold bar. They have different costs, risks, rights, and routes to value. Preserved Gold should not automatically be valued as though it were refined bullion ready for delivery.
Its economic value depends, which the larger nGRND Group values at 10% of the spot price of gold based on thorough research, on the resource evidence, the legal arrangements, the preservation commitments and the opportunities associated with the land.
CCN reported the same reference point, noting that Lucatch said the company values its gold at approximately 10% of the prevailing spot price, a discount that reflects the difference between verified underground resources and refined bullion that can be bought, sold or delivered.
Preservation matters because mining changes places. Extracting gold can require excavation, energy, water, infrastructure, and the movement of substantial amounts of material. Keeping a resource underground creates an opportunity to consider other uses for the surrounding land.
Depending on the project, those uses could include habitat protection, restoration, community initiatives or other activities that create economic value while supporting measurable environmental and social impact in accordance with recognised ESG and the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The nGRND Group describes these opportunities as Alternative Land Use Monetization. In everyday language, this means exploring ways for land to create value without relying on gold extraction. The quality of each opportunity depends on practical details: who holds the rights, who benefits, how activities are funded, and how results are measured. The same interview with CCN touched on these points, noting that third-party specialists would carry out feasibility studies on the land and measure the impact of the resulting land-use initiatives.
That is why measured ESG and Sustainable Development Goal impact are central to the proposition. ESG refers to environmental, social, and governance considerations. The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework for identifying relevant outcomes.
As part of its 2-token strategy to support RWA gold tokenization and the Web3 economy, the nGRND Group is first launching the nGRND Gold Protocol and its Staking & Rewards Ecosystem, which gives this wider story a route into everyday digital activity. NGRND is the utility token used to power participation.
Participants can stake tokens and engage through eight Participation Streams: Governance, Impact, Play, Learn, Advocate, Refer, Wellbeing and Agent. These activities create opportunities to earn Reward Points and develop a participation history. The ecosystem makes engagement with the Protocol accessible beyond specialist discussions about geology or token structure.
The early figures show that this participation model is attracting substantial activity. Since the August 6, 2026 launch, Participants have generated 283,024 total accounts, including 273,313 email-verified accounts. It also records 254,870 DSBT holders and 3,551,789 completed tasks.
Engagement strengthens that picture. The dashboard shows 48,982 daily active accounts, 125,737 weekly active accounts, and 236,063 monthly active accounts. These are overlapping activity windows, not separate groups to add together.
They suggest that the ecosystem has developed reasons for people to return. For a project connecting gold with Web3, that ongoing activity is valuable: it creates opportunities for education, partner engagement, and broader understanding of the preservation model.
The 2 tokens of the nGRND Group must remain clearly distinguished. NGRND powers the Staking & Rewards Ecosystem; holding it does not itself establish ownership of a specified amount of Preserved Gold.
The separate future nGRND Gold Token is intended to represent Preserved Gold through an RWA structure, with rights and terms defined in its offering documentation. Preserved Gold supplies the broader foundation and purpose. Participation brings people into the story and gives them ways to engage with it through nGRND.io.
Get grounded.
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