SmartGold, a gold-backed individual retirement account (IRA) provider, has partnered with tokenization platform Chintai Nexus to let U.S. investors put their gold holdings on blockchain rails and earn a yield in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

With the structure, IRA-held gold is tokenized 1:1 on Chintai’s regulated platform, then can be put to work as collateral on DeFi lending markets such as Morpho and Kamino. That collateral can unlock liquidity, which may be reinvested elsewhere while the underlying gold stays vaulted and insured. The account’s tax-deferred status remains intact, according to the press release shared with CoinDesk.

The move addresses a longstanding trade-off for retirement savers: gold offers stability but typically produces no income. Investors holding physical gold in an IRA have historically had to choose between the tax advantages of the account and the chance to deploy the metal in yield-generating strategies. IRS rules made combining the two nearly impossible without triggering penalties.

“For decades, gold investors have faced a difficult choice: security or yield,» SmartGold managing director Aaron Haley said in a statement. «We’re turning the ultimate safe-haven asset into a powerful, productive tool for building wealth.»

The rollout opens access to tokenization for SmartGold’s $1.6 billion in vaulted assets, making it one of the largest deployments of tokenized gold to date and the first tailored to U.S. retirement accounts.

It also underscores the growing focus on tokenizing real-world assets like commodities, equities and funds, a sector that has attracted interest from major financial firms.

Read more: Tokenized Gold Market Tops $2.5B as the Precious Metal Nears Record Highs