Introducing thSLVR: Silver That Works for You | Theo

For as long as people have held silver, holding it has cost them money.

What’s worse? Storage runs higher for silver than for gold per dollar of value, because the same dollars take up far more vault space, and the ETFs that solved the custody problem still charge 0.30% to 0.50% a year.

All this is to say, the metal itself has never been idle. Refiners, mints, and industrial fabricators borrow silver every day to run inventory without taking price risk, and they pay a lease rate for it. Traditionally, that income has gone to bullion banks and dealers. Last October, with London’s lendable silver at a record low, the one-month lease rate touched 34.9%, an all-time high against a norm below 1%. Holders earned none of it.

Today we’re announcing thSLVR: yield-bearing tokenized silver, launching with more than $40 million in silver leases already committed and earning inside thUSD. It’s the third market Theo is bringing onchain, after treasuries and gold.

About thSLVR

thSLVR works the way thGOLD does. Instead of warehousing metal and charging fees, the silver backing thSLVR is leased to established counterparties through silver-denominated leases. They use the metal, then return the same amount plus interest. Holders keep full silver exposure and earn yield instead of paying to store it.

Unlike thGOLD, which launched with an application funnel and built inventory over time, thSLVR launches with scale on day one: more than $40 million in silver leases already at work before the product opens.

Inside the Silver Leasing Market

Silver leasing is one of the oldest working credit markets in metals. A refiner borrows metal for the weeks it takes to process and sell. A mint borrows ahead of a production run. A fabricator borrows to keep a line moving while shipments clear. The borrower takes delivery, uses the metal, and returns the same ounces plus the lease fee. Credit terms vary by agreement, from retained title to parent company guarantees.

What makes silver’s lease market unusual is what it lacks: a lender of last resort. Central banks hold more than 36,000 tonnes of gold and lend roughly 2,000 tonnes a year into the gold market when it tightens. They hold essentially no silver. The US strategic stockpile was gone by 2002, and the lendable pool today is private metal.

That thin supply meets structural demand. The silver market is running its sixth consecutive annual deficit, projected at 46.3 million ounces for 2026, and roughly 762 million ounces have come out of above-ground stocks since 2021. By late September 2025, freely available silver in London vaults had fallen to an estimated 136 million ounces, a record low. The lease market repriced accordingly.

A credit market where borrowing demand is industrial and lending supply is scarce rewards new, well-structured lending capacity. thSLVR puts holders on the supply side of that market.

Why Silver, Why Now

The price told the story first: silver posted its strongest year since 1979 in 2025 and set an all-time high in early 2026.

Tokenized silver hasn't kept up. Gold has multiple onchain products; silver has almost none at institutional scale, and none that generate yield. Upon launch, thSLVR will be the largest onchain silver product, bigger than the rest of the tokenized silver market combined, which sits around $25M per RWA.xyz. thSLVR fills that gap with the trading, custody, and leasing infrastructure already proven by thBILL and thGOLD.

A Stronger Engine for thUSD

thSLVR also changes what sits underneath thUSD. thUSD is our delta-neutral carry stablecoin: it holds physical metal leased into commercial demand, hedges the price exposure with short CME futures, and posts T-bills as margin. The carry pays regardless of which way the metal moves.

thUSD’s leasing leg now spans both gold and silver: gold leased into gold-sector retailers, silver leased into industrial demand, each hedged in its own CME futures market. Same construction, broader lease book. The $40 million silver lease book behind thSLVR is already at work inside that engine; when thSLVR goes live, holders get direct access to it. Documentation has been updated to reflect the two-metal leasing leg. For the full mechanics, read our docs.

Launching in Beta

thSLVR is launching in beta and going live to the public soon. Applications are open now for institutions and whitelisted investors who complete our onboarding process, with broader access to follow as liquidity and integrations build, the same phased approach we used for thBILL and thGOLD.

About Theo

Theo is an onchain commodities and real-world asset platform connecting onchain capital to global markets. Built by former traders from Optiver and IMC Trading and institutional investment professionals from UBS and Polygon Ventures, Theo’s products include thBILL, a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund; thGOLD, yield-bearing tokenized gold; thSLVR, yield-bearing tokenized silver; and thUSD, a yield-bearing stablecoin powered by a delta-neutral metals strategy. The platform has raised $20M in Series A funding led by Mirana Ventures, Hack VC and Anthos Capital.