Investor Insight

Tartisan Nickel offers investors exposure to a high-grade, advanced-stage nickel sulfide project with existing infrastructure and clear near-term catalysts, alongside a past-producing silver asset providing significant upside and growth potential.

Overview

Tartisan Nickel (CSE:TN,OTCQX:TTSRF,FSE:8TA) is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on advancing high-quality critical mineral assets in Ontario. The company’s primary asset, the Kenbridge nickel project in Northwestern Ontario, is an advanced-stage nickel sulfide deposit hosting nickel, copper and cobalt. Management’s strategy for Kenbridge is straightforward and execution-focused: increase the size and confidence of the Kenbridge resource through drilling, extend mine life, and continue de-risking the project.

The Kenbridge project has undergone extensive historical work, including more than 100,000 meters of drilling.

At the same time, Tartisan controls the Sill Lake silver project, a past-producing silver-lead property near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. With strong commodity fundamentals across nickel, copper and silver, management views Tartisan as a company with “more than one leg under the table,” offering investors exposure to multiple value drivers within a single platform.

Company Highlights

• Clear focus on drilling-driven value creation, with active programs designed to upgrade inferred resources, expand the deposit at depth, and extend mine life into the mid-teens
• Low-capex development profile relative to many peer nickel projects, supported by a historic shaft, road access, and established infrastructure
• Sill Lake Silver Project provides additional, underappreciated value, offering exposure to silver through a brownfields, past-producing asset with a defined historic resource
• Experienced leadership team with deep capital markets and mine development experience, focused on disciplined capital allocation and unlocking value from opportunity-acquired assets

Key Projects

Kenbridge Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project

The Kenbridge project is Tartisan’s flagship asset and the company’s primary focus. It is a high-grade, Class 1 nickel sulfide deposit located in a mining-friendly jurisdiction with established infrastructure and access. Kenbridge benefits from extensive historical work, including more than 100,000 metres of drilling and a three-compartment shaft extending to a depth of approximately 622 metres, placing the project closer to development than many earlier-stage peers.

A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) completed in 2022 outlined a potentially economic underground mining operation, supported by relatively modest initial capital requirements compared to large, low-grade nickel projects.

Current drilling is aimed at upgrading inferred resources to measured and indicated categories, and expanding the deposit both along strike and at depth, where historical data indicate improving grades.

The company’s near-term objective is to meaningfully extend the mine life beyond the nine years outlined in the PEA, with the longer-term goal of positioning Kenbridge as a strategic asset in a tightening nickel market. With existing road access, proximity to power, and ongoing engagement with Treaty #3 First Nations, Kenbridge is viewed as an advanced project with clear pathways to further value creation.

Tartisan Nickel has been engaging with Treaty # 3 First Nations since May 2007.

Sill Lake Silver-Lead Project

The Sill Lake project is a 100-percent-owned, past-producing silver-lead asset located approximately 30 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The property hosts an NI 43-101-compliant historic mineral resource and benefits from existing underground development, including ramp access and historic workings.

Tartisan considers Sill Lake a brownfields opportunity with relatively low capital intensity, particularly in the context of stronger silver prices. Planned work includes validation of historic data, evaluation of multiple mineralized trends, and the potential for future drilling and bulk sampling. Importantly, management believes Sill Lake’s value is largely unrecognized by the market, providing investors with additional upside that is not currently built into Tartisan’s valuation.

Management Team

Mark Appleby – President, CEO and Director

Mark Appleby has more than 38 years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance and capital markets. He has led numerous public resource companies through exploration, development and financing cycles, and brings a strong focus on disciplined capital allocation and asset-driven value creation.

Yves Clément – Director

Yves Clément is a professional geologist with more than 35 years of experience in mineral exploration and development across Canada, South America and West Africa, contributing deep technical oversight at the board level.

Carl J. McGill – Director

Carl McGill has over 30 years of experience in capital markets and financial management, with a background spanning banking, corporate finance and public company leadership.

Dean MacEachern – Geological Advisor

Dean MacEachern has more than 35 years of global exploration experience and has worked on the Kenbridge project under previous ownership, providing valuable continuity and geological insight as a Qualified Person under NI 43-101.

Greg Edwards – Project Manager

Greg Edwards brings over 25 years of Canadian exploration and project development experience and plays a key role in advancing Kenbridge while supporting community and First Nations engagement.

Gold price

After hitting a record high of close to US$5,600 per ounce, gold closed January by embarking on one of the biggest price slides it’s seen in decades, dropping as low as US$4,400 for a significant loss of more than 21 percent.

Although the spot price for gold was once again back above the key psychological US$5,000 mark in early morning trading on February 4, the next day it had pulled back again, falling as low as US$4,685 near the end of the day.

Demonstrating volatility, gold closed out last week with a swing to the upside, hitting an intraday high of US$4,966.

By Monday (February 9), gold was once again trading above US$5,000 and managed to stay above the key support level into Wednesday (February 11) with an intraday high of US$5,114 as of 1:20 p.m. PST.

Gold price chart, February 4, 2026 to February 11, 2026.

The primary drivers for gold this past week are:

• Gold at record levels was bound to lead to profit taking for those who bought in at much lower prices. Dip buying is also helping to support a rebound in prices as buyers step in on pullbacks, demonstrating confidence in the long-term upward trend for the metal.

• US monetary policy uncertainty continues to influence the price as market watchers try to anticipate which direction Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s US Federal Reserve chair nominee, will take this year. Thought of as a monetary policy hawk, Warsh isn’t expected to make policy decisions based on the vibe coming out of the White House.

• Late last week, the US dollar strengthened to a two week high against a basket of currencies. This led to a drop in demand for gold as holding the yellow metal, typically priced in US dollars, became a more expensive prospect among foreign buyers.

In other gold news, the People’s Bank of China reportedly added 1.24 metric tons of gold to its holdings in January, marking a 15th consecutive month of gold purchases for the central bank.

As for the gold-mining sector, the biggest news is Barrick Mining’s (TSX:ABX,NYSE:B) plan to spin off its North American gold assets, including its joint venture interests in Nevada Gold Mines and Pueblo Viejo, as well as its wholly owned Fourmile discovery in Nevada. An initial public offering is targeted for completion by late 2026.

Silver price

The silver price has tracked gold on these macro trends.

The white metal posted an all-time high of more than US$121 per ounce on January 29, but on February 5 it followed gold on its downward slide, nearly falling below US$65. By the end of the next trading day, the price of silver had recovered to US$77.80. Since Monday, prices for the white metal have managed to gain ground, rising from US$80 level to an intraday high of US$86.19 as of 1:20 p.m. PST on Wednesday.

Silver price chart, February 4, 2026 to February 11, 2026.

In addition to the macro factors influencing gold this past week, volatility in the silver market has also come from the ups and downs in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. Silver, the most electrically and thermally conductive metal on the planet, is considered a key material for AI tech, particularly in data centers and high-performance computing.

AI stocks experienced a slide late last week after investors decided the high CAPEX costs associated with the emerging technology might not be worth it in the long run.

In other silver news, Chinese billionaire trader Bian Ximing has taken a bearish turn on silver, and is building the Shanghai Futures Exchange’s largest-known net short position in silver.

Platinum price

Platinum hit a high of US$2,816 per ounce on January 29. After tracking its precious metal sisters down as low as US$1,826.90 on February 5, the metal was back above US$2,100 the next day. For the first part of this week, platinum has traded above US$2,090, reaching an intraday high of US$2,202 on Wednesday as of 1:20 p.m. PST.

Platinum price chart, February 4, 2026 to February 11, 2026.

Platinum is one of the top-performing metals over the past year, reaching 12 year highs in recent weeks. Demand is being driven by the metal’s essential role in the emerging hydrogen economy. Its also still seeing robust demand from the auto sector despite the emergence of electric vehicles and uneasy consumer confidence in the economy.

On the supply side, global platinum reserves remain critically low, especially as the world’s biggest producer, South Africa, continues to be plagued by power shortages and operational disruptions.

This week, Reuters reported that despite major producers such as Valterra Platinum (LSE:VALT,JSE:VAL,OTCPL:AGPPF) and Impala Platinum Holdings (OTCQX:IMPUF,JSE:IMP) experiencing surging profits, the companies will be prioritizing shareholder payouts over investing in new projects.

Palladium price

Palladium has been the black sheep of the precious metals family for the past few years, remaining well below its March 2022 all-time record of US$3,440.76 per ounce.

On February 5 it came along for the slide, falling as low as US$1,585. After a rebounding above the US$1,700 level on February 6, the precious metal has managed to maintain its prices above that mark for much of this week.

Palladium price chart, February 4, 2026 to February 11, 2026.

The palladium price is being held down by a slump in demand for electric vehicles and a looming oversupply situation. Analysts at Heraeus Precious Metals predict that the palladium market may move into a surplus in 2026 as secondary supply from recycling increases by 10 percent.

Four key hurdles for tokenized equities

1. Finding a real use case for tokenization

Speakers hosting a recent Sentora webinar were blunt: First-generation tokenization mostly disappointed. Credit and real estate deals were often illiquid, concentrated in a single issuer and never truly embedded in DeFi as collateral. They claim that the real use case is tokenized equities posted into on‑chain money markets to borrow stablecoins and to generate yield on stocks that have appreciated massively, but pay no dividend, such as any of the Mag 7 stocks.

They argued that if a retail investor who put US$10,000 into NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and is now sitting on US$100,000 can click to borrow US$20,000 to US$30,000 at 5 percent without selling, that is a qualitatively new product versus today’s roughly 10 percent margin loans from brokers constrained by Basel capital rules.

At scale, they suggested that even a 1 percent penetration of the roughly US$25 trillion in US retail equity holdings would exceed the entire current DeFi market and could lift base DeFi yields by a few hundred basis points.

2. How tokenized equities actually work as collateral

Turning that vision into something robust requires solving liquidation, oracle and market structure problems that don’t exist for purely crypto collateral. Sentora’s view is that it is a mistake to try to rebuild Nasdaq on‑chain with thin automated market makers and retail liquidity providers.

Instead, liquidations should use existing equity liquidity. When a loan backed by tokenized NVIDIA, for example, breaches its thresholds, a liquidator posts stablecoins, borrows the underlying stock from a securities lender, sells it on the Nasdaq and then unwinds the token wrapper once settlement catches up.

Because this process spans multiple days, early implementations will need conservative loan‑to‑value ratios, wider spreads and a tolerance for basis risk between on‑chain prices and off‑chain fills. Issuers like Ondo that can wrap and unwrap within hours help, as do traditional data providers such as Bloomberg and Reuters, which already stream millisecond‑level equities prices and can serve as the backbone for hybrid on/off‑chain oracles.

The complexity is high, but their Bitcoin and Ether carry trade strategies, where smart contracts constantly lever and delever to avoid liquidation, are the blueprint they want to port over to equities.

3. Moving real-world equity ownership on‑chain

Even if the mechanics work, Sentora believes that almost none of the trillions parked in brokerage accounts can currently be used. Today’s tokenized shares are typically newly issued products that investors buy specifically to use on‑chain; they will never unlock the scale they are targeting.

The real unlock is letting investors transfer existing fully paid shares from brokers such as Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) or Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) into platforms from Kraken or Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) and convert them into tokens as a tax‑free event, preserving beneficial ownership and avoiding capital gains.

The obstacle is issuer‑by‑issuer approval. Each company has to authorize a portion of its outstanding shares to exist on a distributed ledger. The speakers argued that the pitch to issuers is stronger than many tokenization providers have realized — shares locked as DeFi collateral reduce free float supply and may be price‑supportive, and adding borrow‑against‑your‑stock and synthetic dividend functionality can make a non‑dividend growth stock more attractive.

4. Regulation, stablecoins and the banking system

On the equity side, Sentora’s researchers argued that if users stay within the existing rule, where each share is held in the owner’s name and all rights travel with the token, there is “really no regulatory hurdle.’

In their view, trouble starts with wrappers that mimic economic exposure, but strip votes and dividends.

That distinction matters because US regulators have begun to specifically examine tokenized US equities and DeFi trading venues, with an eye to when these instruments begin to look like swaps or unregistered securities.

On the funding side, everything depends on stablecoins. Neobanks and fintech companies such as PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), Revolut, Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN), Kraken, Robinhood and others are racing to offer abstracted DeFi yield to mainstream users through tokenized deposits and on‑chain money markets.

At the same time, the GENIUS Act has pulled stablecoins into a bank‑like regulatory regime, tightening who can issue them and how reserves must be held, while large US banks lobby to slow or shape that evolution to protect deposit franchises. This tension is likely to define the pace at which tokenized equity collateral can scale.

Additional market caveats for 2026

Regime shift and rate risk

The rise of this sector occurred during a period of high cash yields, allowing tokenized treasuries and money market real-world assets (RWAs) to offer high percentage returns with low duration risk. As policy rates fall, tokenized T‑bill products become less compelling, which increases the pressure on tokenized equities to deliver truly differentiated upside in the form of leverage, tax efficiency or synthetic dividends rather than just being a new wrapper on low yields.

Platform and liquidity fragmentation

While DeFi is often thought of as a single venue, liquidity is scattered across Ethereum L2s, BNB Chain, Solana, app‑specific rollups and specialized RWA platforms. Early tokenized equity collateral markets are already experimenting on non‑Ethereum ecosystems, raising the risk that depth, pricing and oracle infrastructure fragment before a critical mass of standards and interoperability is in place.

Commodities and other RWA competition

Tokenized commodities such as gold, as well as short‑duration bond funds and private credit pools, are emerging as rival “default collateral” choices for institutions that want on‑chain yield without single‑name equity risk. Tokenized equities will be competing not only with Bitcoin and Ether, but with a growing number of seemingly safer RWA products with potentially clearer regulatory capital treatment for banks and insurers.

Centralization and concentration risk

Finally, the vision leans on a small number of critical intermediaries: custodians, tokenization agents, oracle providers and centralized exchanges that bridge DeFi and public equity markets.

In 2026, tokenization infrastructure is still concentrated in a handful of large players, and a restriction or policy shift at any of them could ripple through multiple protocols that treat tokenized equities as pristine collateral. Building credible resolution and risk‑sharing frameworks around those chokepoints is an unsolved but essential problem if tokenized equities are going to become the next major disruption rather than the next over‑promised narrative.

Latest tokenized equities developments

On Wednesday (February 11), Sentora introduced Stey, a new yield vault that allows investors to earn extra money from digital shares by placing them in a secure automated system that earns interest.

Stey is designed to work with Ondo’s tokenized offerings, like its tokenized treasuries and over 200 tokenized stocks. Partnering with Ondo, Sentora ensures digital shares in Stey vaults comply with regulations and are backed by physical securities in custody. Additionally, Sentora’s partnership with Chainlink ensures that those shares are priced accurately with real-time data, and Euler runs the lending strategies that generate the extra interest.

Sentora plans to expand beyond just these three, intending to add more types of digital assets from different partners and use different lending platforms to find the best interest rates for users.

The math supports copper demand

The last several years have brought a narrowing gap between copper supply and demand.

The panelists noted that newer industries such as artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles (EVs) and the energy transition are driving additional demand in an already tight market.

Rule noted that, regardless of whether demand from new technologies declines, underlying base-level consumption will be driven by urbanization and the growth of the middle class in developing nations.

“It isn’t about Teslas. It’s about the fact that a billion people on Earth have no access to primary electricity,’ he said.

‘It’s about the fact that one of the greatest leaps forward in humankind was raising 500 million Chinese from rural penury to middle-class status,” Rule told the audience at VRIC.

He explained that it’s a matter of simple arithmetic, suggesting that the amount of copper that it will take to get everyone to a better standard of living is going to be massive.

“It’s inescapable, it’s truly inescapable,” Rule said.

Bebek noted that it’s not just the developing world; there are also significant projects underway in the US.

“One of the biggest uses of copper is in development, and if you travel around the US, everywhere there is a lot of modernization. Airports and infrastructure to meet the new requirements, and everyone’s building is cleaner. So that’s going to be steady,” he said. Bebek also noted that tech demand is inevitable even if there is some deceleration.

“Baseline demand is built in. Data center demand may be influenced by copper prices, but I don’t think it matters. I think copper demand grows 2 percent compounded without data centers,” Rule added.

Copper supply facing challenges

Meanwhile, steady copper demand growth is running up against a stressed supply chain.

Experts have been calling for a structural copper supply deficit for years, largely due to the absence of new mining operations, but in 2025, the industry faced significant supply-side disruptions.

In May, underground activities at Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX:IVN,OTCQX:IVPAF) Kakula mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were suspended after water ingress into the mine; the company ultimately reduced its annual guidance by 28 percent. Then, in July, a tunnel collapse that killed six at Codelco’s El Teniente mine in Chile forced the company to temporarily halt operations, causing it to reduce its guidance by 30,000 metric tons.

In September, another water ingress incident at Freeport-McMoRan’s (NYSE:FCX) Grasberg mine in Indonesia killed seven workers, forced the shutdown of operations and deferred significant production through Q4 2025.

These major incidents, along with other minor supply-side disruptions throughout last year, have shortened the timeline for the copper market to enter a supply deficit.

“Really, last year the market was close to equilibrium, but all the charts going forward were this widening supply gap. We’re there now. And last year we had so many major disruptions that it was nowhere near equilibrium,’ said Tiggre.

‘I’m a simple due diligence guy, and I just don’t see the supply,’ he added.

Overall, the panelists agreed that there’s enough copper in the world to meet demand, but the challenge is in getting out of the ground. Discovering deposits will be key to overcoming that issue.

“Copper mines are hidden behind geopolitical boundaries, social issues or undercover. They’re blind, and the easy ones have been found,” Bebek explained to the VRIC crowd.

He cited data showing that since 2015, there haven’t been any copper discoveries of real consequence.

Rule echoed that point, suggesting that it’s largely going to be an issue of investment into exploration. He discussed his history in the industry and noted the underinvestment in copper exploration during that period; however, when funds were spent, copper was uncovered. He also suggested that the easy copper has been found.

“There’s still more to be found, but its going to be found undercover. Let’s just say they’re pretty far off the highway. When we start spending money, we will find copper, but we haven’t started spending money,” he said.

Rule went on to explain that once the industry decides to reinvest in exploration, copper will be revealed, but it will take at least a decade. “There’s no relief in sight in the near term,” he said.

He also highlighted permitting issues and cited the example of the Resolution mine in Arizona, US.

Rule stated that the project has exceptional grades averaging 1.5 percent; however, it’s been stuck in permitting for a massive 28 years. Even with streamlined permitting processes being developed in countries like Canada and the US, companies are still likely to face years-long timelines to bring metal online.

“Even if Trump decides that copper is the most critical mineral, and he’s going to provide subsidies and price floors, and he’s going to guarantee that what could technically be referred to as crappy projects make money, you still have to get them permitted,” Tiggre said. Even with fast-track permitting, he noted that these projects will still require billions in investment, and in the best-case scenario will only save three to five years.

Investor takeaway

The biggest emerging factor is how the industry will respond to the growing copper supply gap.

As Rule pointed out, there doesn’t appear to be a near-term solution.

He also noted that in order for companies to maintain copper production at the current level, the required investment stands at US$250 billion over the next 10 years, which is US$150 billion more than the industry has.

“The problem with that is that maintains current production, a level where copper is in deficit and demand is growing at 2 percent compounded,” Rule explained to the audience.

With copper prices at all-time highs, it may not be time to jump in. But with geopolitical and economic uncertainty still looming over global financial markets, there could be opportunities from volatility.

“All I’m saying is there’s no need to give in to FOMO here. I’m super bullish. Doug Casey taught me to let volatility to be my friend. That’s what I’m thinking this year,” Tiggre said.