Plume has obtained a Class M digital asset business license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) for its subsidiary, Kimber Digital Assets Bermuda ISAC Ltd. (KDAB). The approval marks the first time an on-chain vault manager has received regulatory legitimacy, placing Plume within the same Bermuda digital asset framework used by Circle, Coinbase, and Kraken.
KDAB’s regulated vaults operate entirely through immutable smart contracts, allowing users to deposit assets, earn yield, and redeem at net asset value without intermediaries. A curator manages rebalancing, but cannot alter the contract’s core logic. Plume co-founder and CEO Chris Yin compared the vaults to ETFs, emphasizing that anyone with an internet connection—from a Lagos lawyer to a Manila freelancer—can access yields with a smartphone and a stablecoin, under equivalent AML protections to those of a London pension fund.
The license gives Plume a formal footing in Bermuda’s push to become a hub for tokenized finance. Vault tokens will be backed by regulated funds and high-quality assets from jurisdictions including the US and Hong Kong, and will be usable as composable collateral in DeFi. Compliance infrastructure includes continuous transaction monitoring, AML screening at the token level across bridged chains, and freeze/confiscation functions. Plume reports a blocked transaction rate of just 0.000005%, compared to around 1% on other public blockchains.
The move deepens Bermuda’s strategy, articulated earlier by Circle, to become “the world’s first fully onchain national economy.” For Plume, the license provides a narrow but valuable position—compliant, regulated infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets—and a direct rebuttal to risk concerns often associated with on-chain fund management.
