Online gold’s question moved from the app to the vault
TI Weekly, edition 007. Milli says an order has been issued to release the 965 kilograms of customer gold held at the custodian bank that denied holding it, Daric says every gram of its users’ gold sits at that same bank, Flytoday enters holiday lodging at zero fee and zero commission, ArvanCloud offers outside GPU owners 40 percent of what their hardware sells, Digikala’s marketplace turns ten, Vista opens an acceleration track on Irancell capacity, and our analysis reads a week in which online gold’s question moved from the app to the vault.
- Milli apologised for delays in part of its settlements, saying gold equal to 965 kilograms covering users’ holdings is held in secure and bank vaults and that restricted access, including at Bank Kargoshaee, had slowed them. On 30 September it said an order to release the gold had been issued and that rial settlement and physical delivery would return to normal from 1 October. Company statements, unaudited; no public evidence identified of a statement from the bank.
- Three gold platforms on the Tehran Index registry, Milli, Technogold and Daric, name the same custodian, Bank Kargoshaee, for all or part of customer gold. During the week Milli said the bank denied holding its gold while Daric said every gram on its users’ accounts is held there and its physical stock exceeds what users bought. Neither side published a holdings figure, and no public evidence identified of a published audit of any of these platforms’ holdings.
- Digikala’s annual report puts gold, coins and digital gold at nearly 19 percent of its monthly sales by value by the end of the year to 20 March 2026, against 7 to 9 percent two years earlier. Its digital gold, launched in late 2024, became its best-selling product after mobile phones, with purchases up twelvefold in the year.
- Flytoday has launched a lodging service for villas, suites, cabins and eco-lodges, saying guests pay no booking fee, hosts who list through its host service pay no commission, and hosts are paid immediately after checkout. The announcement states no listing count, no time limit on the terms and no other revenue source for the service.
- ArvanCloud is asking owners of qualifying GPU servers, even a single server, to contribute hardware, offering 40 percent of sales of AI services run on their equipment for up to five years. It projects total receipts of up to twice the hardware’s dollar value and offers an option guaranteeing a floor equal to 100 percent of that value. The projections are the company’s, and its actual revenue is not disclosed on our record.
Iran’s online gold platforms spent the week explaining where the gold is. Milli said its custodian bank denied holding its gold, then said on 30 September that an order to release it had been issued, while Daric says all of its users’ gold sits at that same bank. Elsewhere, Flytoday drops booking fees, ArvanCloud asks outside GPU owners for compute, and Digikala’s marketplace turns ten.
The week in numbers
965 kilograms, the gold Milli says it holds against users’ balances. Nearly 19 percent, gold’s share of Digikala’s monthly sales by value in the year to 20 March 2026, from 7 to 9 percent two years earlier. 40 percent, the share of AI-service sales ArvanCloud offers owners of the GPUs that run them.
This week’s signals
Market · fintech. Milli says an order has been issued to release its gold at the custodian bank that denied holding it. The online gold platform apologised for delays in part of its settlements, saying gold equal to 965 kilograms, covering users’ holdings, is held in secure and bank vaults, and that restricted access to part of it, including at Bank Kargoshaee, had slowed them. It published deposit receipts and asked the bank to explain its denial, and said more than 7,000 billion toman had been settled in rial over the previous 30 days. On 30 September it said an order to release the gold had been issued, and that rial settlement and physical delivery would return to normal from 1 October. Company statements, unaudited; no public evidence identified of a statement from the bank. Why it matters: Milli’s record already named Bank Kargoshaee as custodian, and Technogold and Daric name the same bank for all or part of their customers’ gold, so the dispute concerned the custodian of three platforms on our record. TI record 26 Sep 2026 and 1 Oct 2026 · Signal record · Release record.
Product · travel. Flytoday adds holiday lodging, with no fee for guests and no commission for hosts. The travel booking platform has launched a lodging service for villas, suites, cabins and eco-lodges across Iran, aimed at domestic travel. It says guests pay no booking fee, hosts who list through its host service pay no commission, and hosts receive each booking’s amount immediately after the guest checks out. The announcement states no listing count, no time limit and no other revenue source for the service. Company announcement. Why it matters: our record carries Snapptrip’s company-reported 663 percent growth in villa and lodging bookings for the year to March 2026, the segment Flytoday now enters at zero commission. TI record 29 Sep 2026 · Signal record.
Infrastructure · cloud. ArvanCloud invites outside GPU owners into its AI compute, offering them 40 percent of what their hardware sells. The cloud provider is asking owners of qualifying GPU servers, even a single server, to contribute hardware to what it calls Iran’s largest AI processing infrastructure. Contributors take 40 percent of sales of AI services run on their equipment, for up to five years depending on the model chosen. ArvanCloud projects total receipts of up to twice the hardware’s dollar value, and offers an option guaranteeing a floor equal to 100 percent of that value over five years of operation. Company announcement; the projections are the company’s. Why it matters: our record carries ArvanCloud’s actual revenue as not disclosed, so a guaranteed dollar floor for partners cannot be set against the company’s own income. TI record 26 Sep 2026 · Signal record.
Product · e-commerce. Digikala’s marketplace turns ten with AI tools for sellers and a commission-free day. At the marketplace’s tenth-anniversary event, Digikala’s commercial deputy said sales commission would be zero on 29 September, that the dollar value of marketplace sales grew 25 percent over the past year, and that the marketplace now accounts for 75 percent of Digikala’s total sales. It unveiled AI tools that generate product content for sellers, and a founder described dia, for demand forecasting and supply-chain planning. Executive statements at an event, not audited results. Why it matters: Digikala’s annual report, on our record, puts sellers at 76 percent of items sold and says their share by value is lower; the 75 percent spoken this week names no measure. TI record 28 Sep 2026 · Signal record.
Funding · accelerator. Vista, a corporate investment holding, opens an acceleration track with access to Irancell capacity. Vista Investment Holding, which says it has invested in innovative businesses since 2017-18, has added startup acceleration to its services, announced on Irancell’s news channel. Selected teams are offered what it calls smart money, advice, networks, operational resources and capacity linked to Irancell. No fund size, ticket size, cohort size or equity terms were given. Why it matters: limited read-through beyond the company itself. TI record 27 Sep 2026 · Signal record.
From the registry: additions and evidence updates
Added. Vista, reported tier, for signal 5. Legal name, ownership and fund size stay blank until read at source; its tie to Irancell is recorded as capacity offered, not a group link. Evidence: the gold share, digital gold’s sales rank and sellers’ 76 percent were read in Digikala’s annual report, with passage and page.
Analysis: Online gold’s question moved from the app to the vault
This week the question around online gold shifted from who sells it to who holds it.
Start with scale. Digikala’s annual report puts gold, coins and digital gold at 7 to 9 percent of its monthly sales by value two years earlier, and at nearly 19 percent by the end of the year to 20 March 2026. Its digital gold, launched in late 2024, became its best-selling product after mobile phones, with purchases up twelvefold in the year.
Then custody. A gold app sells a balance; the metal sits elsewhere. Three gold platforms on our registry, Milli, Technogold and Daric, name Bank Kargoshaee as custodian for all or part of customer gold. On 26 September Milli said restricted access, including at that bank, had slowed its settlements and that the bank denied holding its gold. Daric said every gram on its users’ accounts is held at the same bank and that its physical stock exceeds what users have bought. Two platforms, one custodian, opposite accounts. On 30 September Milli said an order to release its gold had been issued, with settlement and delivery back to normal from 1 October. Neither side published a holdings figure, and no public evidence identified of a published audit of any of these platforms’ holdings.
The responses split three ways. Toward delivery: Nobitex now lets users turn digital gold into bars or coins. Toward credit: Digipay lends up to 400 million toman against Digikala digital gold, with collateral worth at least 1.5 times the loan, 25 grams at current terms. Toward oversight: the central bank’s Nazer monitoring system is due to connect Talasea and Walgold from 7 October, on statements attributed to the central bank and cyber police.
Our hypothesis, labelled as one: the weak point in online gold sits in the custody leg, not the app, and the week’s responses fit it: one route out of custody, one deeper into it, one toward oversight. The record cannot test it, because no platform publishes reconciled holdings. The desk will hold one question: whether connection to Nazer is followed by any published holdings figure.
What to watch: whether Milli’s settlements resume as announced and either side publishes a holdings figure; whether Talasea and Walgold connect to Nazer on 7 October; how long Flytoday’s zero-fee terms run; and which measure Digikala’s 75 percent uses.
Every named company is resolved to the Tehran Index registry; every published figure carries a source and evidence state, and every signal links to its record, where the source trail is exposed. Date basis: where a source publication date has not been independently verified, the date shown is the date the item entered the Tehran Index record, labelled “TI record”. FX: this edition carries no dollar conversion. Its two toman figures of note, Milli’s 30-day settlements and Digipay’s loan ceiling, both fall within the last 90 days, and recent figures are not converted.
Frequently asked
Milli apologised for delays in part of its settlements, saying gold equal to 965 kilograms covering users’ holdings is held physically in secure and bank vaults, that restricted access to part of it including at Bank Kargoshaee had slowed settlements, and that more than 7,000 billion toman had been settled in rial over the previous 30 days. It published deposit receipts and asked the bank to explain its denial that the gold is held there. On 30 September Milli said an order to release the gold had been issued and that rial settlement and physical delivery would return to normal from 1 October. These are company statements and unaudited, and no public evidence identified of a statement from the bank.
Three platforms on the Tehran Index registry, Milli, Technogold and Daric, name Bank Kargoshaee as custodian for all or part of customer gold, each with its source passage on the record. Goldika’s record refers to approved banks without naming one, and Bazar Gold’s names Bank Melli but carries no passage, so neither is counted.
Digikala’s annual report for the year to 20 March 2026 puts gold, coins and digital gold at nearly 19 percent of its monthly sales by value at that year’s end, against 7 to 9 percent two years earlier. The denominator is Digikala’s total sales by value, not units. The report also states that digital gold, launched in late 2024, became the company’s best-selling product after mobile phones, with purchases up twelvefold in the year.
The central bank’s Nazer monitoring system is due to connect two gold platforms on our registry, Talasea and Walgold, from 7 October 2026, on statements attributed to the central bank and the cyber police. The announcement describes connection, not a licence, approval or authorisation, and no published holdings figure has followed from it yet.
ArvanCloud is inviting owners of qualifying GPU servers, even a single server, to contribute hardware to what it calls Iran’s largest AI processing infrastructure, in exchange for 40 percent of sales of the AI services run on their equipment, for up to five years depending on the model chosen. It projects total receipts of up to twice the hardware’s dollar value and offers an option guaranteeing a floor equal to 100 percent of that value over five years of operation. The projections are the company’s own, and our record carries ArvanCloud’s actual revenue as not disclosed.
This piece is built from the same registry the platform runs on: company records with sourced, period-stamped facts and a link on every claim. Access opens to a limited first cohort. Registering costs nothing, commits you to nothing, and gets a reply from the research desk within two business days.
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