Las Vegas, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - October 6, 2026) - Decentralized Energy Company (DEC), a subsidiary of Decentral Life, Inc. (OTC: WDLF), today detailed how its business model and leadership team are organized to execute on the tokenization of physical energy assets, beginning with a focus on tokenizing the crude oil reserves of oil-producing countries in South America. DEC's architecture mints one token for each independently validated barrel, records grade, storage location and chain of custody on-chain, wraps each token in an enforceable legal structure, and makes the result programmable through smart contracts.

The company is moving at a moment when the market has turned toward exactly this category. Tokenized real-world assets have grown from roughly $5.4 billion at the start of 2025 to more than $30 billion in 2026, and tokenized commodities are the fastest-growing slice. At the same time, the market for transferable U.S. energy tax credits has matured into a multi-billion-dollar asset class with its own exchanges, giving DEC a second, adjacent category of energy-linked value to bring on-chain. DEC is also applying the same structure to the electricity produced by power infrastructure, detailed in a new narrated presentation, Tokenized Infrastructure Finance, released alongside this announcement.

The Market Has Arrived at Energy Tokenization

Three developments in 2026 define the environment DEC is executing into.

Tokenized commodities are leading real-world-asset growth. CoinGecko's RWA Report 2026 found that the tokenized real-world-asset market more than tripled between the start of 2025 and the end of March 2026, from $5.42 billion to $19.3 billion, with commodities the strongest category at $5.55 billion, up 289% (Crowdfund Insider). Binance Research put the market at $31.4 billion by May 2026 and projects $1.6 trillion by 2030 (RWA Times). Boston Consulting Group's base case is $16.1 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030 (Theo). Gold still dominates tokenized commodities, which leaves energy, the largest physical commodity market in the world, largely unaddressed.

Oil-backed tokens have moved from concept to launch. In January 2026, C5 Capital announced OIL1, an oil-backed digital asset collateralized by verified reserves of Gulf crude and built on Circle's Arc blockchain with Microsoft cloud infrastructure (PR Newswire). A former Petronas trading executive is piloting LITRO, a token pegged 1:1 to audited physical reserves, for a 2027 debut (CoinDesk). The same period has also produced oil-themed tokens with no demonstrated physical backing, which market commentators have flagged as speculative (Bitcoin Foundation). DEC's position is that the custody layer, not the token, is where credibility is won: a token is only as good as the independently validated barrel behind it.

Energy tax credits have become a transferable, tradable asset class. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserved Section 6418 transferability, which lets owners of federal clean-energy and manufacturing credits sell them for cash to unrelated taxpayers, and extended several credits through 2027 to 2029 (Thomson Reuters). Eleven federal credits are currently transferable, including the Section 45X advanced manufacturing credit, the Section 45Y clean electricity production credit, the Section 45Z clean fuel credit and the Section 48E investment credit (Crux). Credits trade at roughly 91 to 95 cents on the dollar, and 45X credits are available in full through 2029 (Concentro). Under current IRS rules a credit may be transferred only once, between unrelated parties, which makes provenance and chain of custody the central operational problem in that market, the same problem DEC's architecture is built to solve for barrels.

Regulators have also drawn the lines DEC intends to operate within. The SEC's March 2026 release and January 2026 staff statement take the position that tokenized securities remain securities regardless of the ledger they sit on (Bass Exp), and the House has passed the CLARITY Act to delineate SEC and CFTC jurisdiction over digital assets (Theo). Singapore's Monetary Authority has provided a framework for digital token service providers through the Payment Services Act 2019 and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022.

How DEC Executes: Custody First, Then the Token

DEC's model rests on a single premise: the barrier to tokenizing oil was never the blockchain, it was custody. Unlike a digital-native asset, a barrel requires physical storage, independent auditing and a legal framework that makes the token an enforceable claim. DEC's approach puts those elements first: validated reserves and regulated storage before any token is minted.

The resulting architecture has four layers:

1. Storage validation. Regulated tank operators in established storage hubs validate the physical oil. Each tokenized barrel corresponds to a real, independently auditable asset.
2. Token minting. For each validated barrel, one token is minted on Ethereum or a compatible blockchain. Metadata captures oil grade, storage location and full ownership history, creating a digital twin of the physical barrel.
3. Legal framework. Tokens are wrapped in a legal structure that makes them enforceable claims to the underlying barrel, the bridge institutional participants require before committing balance sheet.
4. Programmability. Smart contracts automate delivery-versus-payment, escrow triggers, on-chain lending, structured repurchase agreements and conditional finance, replacing T+2 settlement with atomic settlement and removing intermediaries from each step.

DEC points to two existing markets as reference models for what a mature tokenized-energy hub looks like. Neither is a DEC project or client. In the Western Hemisphere, Cushing, Oklahoma is the designated delivery point for NYMEX WTI crude futures, with 15 terminals, more than two dozen pipelines and total storage capacity exceeding 90 million barrels, roughly 13 to 16 percent of U.S. capacity. In the Eastern Hemisphere, Singapore combines the Jurong storage complex, the Singapore Exchange's digitized commodity trading, and a Monetary Authority of Singapore framework that gives tokenized real-world assets enforceable legal status. Together they show that the pieces DEC's model requires, regulated storage, benchmark pricing, export access and legal clarity, already exist and work at scale.

DEC's objective is to deliver comparable services to oil-producing countries in South America: a private blockchain and tokenization infrastructure through which a national oil company or sovereign reserve holder can convert validated barrels into digital twins, with custody validation, real-time data feeds, on-chain auditing and programmable settlement. Tokenized reserves give a producing country a more liquid, more transparent and more financeable asset than barrels sitting in tanks. Once proven with oil, the same architecture extends to natural gas, metals, agricultural commodities and energy-linked instruments such as transferable tax credits, where single-transfer rules and unrelated-party requirements make an immutable record of provenance directly valuable.

DEC is candid about the constraints. Not every storage partner has the API infrastructure for real-time on-chain auditing; legal recognition of tokenized commodities varies by jurisdiction; institutions want demonstrated liquidity before committing capital; and legal and risk teams at energy companies and banks need time to build fluency. The company treats each as an engineering and education problem rather than a barrier, and it structures its offerings so that any instrument that constitutes a security is treated as one.

From Barrels to Power: Tokenized Infrastructure Finance

DEC believes the architecture it is developing for barrels in storage could be extended to the electricity produced by energy infrastructure. In a narrated presentation, Tokenized Infrastructure Finance, Decentral Life's Chairman and CEO Ken Tapp walks through how DEC applies tokenization to an integrated power and data campus, taking the fundamentals that have financed solar asset-backed securities for years and placing them on modern rails at larger scale.

The structure follows the path institutional infrastructure finance already knows. A campus of solar generation, battery storage and optional flexible generation sells its electricity to an investment-grade offtaker under a long-term, take-or-pay power purchase agreement of twenty years or more. The asset sits in a special purpose vehicle that receives PPA payments, covers operating costs, maintains reserves and pays debt service. A bankruptcy-remote issuing vehicle, structured with a trustee and a defined payment waterfall, holds a security interest in the PPA receivables and project assets and issues securities against them in senior, mezzanine and equity tranches. The difference is that the securities are digital: issued and recorded on-chain, distributed through regulated digital brokerages and exchange platforms, with on-chain ownership records, fractional denominations for qualified participants and the potential for secondary liquidity.

Two elements of that structure connect directly to DEC's core work. The campus itself is the kind of behind-the-meter power asset that AI compute and data infrastructure increasingly require, which is why the model is built as a combined power and data campus. And the federal incentives that lower its cost of capital, the investment tax credit, the Section 45X manufacturing credit and others, are themselves transferable instruments that DEC's provenance and custody architecture is designed to carry on-chain.

The presentation is available at https://Tokenize.Decentral-Life.com/ as a 14-chapter, self-paced video walkthrough covering the physical asset, the offtaker, the SPV, the issuing vehicle, tokenized securities, digital distribution, investors, the equipment and EPC supply chain, tax incentives, oversight and the cash-flow waterfall. It is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security.

A Leadership Team Matched to the Model

Tokenizing a physical commodity requires four disciplines working together: structured finance to design the instruments and raise capital against them, energy and infrastructure experience to work with storage operators and producers, securities and regulatory expertise to keep every instrument on the right side of the law, and capital markets access to bring institutional participants in. DEC's directors and advisors cover each.

Directors

• Ken Tapp, Director; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Decentral Life. Mr. Tapp brings more than 30 years as a technology entrepreneur and investor. He began his career in 1996 at Realtor.com and remained with the company through its 1999 IPO as Move, Inc., then spent over two decades as a venture capitalist holding Chairman, CEO, CFO, CTO and COO roles. As founder and CEO of Decentral Life he has worked in blockchain, AI and real-world-asset tokenization since the company's formation, and his 27 years in public markets and M&A link DEC's capital strategy to institutional investors.
• Brad Hoffman, Director and Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Hoffman has more than 30 years in structured finance, recapitalization and M&A across the technology, healthcare, entertainment and energy sectors, with roles at HH&A, Dubrow Kavanaugh Capital, Ashford Capital, Galen Capital Corp. and Fortress's arbitrage arm. He holds degrees in Business Finance and Management from UCLA and Pepperdine University. Structured products, repurchase agreements and collateralized lending, the financial applications a tokenized barrel enables, are the instruments he has spent his career building.
• Wayne Aston, Board Member, Decentral Life. Mr. Aston is a 29-year serial entrepreneur in financial architecture, real estate development and emerging energy. He is the founder of Invictus Sovereign, focused on clean energy and infrastructure investment, as well as Valley Forge Impact Parks and American Spec Industries. A U.S. military veteran with ten years in the Marine Corps and Army National Guard, he brings capital-stack structuring and direct energy-infrastructure experience to DEC's work with storage and generation assets, including the clean-energy projects that generate transferable tax credits.

Advisors

• Craig Kaufman, Investment Banker. Managing Director at Kingswood U.S. and former CEO of Kaufman Bros., Mr. Kaufman has participated in transactions totaling over $50 billion and leads Decentral Life's planned uplisting to a major U.S. exchange. He holds an MBA from NYU Stern and a degree in mathematics and computer science from Emory University.
• James E. Hock, Advisor to Public Capital Markets. Chairman, President and CEO of Hanover International and past Chairman of the National Investment Banking Association, Mr. Hock has advised more than 300 micro-, small- and mid-cap companies on capital formation and institutional shareholder relations over 40 years.
• Frederick M. Lehrer, SEC and Corporate Securities Counsel. A former SEC enforcement attorney and Special Assistant US Attorney with over 30 years in securities law, Mr. Lehrer has served as Decentral Life's corporate counsel since 2017.

Executive Commentary.

"Everyone who has tried to tokenize oil ran into the same wall: how do you prove the barrel is really there?" said Ken Tapp, Chairman and CEO of Decentral Life, and a director of DEC. "The market this year has shown growing interest in tokenized commodities, and that the projects without verifiable backing get called out quickly. Our model is designed to be the one that holds up to that scrutiny."

"A tokenized barrel is programmable collateral, and that is a structured-finance product before it is a crypto product," said Brad Hoffman, Director and Chief Investment Officer. "Repos, escrow, delivery-versus-payment, lending against inventory, these are the things I have structured for thirty years with paper and intermediaries. Doing them atomically on-chain against an independently validated barrel would apply the same discipline with better plumbing. The same logic applies to transferable energy tax credits, where provenance is the whole game."

About Decentralized Energy Company

Decentralized Energy Company (DEC) is a subsidiary of Decentral Life, Inc. focused on the tokenization of physical energy assets, beginning with crude oil held in regulated storage. DEC's architecture mints one token for each independently validated barrel, records grade, storage location and chain of custody immutably on-chain, wraps each token in an enforceable legal framework, and enables programmable settlement, collateralization and financing through smart contracts. DEC's initial focus is providing tokenization infrastructure, custody validation, real-time data and on-chain settlement services to oil-producing countries in South America seeking to tokenize their national crude oil reserves. Learn more at decblock.com.

About Decentral Life, Inc.

Decentral Life, Inc. (OTC: WDLF) operates at the convergence of artificial intelligence, tokenization and energy. The company provides software, AI data, blockchain and energy infrastructure as-a-Service, runs a technology business incubator, and holds strategic equity positions in portfolio companies including Decentralized Energy Company, Space Innovation Unit, DecentralizedFi Holdings, RWA Resorts and Complete Financial Solutions, Inc., of which it holds approximately 14% of the common stock. Decentral Life is preparing for an uplisting to a major U.S. stock exchange and in July 2026 engaged Kingswood Capital Partners as lead investment bank. Learn more at decentral-life.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Words such as "may," "will," "intends," "plans," "expects," "believes," "designed to," "could" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding DEC's business model, technology architecture, target markets, planned expansion to additional commodities and energy-linked instruments, market opportunity, and Decentral Life's planned uplisting are forward-looking statements based on current expectations. They are subject to risks and uncertainties, including DEC's ability to secure storage, validation and legal arrangements on acceptable terms; the legal and regulatory treatment of tokenized commodities and tokenized securities in the United States, Singapore and other jurisdictions; institutional adoption and liquidity; commodity price volatility; competition from other tokenization platforms; the fact that DEC is a development-stage company with no revenue and no operating history; DEC's and Decentral Life's need for substantial additional financing, which may not be available on acceptable terms and may be dilutive to stockholders; U.S. and foreign sanctions, anti-corruption (including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) and export-control laws applicable to dealings with foreign governments and state-owned enterprises; political, legal, currency and expropriation risk in South American jurisdictions, including laws vesting ownership of hydrocarbons in the state or restricting their transfer or encumbrance; the possibility that any token DEC may issue is deemed a security, commodity interest, swap or other regulated instrument requiring registration, licensing or exemption; smart-contract, cybersecurity, custody and validation failures; changes in U.S. federal tax law, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, affecting energy tax credits; dependence on key personnel and advisors, some of whom have other business commitments and potential conflicts of interest; the risk that Decentral Life will not satisfy the listing standards of any national securities exchange; and general economic and market conditions. Actual results may differ materially, and readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. Neither DEC nor Decentral Life undertakes any obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. Nothing in this release constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or token, including any interest in the illustrative structure described in the Tokenized Infrastructure Finance presentation.

Note that DEC has not determined whether any token it may issue would be a security, a commodity, a commodity interest, or more than one of these; it has not registered any offering or qualified any offering for an exemption and it intends to structure any offering so that any instrument that constitutes a security is offered and sold in compliance with federal and state securities laws. Further note that market statistics cited in this release are drawn from third-party sources and have not been independently verified by DEC or Decentral Life, and their inclusion does not indicate that DEC will participate in those markets or achieve any particular share of them. References to Cushing, Oklahoma and Singapore describe existing third-party markets cited as reference models; DEC has no project, client or contractual relationship in either location, and DEC has not entered into any agreement with any government or national oil company.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/317705

Source: Decentral Life, Inc.