Believe it or not, despite my strong support for our collective foray into distributed-ledger (blockchain) technology, I'm quite the fan of gold.
Gold has a 6000+ year history of reliability. Never once has it completely, or even close to completely, wiped out holders. It is bar none the best form of generational wealth transfer across humanity's short history of economic savvy. Simply nothing else has reliably worked as a storage of wealth for more than a generation or two, ever.
On top of all these "exciting, ledger-like properties", Gold is also extremely difficult to counterfeit. All the crooked governments and banks hate it, to the point where they spent thousands of years trying to find ways to undermine and attack it. From shaving and remelting diluted coins going back to pre-Babylonia, to endless fiat printing from the Federal Reserve, it's all the same old scam to prevent the use or a proper accounting method that does not rely on trust.
In case you hadn't noticed the parallel, a lot of these are also the reasons we love Bitcoin so much. So, as oddly anachronistic as we may seem, combining gold with reputable blockchain products as an audited backing source may still be a very viable way of increasing trust, particularly in the East where gold remains more culturally and financially relevant (owing to the lack of a controlling cartel (COMEX/London Gold Fix, no doubt.)
As it turns out, there are a lot more of these products than I realized.
Today I'll briefly explain a pair of these projects that appear to be the most stable with the lowest risk of the bunch. That still makes this a lottery, though - do your own due diligence.
HelloGold is a Malaysia based outfit that allows users to purchase and sell gold instantly via their application, in the type of small amounts anyone can afford. They already have over 15,000 KYC'd customers and an operational business, so to some extant, this is a less risky investment. However, the focus on Shariah compliancy and low-income clients is not something I'm a fan of.
Spreads and management fees are a little high, but this means profits for investors if customers pay. I'd almost call it a rip-off, but I don't know the normal spreads in that part of the world. The HelloGold token also pays a dividend in the form of ERC20 token GOLDX, which is (supposed) to be reliably exchangeable for a fixed weight of gold in grams. It's difficult to get any sense of the ROI on this for holding, however.
HelloGold was recently funded via traditional Venture Capital for $25m. That's a good sign, given VC are more selective than your average alt-coin investor.
Xaurum is an odd duck. For starters, you're going to see few crypto charts weirder than this one, wherein Xaurum was once worth 3 Bitcoin each:
This was less interesting than it might initially appear. Large speculative demand for Xaurum made the coin too expensive at the time for trading, given the low supply. Xaurum performed an 8000:1 split, giving all XAU holders 8000 XAUR, solving this problem. The increasing market cap afterwards demonstrates this clearly.
You'll also immediately notice this is no spring chicken of a project, in crypto terms. It's one of the oldest chains around.
What I don't like about Xaurum is that, other than working with Loomis (a spin-off of dishonest Wells Fargo), they store all of their gold in Slovenia, and God forbid, Turkey.
I can think of few places in the world I would less want to store my Gold than Turkey. Hell, I'd rather store it with Chase Bank than in a lawless, rapidly third-worlding country where an emerging dictatorial lunatic with a strong subscription to the death-cult-for-idiots has just made himself effectively president for life. Here's a sampling of his fascist political views:
"Democracy is like a train and when you get where you want, you get off" - Erdogan
In case you can't tell, I suggest staying away from all this stuff. Gold's main advantage is the ability to hold direct physical custody. Every one of these projects appears to completely shit on this indisputable fact.
There are many more of these projects, as illustrated above (GoldMint, GoldCrypto, OneGram, etc) so be careful. This industry is a hotbed for scams. Blockchain and gold may not be a great combination, given the completely opposite markets. Be careful what, if any, you invest.
Disclosure: I do not own any of these projects. This is not financial advice.
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Sources: Google, Wikipedia, HelloGold, OneGram, ColdCrypto, GoldMoney, Xaurum, Medium, ZH
Copyright: SmartSteem, PALNet, SPL, Bitcoin Gold, Gold-Mining, World Gold Council, Mememaker
Bitcoin is the Gold 2.0. What Satoshi Nakamoto solve about double-spending problem is what this blockchain really made its value.
Personally, this is the first time I heard of this Xaurum and will research on that immediately and hopefully find some opportunity. Thanks for providing valuable blog as always @lexiconical
Thank you for the kind words!
Nice! Stan Larimer is also releasing some precious metal backed tokens soon https://quintric.com. Also, Perth Mint is in the process of making a gold backed crypto.
i love this good work
I hope it goes better than his other ventures, such as the Arise Bank and the billion hero thing.
I avoid things he's associated with.
You know what bud, Gold is nothing if we pul out our thirst for Gold. It we humans giving value to things.
If we started giving value to lets say Bitcoin on a larger scale, Bitcoin is going to replace Gold and all that FIAT money.
totally agreed on removing fiat currency because you have to pay tax
Hahahaahahah! Tax is really an annoying enemy :)
Every dollar of demand that gets diverted to crypto is one that will probably never go to Gold.
I've used both, and despite how annoying crypto can be to operate, it's not as bad as taking gold to a flea market to pay the bills.
"despite my strong support for our collective foray into distributed-ledger (blockchain) technology, I'm quite the fan of gold"
Same here man :-)
I think a lot of people here on Steemit look at the blockchain as a means to get free from the slave hood of the current economic system. As you metion that the gold is store if value in true sense of the word 'value'. Now that is id illegal or semi-illegal to use gold as fiat - our minds and genetic memory find this against what we believe. The truth is that gold cannot be copied or artificially created and thus we instinctively trust it.
Blockchain gives us the next best option - the book/ledger is distributed in such a way that it cannot manipulated until each and every node master betrays it. Quite an statistical impossibility.
Bingo, and eloquently stated! I am in the process of working up a post on some of these very ideas. The main thrust is that Bitcoin is just a new type of Database, an excel style - isn't it funny how excited we all are for it?
As it turns out, you can solve most of the world's human-created problems with a trustless database!
Wow, excellent information ....☺
woo amazing post and well presented also you did great effort to make the staging post
Thank you for the compliment.
informative..
Wow,,,,, bitcoin saya juga main,,,,
Spam elsewhere, fool.
I am also the fan of gold. excellent post of cryptocurrency . thanks a lot for sharing.....@lexiconical
Thats interesting! I didnt know even that all this already exist. Your post was very informative and I will do more research from my side as well. Keep up the good work :)
It’s a brilliant way to build trust within a marketplace I agree.
I love the humorous way this was written too
Muy Interesante
Love it.
Wow nice photo
Are you a secret stacker lexi?
Right now, gold is still very important and considered a very expensive item to have. It's of course very good to have one sitting somewhere in your house :)
Cryptocurrency is the modern day Gold. leaving all your resources in fiat currency will yield nothing to you.
Great points!
Great post...excellent information...Thanks for sharing.
This is exactly the issue. The storage needs to be decentralized as well as the coin. There needs to be a system of storage that involves the actual community of coin holders. Without this, gold backed crypto is worthless, or at least tenuous at best.
Bitcoin, and all cryptos which gave true value and technology, will STAY!
Hahah! Great info, but having lived in Malaysia for over a year I would CAUTION that the overall risk factor (e. political situation, etc.) of Malaysia would not be WILDLY less than the situation as you describe it in Turkey. While there is a strong Chinese middle class in Malaysia (which would generally be considered a pro for gold) the downside is the modus operandi of the Muslim majority government (ex. your reference to Shariah compliance, and OTHER goodies). Just too risky, in my opinion.
It is extremely important that we not mix assets! The smart money will always seek diversification. I like my crypto and my precious metals and my realestate and my stocks as separate as possible. In fact, by claiming that one crypto is "more legitimate" because it is backed by gold, we open the door for governments to further discredit decentralized cryptocurrencies under the guise of "they aren't backed by anything". This is a slippery slope. And remember, at least in the US, no one has seen the gold reserves in years.
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hey bro