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e-Gold
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E-gold® is an electronic currency, issued by e-gold Ltd., a Nevis
corporation, 100% backed at all times by gold bullion in allocated
storage. E-gold® is always as good as the gold it's backed with -
this year, next year, a thousand years from now. **Bullion is
stored in repositories certified by The London Bullion Market
Association (LBMA).
As of November
2005 there are typically 50,000 e-gold ® spends each day, with a
total value each day of about six million USD (that is, about 350
kilograms of gold).
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e-gold® is a
digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc.
under e-gold Ltd., and is a system which allows the instant
transfer of gold ownership between users. The corporation was
founded in 1996 by Dr. Douglas Jackson and Barry K. Downey. There
are over two million e-gold accounts presently - a careful review
of the statistics page shows about one quarter of those are active.
e-gold Ltd. is a Nevis, West Indies company.
e-gold®
has grown dramatically through 2005.
Firstly, the total amount of gold bars (over three tonnes) in the
e-gold®
system is approaching the size of the
national reserves of smaller countries. Secondly,
e-gold®
themselves as a business are now
generating a substantial income from spend fees: it costs a few
cents to make each e-gold® "spend" and
e-gold®
themselves now earn well over a
million USD per annum from spend fees. Thirdly, the use of
e-gold®
as a currency has reached a
non-trivial level, as indicated by the 50,000 spends a day
figure.
It could be argued that 2005 was the first year
e-gold®
has passed novelty status.
Many (at least ten) serious small businesses, in the USA, Europe
and Asia, each with staff and real incomes now operate as "exchange
providers," doing nothing other than buying and selling
e-gold®
for "national currencies," as gold
bugs would style the Euro, Pound, Yen and USD.
As well as digital gold, per se, e-gold® also
offer e-silver, e-palladium and e-platinum, but only
e-gold®
sees any use. The user may take
physical delivery of the precious metal upon payment of an
additional fee. In practice, most users permit the operator to
store the metal. e-gold® transactions - a "spend" - are completed electronically,
usually using the web interface, and they always settle by weight
of the metal even if denominated in some other way. You can spend a
tiny amount of gold (a tiny fraction of a gram), or kilograms of
gold, to another user instantly.
The present location (for example, a specific vault in Switzerland)
of the actual gold bars and their serial numbers and other data can
be seen using the live "Examiner" function on the
e-gold®
web
site.
E-gold® is integrated into an account based payment system that
empowers people to use gold as money. Specifically, the
e-gold payment system enables people to Spend specified weights of
gold to other e-gold® accounts. Only the ownership changes - the gold in
the treasury grade vault stays put.
E-gold®
is always as good as the gold it's backed with -
this year, next year, a thousand years from now. Set Up A New Account
Here
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