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Australian Broadcast Corporation reports
Australia's biggest gold refiner, the Perth Mint, is developing its own cryptocurrency backed by physical precious metals.
The ambitious plan, which is subject to a confidentiality agreement, will make it easier for consumers to buy gold.
[...] For the Perth Mint, the need to bring investors back to precious metals after a boom in alternative investments such as cryptocurrencies posed an opportunity, according to chief executive Richard Hayes.
"I think as the world moves through times of increasing uncertainty, you're seeing people look for alternate offerings," he said.
But Mr Hayes said the volatility of some of the current cryptocurrencies meant they did not suit all investors.And that is where a gold-backed offering may fit.
"With a crypto-gold or a crypto-precious metals offering, what you will see is that gold is actually backing it," Mr Hayes said.
"So it will have all the benefits of something that is on a distributed ledger that settles very, very quickly, that is easy to trade, but is actually backed by precious metals, so there is actually something behind it, something backing it."
What do you see here: some golden cryptocurrency dust sprinkled around or a decentralized ledger of precious metal transactions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:38PM (2 children)
So starting their own cash system Next is crypto credit and debit cards. Crypto checks anyone.
Really electronic exchange of gold but not as stocks or bonds. Block chains it is the best ;P
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:39PM (1 child)
This one has some hope of working, but realistically, it's backed by gold and has all the previous downsides of operating with gold. On top of that, there's the downsides of dealing with cryptocurrency as well.
Still, this is a huge step forward from BTC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:11AM
NO! This will attract both the techie cool libertarian types that love crypto-currant sea, and the old school survivalist neo-nazi goldbugs. Win-win!