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: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:01PM (7 children)
For a stock to up ten percent in just one day is regarded as a Heaven-sent miracle.
Cryptos go up and down that much all the time.
I had the idea that I could use the volatility to provide for a comfortable retirement. But I have only one success, I bought NAGA for $1 at its ICO then sold it for $3.15.
Quite likely I'll end up like that ancient lady who hangs out in the Pearl District in her wheelchair, begging for spare change. Quite likely she doesn't have a 401k.
I must have a certain minimum amount of money in my credit union to feel confident I can cover my expenses. Once a week I tally up what I've spent then sell that much crypto. But I don't try to time my sales, so quite commonly I sell at a loss. I am mostly down with that because I have only had to sell small amounts.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:16PM
You're like a small boy who just learned how to rape. You learned a valuable skill, but you're not adept enough at it for it to be impressive. You are not Mario Antonio Scubafitz, and you never will be! Vanish!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:23PM
Trading between BTC and DOGE/Lumen I am up 25% in number of BTC since the beginning of the month. I think its more of a fun thing to do than a way to invest money though.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:35PM
Why would you think that? For all you know she could buy and sell you like a lollypop.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:39PM (3 children)
How much are your minimum monthly living expenses?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:38PM (2 children)
Before I became homeless I used an elaborate spreadsheet to budget both my business and personal budgets at the same time.
I'm not doing that again yet as I am working on a fixed-bid contract. I'm getting better with time but when I started here a year ago I was dismayed to discover that all my coding skills has atrophied severely.
I'm charging my clients a reasonable amount of money but I have no clue when I will achieve a milestone so receive some of it.
My spreadsheet says my monthly expenses are $1630. I expect there are expenses I didn't think of just now. It's reasonable to say my monthly expenses are $2000.
I only pay $192 in rent because my apartment is mostly paid for by The Government Tit. In a few months my case manager will do a recalculation, which I expect will result in my paying the entire thing: $925.
I will buy a MacBook Pro sometime soon. That would benefit my business in all manner of ways. Quite likely I'll buy a used but refurbished one from http://www.macsales.com [macsales.com] - the one I want is $1,195.
But there is some possibility I will buy one brand-new so I can do Thunderbolt 3 drivers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:46PM (1 child)
Why not set host files to 0?
0.0.0.0 pixel-tracking-whores.com # Humanz who sell bodily functionz for ca$h yeh
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:54PM
most of the sites that provide hosts files that blackhole malware have both kinds: a hosts file with 0, and a hosts file with 127.0.0.1.
If I remember correctly 0 works well on Windows, but on Mac OS X it is a broadcast address.
Or something like that. My memory as it always is hazy.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:22PM (6 children)
I think the ledger of precious metal transactions might be the right idea, if it isn't this, perhaps something else soon.
Instead of a gold-backed cryptocurrency I'm thinking cryptocurrency-backed gold.
As I recall, some of the early experiments in "web money" didn't work out well because there was no proof that a particular real gold coin (or whatever) had been uniquely assigned to only one owner. So maybe stamp each coin with a unique serial number and keep a public blockchain of who owns each numbered coin? Unless the videos were faked, a webcam could continuously show the coins in a vault along with when each was deposited or removed. That might help to build trust.
Still, so long as there are multiple ways to hack your software and/or your credentials, I'm not ready to dump my entire retirement plan into something where the owner is only identified by an opaque string of bits.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Justin Case on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:40PM (5 children)
Let me flesh this out a bit so you all can tear it apart:
1. When a coin is deposited or withdrawn, the vault operator takes a close-up photo of the coin showing its serial number along with some visual indicator of whether the coin is being deposited or withdrawn.
2. At essentially the same time, the vault operator's software grabs and retains a snapshot of the current price quotes of 100 well known stocks.
Both 1 and 2 (or their hashes) are written to the blockchain and therefore known to the public as-of a certain date and time.
A crooked vault operator could have taken photo 1 any time in the past, but not in the future, because the photo had to exist at the time its hash was published to the blockchain. The hash of photo #1 proves that the physical coin movement happened on-or-before $TIMESTAMP.
A crooked vault operator could hash the stock quotes of $TIMESTAMP any time in the future, but not in the past, because if they can predict 100 quotes they have no reason to waste time with gold. The hash of stock-quotes #2 proves that the physical coin movement happened on-or-after $TIMESTAMP.
Link the two hashes into the immutable blockchain and you've pinned down a narrow point in time when the photo must have been taken.
Between the physical deposit/withdrawal transactions, the bulk of activity would be simply handing off the ownership of coin $NUMBER from $OWNER_1 to $OWNER_2.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ben_white on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:08AM
All true. But if I was the crooked vault operator I'd mint coins made with a cheap metal and a thin gold plating and replace real coins with these fakes with identical serial numbers. The coins could change hands (well, digital wallets) many times before anyone would catch on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:55AM
If this scales to any size at all, there are going to be a *lot* of vault operators...just say'n...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday January 25 2018, @03:34AM (2 children)
If you don't have physical possession of it you don't really own it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:10PM (1 child)
While I see your point, I don't have physical possession of:
* The balances in any of my bank accounts
* The investments in my retirement plan
* The house I'm renting out
The economy that surrounds us depends heavily on record-keeping instead of physical possession. Is there a risk involved? Probably. Are most people essentially compelled to take that risk? Yeah. Is the risk of a "gold certificate" higher? Depends on whether you're dealing with a thief at the vault. And humans have developed many ways over the years of detecting and dealing with thieves. Not always successful, surely, but not a novel risk just because you add "on a blockchain".
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday January 26 2018, @02:57AM
That's all well and good while society remains civilized, but when Rome falls you will own none of the above.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(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!
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 24 2018, @11:41PM (8 children)
This is just another inane "but on a blockchain, so new and better" invention that really is studips enough to deserve patenting.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 25 2018, @03:54AM (7 children)
Except:
- you describe transaction between you and the vault operator and...
- ... do not account for transactions in which your transfer part of you certificates to a third party without the vault operator to be involved (to auth the certificate and record the new ownership)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 25 2018, @05:52AM (5 children)
My way's better in almost every respect apart from having the oooh-shiny visible to me.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 25 2018, @06:21AM (4 children)
You want the value involved as the:
- original emitter of the certificates (cryptocoins) and...
- ... continue to be the storage place for the equiv precious metal that backs the coin(s) in your possession
(- ... maybe the original seller of those coins, but not necessarily the single place where one can obtain already emitted coins).
I don't understand why you'd want the vault being involved in every transfer of the coins (backed by gold) that may happen between you and another third party?
This is where the blockchain replicated ledger offers an advantage, you contact anyone that (based on her/his own) copy of the ledger can guarantee that the seller of a coin is the rightful owner and that that coin is a legitimately emitted one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 26 2018, @10:21AM (3 children)
> ... you'd want ...
Whaaat the fucking fuck?!!?!? I've never said I wanted any such things. Please reread my posts for comprehension this time.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 26 2018, @10:50AM (2 children)
Then you aren't interested at all of using precious metals as money, and a classic vault is just enough for you.
Why do you deny that others may want something more and their want/need may be legitimate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 26 2018, @11:20AM (1 child)
Feel free to continue your argument with yourself, you seem perfectly capable of contributig both sides endlessly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 26 2018, @12:40PM
Then I really don't get you position to the gold backed cryptocurrency. And we can stop here indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday January 25 2018, @05:55AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @12:11AM
I don't know the Perth Mint's stated reason for doing this (because, let's be honest, I read nothing but the summary here), and I also don't know their actual reason for doing this (because I'm just an anonymous coward who, living on another continent, is not privy to the machinations of the Perth Mint).
But you can bet your sorry ass that they, out of all crpyto-minters imaginable, are not doing it as a social or economic experiment (because they're not a research institute), are not doing it as a sorely needed public service (because it isn't), and are also not doing it for the fun of it (because they're not being paid good australian dollars just to have fun).
I'll bet you ten of my AC-Coins to one that they're doing it to make money. You have but one try to tell me whose money it is going to be that they are going to make. But mumble blockchain mumble magic mumble get rich quick mu
Hint 1: not everybody is going to come out of this scheme richer than before
Hint 2: in the end, it's not going to be the Perth Mint holding the bag
Did anybody say "gold certificates" ? But mumble blockchain mumble magic mumble make money quick (tm) mumble.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:25AM (1 child)
There are currently no precious-metals backed currencies, crypto or otherwise. The country or company that creates one and resists the siren song of debasement will make a great deal of money. If Perth Mint does it in an open and transparent way with irreversible immalleable transactions and offers physical redemption of the digital coins then it is a fantastic idea.
It has a serious problem. If it gets popular, and it will, you'll start to see it used to clear large international transactions. The country with the currency currently used for that will not permit that to happen. They can't; the effect on their economy will be devastating. Wars have been fought for far less.
Full disclosure: I own a small quantity of precious metal bullion from Perth Mint, mostly silver, not enough worth stealing.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 26 2018, @11:23AM
I do get the feeling that xkcd's "standards" applies as much to currency as it does to technology.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves