GoldMoney

Goldmoney is a global full reserved gold-based financial services company founded by James Turk, Roy Sebag, and Josh Crumb. The company operates under the Network, Wealth, Physical, and Insights subsidiaries which offer full reserve precious metal focused financial services encompassing savings, payments, wealth services, dealing, execution, custody, and research.^[1] Goldmoney Inc. was formed as a holding company following the acquisition by publicly listed BitGold Inc. of the Goldmoney business in 2015. The company subsequently changed its name to Goldmoney Inc. The company has over 1,400,000 clients and total customer assets of 1.8 billion representing 34.1 tonnes of gold making it one of the largest privately owned gold reserves in the world.^[2]

1 Description
2 History
3 Corporate affairs
4 Fees
5 External Links
6 See Also
7 References

Description

Goldmoney In-Store Experience

GoldMoney is a payment network for digital currencies each backed by a precious metal. The company holds the precious metal in reserve and issues currency units denominated in units of the metal.

The currencies and units offered are:

Gold – Goldgrams
Silver – Silver ounces
Platinum – Platinum grams
Palladium – Palladium grams

Transactions made to a merchant or sent to another GoldMoney member clear instantly. Only customers with “full holding” accounts are able to make payments using the currency. Payment are non-repudiable^[3].

With GoldMoney payments being irrevocable (i.e., no charge-backs) it is a method embraced by Bitcoin traders as bitcoin payments are irrevocable as well. These traders may be found on the bitcoin-otc marketplace, for instance.

History

GoldMoney was started in 2001 and by 2011 it had $2 billion USD of customer assets in storage^[4] Though offers to trade bitcoins for GoldMoney and vice-versa were discussed as early as October 2010, the first bitcoin to GoldMoney trade appears to have occurred in July, 2011^[5].

The GoldMoney P2P digital currency was restricted to accounts domiciled in Jersey in 2011 because of regulatory concerns and eventually discontinued by the company. However in an ironic twist GoldMoney created a Bitcoin-to-gold exchange company called Netagio in 2014 and in 2015 Goldmoney was acquired by BitGold^[6]

According to an interview with CNBC they have 104,817 active customers and store approximately 276 kilograms of bullion stored or about $10.7 million at $1,213 per ounce. This means there are approximately $103 per active user.

Major competitors include BullionVault and GoldMoney. BullionVault has approximately 55,000 customers and $2B of bullion stored or about $36,000 per customer while GoldMoney has about 22,000 customers and $1.3B or about $60,000 per customer.

On March 4, 2015 Bitreserve brought suit against Bitgold in the New York Southern District Court case number 1:2015cv01593.

On May 13, 2015 Bitgold Inc. began trading on the TSX Venture exchange in Canada.

On May 22, 2015 Bitgold Inc. announced the purchase of GoldMoney operating subsidiaries and intellectual property in a transaction valued at CAD $51.9m.

On June 26, 2015 Bitgold Inc. announced:

” US residents can sign up on the BitGold platform and buy, sell, or redeem gold using BitGold’s Aurum payment and settlement technology. US residents will also have access to the BitGold mobile app and a prepaid card when these features launch over the coming weeks. Send and receive gold payment features are not initially available in the US.”

Corporate affairs

Goldmoney Inc. is headquartered in Toronto Canada and in Saint Helier Jersey. The company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and has a market capitalization of $400 million as of October 15, 2017. GoldMoney Inc. investors and backers include Eric Sprott, Albert D. Friedberg, George Soros, Adam Fleming, and Canadian Banks Canaccord Genuity and the company has raised in excess of $100 million in capital.

Goldmoney Network

Goldmoney Network is a self-directed gold payments and savings network based in Toronto, Canada. Users of the network may open personal or business accounts allowing them to save, spend, send, receive, earn and redeem physical gold bullion within the network. The company has stated that it is a full-reserve and gold-based financial service. ^[7]. Roy Sebag who is one of the founders invented and patented a gold settlement technology which is a ledger that collects and distributes real-time gold prices from bullion counterparties making it more accessible to buy and sell physical gold at the market spot price.

Goldmoney Wealth

Goldmoney Wealth is a worldwide precious metal custodian and investment firm headquartered in Saint Helier, Jersey in the British Channel Islands. Goldmoney Wealth allows its customers to buy, sell or hold physical allocated metal stored in high-security vaults located in five countries. Goldmoney also provides its clients with wealth services, trading and execution, custody, and research on macroeconomic market trends relating to financial markets. The company was founded by former Chase Manhattan banker and commodity forecaster James Turk in 2002. Turk has stated that the company’s mission was to “establish a financial institution that would recognise gold’s significance as a financial asset.”^[8] As of December 2015, the company has stated it looks after over 1.5 billion in customer assets held under bailment contract (company has possession but client retains property, full title).

Goldmoney Physical

Goldmoney Physical sells and distributes physical precious metal products including minted coins, bars and trademarked Goldmoney GoldCubes™ and 100 gram Goldmoney gold bars. These are available as a redemption option for Goldmoney clients with accounts or holdings and the general public who can purchase directly from Goldmoney’s new physical division (previously SchiffGold). The division was formed following the acquisition of Peter Schiff’s SchiffGold business based in New York, USA.

Goldmoney Insights

Goldmoney Insights is a research portal available to Goldmoney clients providing objective and unbiased insights into prevailing market conditions and global macro trends affecting the world, markets, and culture. Goldmoney Insights research is led by Alasdair Macleod, Stefan Wieler, John Butler, James Turk, and Joshua Crumb^[9].

Awards and Accolades

On March 2, 2017, Goldmoney was selected as the most innovative technology solution of the year at the 2016 Canadian Startup Awards. Following this achievement, Goldmoney was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Minister of Finance Charles Sousa by the Private Capital Markets Association of Canada (PCMA). Having received the 2016 PCMA Corporate Finance Award, Goldmoney was chosen as an example private market success story and invited to join members of PCMA leadership team to discuss how the company has benefited from the private capital ecosystem in Ontario.

Fees

There are fees when buying the currency, for demurrage (storage), and when making payments or withdrawing funds. The rates are disclosed on the GoldMoney site.

External Links

References

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Companies