Will There Ever Be A Gold Platform That Performs Like Bitcoin?

The company BitGold has just recently announced its mobile one-time and recurring payment feature through its platform. Users can now send reserves of the shiny precious metal in digital form via Android and IOS systems. All transactions within the system are always settled in vaulted gold. As global markets crash today, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and precious metals like gold have remained solid investments. The faster we can transact with these assets the better.  

Also read: Walter Isaacson: ‘There Will Always Be A Place For The Original Bitcoin’

“Gold has always been a great savings currency,” — Darrell MacMullin, CEO of BitGold

There will always be companies who want the legacy trust involved with Gold (AU) and the speed of Bitcoin-like transactions for their clientele. Darrell MacMullin, CEO of BitGold believes this latest offering is a great achievement for the precious metal sector by introducing gold through the mobile playing field. The commodity has always been traded and sought after for thousands of years and now it can be sent through cyberspace near instantly. MacMullin explains, “Gold has always been a great savings currency,” and he continues “Now, we add utility to gold with an easy-to-use operating system utilizing the latest payments technology. The BitGold Request Gold feature provides a truly global, efficient alternative to conventional bank or money transfer services and their ‘hidden fees’ in order to request or transfer value cost effectively. As a one-time payment request, or recurring in subscriptions, installments or retainers, this new feature has been designed to take the complexity and hidden costs out of requesting or sending funds globally, saving users both time and money.”

BitGold is a subsidiary of GoldMoney Incorporated a full-reserve financial firm. The company offers an array of services within the storage of precious metals and its trade executions. With the BitGold application the company allows users from over 200 countries access and maintain AU reserves more fluidly. GoldMoney Inc. has over 550,000 clients and continues to expand its services within the bullion ecosystem.

There are a few outfits who supply gold trading and crypto-exchanges through their platforms such as Vaultoro. The company enables users to convert their cryptocurrency into gold deposits. Attempts to create a digital currency using gold could possibly help Bitcoin’s stability, and there are those who really would like to meld the two together. Users operating with the Vaultoro application can also choose a 50/50 service that allows savings in both precious metals and cryptocurrency.

BitGold is not a cryptocurrency application and does not aim to be so. The company also takes a settlement fee of 1% per transaction for all of its P2P operations. Despite this fee, it is quite easy for people to send gold through their platform at a far cheaper rate than most international exchanges within the precious metals sector. BitGold wants to capture the popularity of smartphone use and financial savings with gold. This market is barely touched and could gain quite a bit of popularity.

BitGold claims on their website that they have the best prices within the industry as they have over “ten physical brinks locations” giving users lower prices overall. As said above there have been attempted trials of moving bullion speedily online, but operations like eGold, for instance, have failed miserably. The reason that Bitcoin has done so well is possibly because it doesn’t carry the weight of reserves and the tethered aspects of precious metal markets. However, it is still a dream for many to integrate or even emulate the digital currency’s aspects with gold or silver. When the economy is looking like it is in turmoil people will be looking into superior safeguards like silver, gold and Bitcoin. But can there be an eGold-like system that can compete with the digital currency? Time will tell… 

Will there ever be a gold platform that performs like Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of the BitGold website, Vaultoro website, and Wiki-Commons