For those with a background in more traditional investing, the rise of Bitcoin has presented a new dilemma. Should they go with the new, digitized store of wealth or stick with the more tried and trusted option, like gold? A number of emerging projects now allow investors to hedge their investments and benefit from the best of both worlds by merging digital finance with gold investments. Here are five of the best projects.
DigixDAO
DigixGlobal have brought tokenized gold to the Ethereum platform and their DigixDAO project allows users to buy tokens linked to purchases of gold bullion. The DigixDAO ICO concluded on March 31 2016 and collected $5.5M. This led to the creation of digital gold tokens (DGX) that would be minted into existence by the corresponding purchase of a physical gold bar from the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). The bars consist of 99.99% LBMA approved gold, and are also supplied, audited and stored by three separate companies.Each token represents 1 gram of gold. The DigixDAO also includes the DigixDAO asset (DGD) tokenon the Ethereum network that allows holders to pledge on future proposals and claim rewards for holding DGX. When the DGX token is sent to another blockchain user the transaction fees involved will be available for DGD holders to claim as a reward from DigixDAO.
bitGold
The Bitshares project includes a number of features, one of which is bitGOLD, a digital currency that tracks the price of an ounce on gold. The coin can be found on the Bitshares decentralized exchange and operates as a ‘SmartCoin’ whose value is pegged to that of another asset.These coins have 100% or more of their value backed by the BitShares core currency, BTS, and can be converted at any time at an exchange rate set by a trusted price feed. In the vast majority of market conditions, SmartCoins are guaranteed to be worth their face value at the least. The bitGold currency allows for easy transfer between BTS and the Bitshares stable coin bitUSD. Bitshares users benefit from being able to invest in a gold linked currency whilst having easy access to a less volatile digital asset in bitUSD.
HelloGold
The HelloGold team offer a gold-backed token and each digital gold token (GBT) is backed by a physical investment in gold and gives purchasers the ability to convert their vaulted gold into GBT.HelloGold deal with 99.99% investment grade gold and store their reserves with an independent, LBMA vaulting operator in Singapore. Each GBT is backed by one gram of gold with 0.0001 GBT representing 0.0001 grams of gold. HelloGold also offer the HGT token, which is ERC20 compliant and helps to secure the blockchain in addition to allowing easy trading through ERC20 compatible exchanges.
OneGram
OneGram is a Sharia-compliant cryptocurrency linked to gold with each digital token backed by one gram of gold. Islamic Sharia-compliant financing excludes gambling related activities and forbids borrowing on investors’ money. Each OneGram transaction generates a small fee and this is reinvested to buy more gold and increase the amount of gold that backs each token. As transaction volumes increase, more gold is added to the vault and this ensures that each OneGram is worth more over time, and all OneGram owners share in the profit.70% of transaction fees are reinvested to buy more gold and 25% of the transaction fee is used toward development and operations while the remaining 5% is divided between rewards for Proof of Stake miners and charity donations. OneGram concluded a high value ICO on September 4 2017 with CEO Ibrahim Mohammed, revealing that initially over 1,000 people registered for GoldGuard accounts to participate.
GoldMint
GoldMint is a recently launched and promising project led by Dmitry Plutschevsky, co-founder of Lot-Zoloto, a gold trading company based in Russia with a trading turnover of $100$M.The GoldMint digital asset is GOLD, a 100% gold-backed token and GoldMint will ensure the coins persistent value using paper assets such as ETFs and futures in addition to physical assets. GOLD holders will also be able to use their tokens in guarantees, loans, and escrow services. However, GOLD will be subject to a 5% purchase and 3% sale fee.GoldMint will also release MNT, a utility token on the Ethereum blockchain used for operations, the implementation of smart contracts, and for rewarding block creation and transaction confirmation. MNT owners will receive 75% of the commissions obtained from processing GOLD transactions in return for aiding in the facilitation of the blockchain.