E-gold
is an electronic currency,
issued by e-gold Ltd., a Nevis corporation, 100% backed
at all
times by
gold bullion
in
allocated storage. Other e-metals
are also issued: e-silver is 100% backed by silver, e-platinum
is 100% backed by platinum, and e-palladium
is 100% backed by palladium. However, the most popular
e-metal (by an overwhelming margin) is e-gold. e-gold
is integrated into an account based payment system that empowers
people to use gold as money. Specifically,
the e-gold payment system enables people to Spend specified
weights of gold to other e-gold accounts. Only the ownership
changes - the gold in the treasury grade vault stays put.
World
wide money The world wide web needs world wide money. e-gold was created
in response to this need. e-gold is accounted by weight of metal, not US$ or
any other national currency unit. Weight units have a precise,
invariable,
internationally recognized definition. Additionally, precious
metals, gold in particular, enjoy a long history of monetary
use around the world. Thus, e-gold is ideally suited for
international transactions. Although e-gold is accounted
by weight, the e-gold payment system allows Spends to be
expressed in terms of
eight major
national currencies (as of this writing). For example,
it's possible to:
Spend 10 troy
oz worth of e-gold
Spend 5.3 grams worth of e-gold
Spend US $100.00 worth of e-gold
Spend
CHF 685.88 worth of e-gold This means (for example)
that a Canadian can pay a German or a Japanese can pay
an Australian the correct weight of
gold (e-gold) for a good or service as easily as if the
price had been quoted in his own national currency.
Corporate History
Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. (G&SR),
a Delaware Corporation, developed and deployed the e-gold payment
system in 1996, and
through 1999 administered both payment settlement and currency
exchange. In
January 2000, the core e-gold roles of Issuance and Settlement
were devolved to e-gold Ltd., a Nevis W.I. company created
specifically to serve as the General Contractor responsible
for performance of the e-gold Account User Agreement. This
separation of roles was designed to further assure e-gold’s
freedom from default risk and finality of settlement by
dissociating the e-gold Issuer from business risks relating
to exchange. G&SR, Inc. continues to serve as
Operator of the e-gold payment system, as well as offering
its own
innovative
set of hybrid currency exchange services, known as OmniPay.
