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Digital Gold Industry Overview. Jim Davidson Free Market Monetary Education Association www.freemarketmoney.org 13 December 2006. The Digital Gold Economy. Ten years old Key Entrepreneurs High level participants Growing Sound Economics. History of the Digital Gold Industry.
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Digital Gold Industry Overview Jim Davidson Free Market Monetary Education Association www.freemarketmoney.org 13 December 2006
The Digital Gold Economy • Ten years old • Key Entrepreneurs • High level participants • Growing • Sound Economics
Historyof theDigital Gold Industry • Founded 1996 by Doug Jackson of e-gold • Liberty Dollar founded in 1998 by Bernard von NotHaus • In 2001: GoldMoney founded by James Turk; e-Bullion founded by Jim & Pamela Fayed; 1MDC founded by JP May; Pecunix founded by Sidd Davis • In 2005: Loom founded by Patrick Chkoreff; Phoenix Dollar founded by Gordon Hayes
Key Entrepreneurs Doug Jackson Co-founded e-gold 1996 with Barry Downey. Melbourne, Florida. Seeks freedom from default risk, finality of settlement, international reach. Bernard von NotHaus Founded Liberty Dollar 1998. Monetary architect for a well-designed competitive currency. Twenty-five years mint master Royal Hawai’ian Mint. Author of The Liberty Dollar Solution.
Key Entrepreneurs James Turk Founded GoldMoney in 2001. Concerned about failure of Herstatt bank in June 1974. Developed digital gold solution. Author of Coming Collapse. Simon “Sidd” Davis Founded Pecunix in 2001. Civil engineer, programmer, entrepreneur.
Key Entrepreneurs Jim Fayed Co-founded e-Bullion in 2001 with wife Pamela Fayed. Cousin to Dodi al-Fayed. Goldfinger Coin and Bullion coin shop owner. JP May Founded 1MDC in 2001. Multi-millionaire software entrepreneur, Interesting Software, Ltd. Developed BestGoldCard in 2005.
High Level Participants Doug Casey Recommended GoldMoney in his International Speculator newsletter. Bestselling author, entrepreneur, financial advisor. Wes McCain Towneley Capital Management (est. $8 billion under management) is a director in GoldMoney
High Level Participants Clifford Press Chairman of GoldMoney. Co-founded Hyde Park Holdings in 1986 with Laurence Levy. Hyde Park owns High Voltage, an industrial holding company with annual revenues of $500 million, and other companies. DRD Gold, Ltd. Shareholder in GoldMoney. This 111-year old gold mining company has annual revenues of $250 million. IAMGold Corp. Shareholder in GoldMoney. Mid-tier gold mining company.
Size • $293 million in gold, silver, and other metals are stored to provide redemption for digital gold currencies in circulation • Four and a half million accounts across eight major currency services • About 50,000 active web stores offering products and services in exchange for gold • About $10 billion in economic transactions in 2006
Market Share by Circulated Value Note: Not all digital gold currencies report circulation.
Market Share by Users Estimates based on various sources.
e-gold growth Gold area is gold bars in circulation Red line is fee income to e-gold from all account spend activity
e-gold statistics Account value distribution histograms Note: Largest gold accounts are likely 1MDC storage accounts, representing ~80,000 secondary users.
Industry growth - transactions millions of dollars 2006 2004 Source: indomitus.net/2004status.html
Industry growth - accounts thousands of accounts 2006 2004 Source: indomitus.net/2004status.html
Industry growth - online stores 2006 2004 Source: indomitus.net/2004status.html
Industry growth - value stored millions of dollars 2006 2004 Source: indomitus.net/2004status.html
Why are users choosing it? • Online convenience • Reduces currency exchange risk • Concerns about inflation • trade deficits • fiscal deficits • war • Good store of value • Financial privacy
Limitations • Inconvenient to convert fiat to digital • Inconvenient to convert digital to fiat Liberty Gold Card overcomes both limitations
Conclusions • Industry is large and growing • Product life cycle has completed innovators and early adopters, starting on mainstream • Liberty Gold Card is well positioned to attract fifty thousand to one hundred thousand users