Gold Bugs created their own Digital Currency "Independence Coin"

[keanbosch]

This week has seen the emergence of two separate plans to have the best of both worlds. Ripple, a digital payments network that allows people to transact in a range of virtual and traditional currencies, said it had developed a way for people to transact in a digital form of gold. The announcement on Tuesday came on the heels of a company called Anthem Vault saying it had created its own virtual currency backed by gold, known (inevitably) as Independence Coin.

It’s all the convenience of Bitcoin (to the extent there is any convenience in using Bitcoin) without the Bitcoin risk. All you have to worry about are the massive fluctuations in the price of gold.

Gold significantly not getting its price as high few years back but bitcoin did in a year..

Full details : Gold Bug's Independence Coin

[ensurance982]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

[keanbosch]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

[franky1]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

the guy behind it is Anthem Hayek Blanchard. he is the guy that got goldmoney.com to become what it is today, just becareful guys as these new currency is just an "IOU" backed by gold. it is not gold itself. if the business disapears or decides to just 'close shop' the coin has no other use.

not a scam, just an investor warning

[yayayo]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

[ensurance982]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

[taylortyler]

This was announced a few weeks ago. And there are hardly any details on your link. Much more info here: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/new-gold-backed-cryptocurrency-inncoin-allows-mine-gold-free/2014/07/18

[taylortyler]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

I love Bitcoin more than anything, but gold-backed seems better than a cryptocurrency backed by nothing doesn't it?

[franky1]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

I love Bitcoin more than anything, but gold-backed seems better than a cryptocurrency backed by nothing doesn't it?

not when the gold is physically stored away in Anthem Hayek Blanchard secret safe, where no one knows if he or one of his staff are selling the real stuff off. (so investors ask for public audits PLEASE!!!)

id rather trust maths which is something that cant run away or claim bankruptcy from a sauna bench at a sea facing hotel in hawaii.

[taylortyler]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

I love Bitcoin more than anything, but gold-backed seems better than a cryptocurrency backed by nothing doesn't it?

not when the gold is physically stored away in Anthem Hayek Blanchard secret safe, where no one knows if he or one of his staff are selling the real stuff off. (so investors ask for public audits PLEASE!!!)

id rather trust maths which is something that cant run away or claim bankruptcy from a sauna bench at a sea facing hotel in hawaii.

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

[franky1]

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

not really, lots of people trusted mark karpeles to store the real value in his cold store (safe) while they traded digital representations on an SQL database and look where they are. he ran off with the real value.

bitcoin itself is flawless in my eyes, but having to trust a third party with something that 'backs it' .. thats not for me
secondly 'goldmoney.com' doesnt use its 'receipts' for buying real world stuff or paying wages with. so if the company went bankrupt the receipts retain no other purpose.

same with the new independance coin. its distributed under Anthem Hayek Blanchard's new company, probably only traded on his exchange and only maybe, just maybe convertible to real gold delivered to your house by him too...

in short
no matter how secure he makes his IOU's, no matter how uncounterfeitable the IOU's are.. they are still IOU's of gold.

he might aswell make facebook credits that are only useful for poker chips within facebook.... in my eyes. even if those chips are real.. i prefer not have to trust a third party

[ensurance982]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

I love Bitcoin more than anything, but gold-backed seems better than a cryptocurrency backed by nothing doesn't it?

Well, to the uninformed person it might look safer or better or whatever. Bitcoin is perfectly protected by scarcity and the size of the payment network. It has an incredible value in transmitting money. The bigger the network, the safer the whole endeavor is. Also it needs to be accepted by a lot of people.
The problem with gold here is: That company is practically in total control of the currency. If they go bust, everything's gone. Haven't we seen this in bitcoin land, huh? Gold itself has little value, as well.

[inBitweTrust]

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

I would never trust a digital currency that is backed by a commodity stored centrally or decentrally. this is a recipe for disaster that introduces counter-party risk.

This has already been tested before with DGC, Liberty dollar , and egold. You can almost guarantee that the commodity will be stolen by the bankers, a government or third party or leveraged.

[taylortyler]

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

not really, lots of people trusted mark karpeles to store the real value in his cold store (safe) while they traded digital representations on an SQL database and look where they are. he ran off with the real value.

bitcoin itself is flawless in my eyes, but having to trust a third party with something that 'backs it' .. thats not for me
secondly 'goldmoney.com' doesnt use its 'receipts' for buying real world stuff or paying wages with. so if the company went bankrupt the receipts retain no other purpose.

same with the new independance coin. its distributed under Anthem Hayek Blanchard's new company, probably only traded on his exchange and only maybe, just maybe convertible to real gold delivered to your house by him too...

in short
no matter how secure he makes his IOU's, no matter how uncounterfeitable the IOU's are.. they are still IOU's of gold.

he might aswell make facebook credits that are only useful for poker chips within facebook.... in my eyes. even if those chips are real.. i prefer not have to trust a third party

"Not really" what? I agreed with you and then proposed a different idea. I think you got confused.

[inBitweTrust]

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

not really, lots of people trusted mark karpeles to store the real value in his cold store (safe) while they traded digital representations on an SQL database and look where they are. he ran off with the real value.

bitcoin itself is flawless in my eyes, but having to trust a third party with something that 'backs it' .. thats not for me
secondly 'goldmoney.com' doesnt use its 'receipts' for buying real world stuff or paying wages with. so if the company went bankrupt the receipts retain no other purpose.

same with the new independance coin. its distributed under Anthem Hayek Blanchard's new company, probably only traded on his exchange and only maybe, just maybe convertible to real gold delivered to your house by him too...

in short
no matter how secure he makes his IOU's, no matter how uncounterfeitable the IOU's are.. they are still IOU's of gold.

he might aswell make facebook credits that are only useful for poker chips within facebook.... in my eyes. even if those chips are real.. i prefer not have to trust a third party

"Not really" what? I agreed with you and then proposed a different idea. I think you got confused.

If I had a choice between a digital currency backed by individuals who secured their commodities themselves and a digital currency in which centralized institutions who were regulated and audited stored the commodity I would choose the latter. Both are dangerous and open to corruption. Your suggestion is far more dangerous however.

How do you prevent fraud, anonymity or the theft of the commodity after it has been registered?

[taylortyler]

So this is effectively e-gold? What about decentralization? Is there any reason this won't be shut down like e-gold?
I don't think this is going to get very far...

Exactly and E-Gold, which by far the price is always dependent on how much the current price of gold.

Ok then, it is backed by gold. But what's backing gold?

It's not a real cryptocurrency, it's an informal ETF.

People that still think that true cryptocurrencies need backing do not understand how money evolves.

ya.ya.yo!

Gold is backed by scarcity as of now. That basically is it. It's conductivity and other properties aren't bad, but they don't amount to nearly the price gold has. A decentralized currency that's an IOU for gold... I'll pass, thanks.

I love Bitcoin more than anything, but gold-backed seems better than a cryptocurrency backed by nothing doesn't it?

Well, to the uninformed person it might look safer or better or whatever. Bitcoin is perfectly protected by scarcity and the size of the payment network. It has an incredible value in transmitting money. The bigger the network, the safer the whole endeavor is. Also it needs to be accepted by a lot of people.
The problem with gold here is: That company is practically in total control of the currency. If they go bust, everything's gone. Haven't we seen this in bitcoin land, huh? Gold itself has little value, as well.

I think the future will see bitcoin and additional precious metal backed cryptocurrencies coexisting. If given a choice, people are (probably) always going to prefer having a physical asset backing their money. Imagine in 20 years when everyone will be able to store their own precious metals locally (no third party) and use a special device to weigh their precious metals, which will then be automatically converted and paired with a cryptocurrency (backed by that specific precious metal).

[franky1]

"Not really" what? I agreed with you and then proposed a different idea. I think you got confused.

bitcoin needs backing by nothing.
if i want to invest in an asset i want the asset, not a IOU voucher, receipt, certificate that represents the asset whilst someone else physically holds it.

EG mark karpeles
while people played on his exchange pressing buttons and moving SQL database balances (IOU's which get redeemed for real bitcoins at withdrawal). karpeles was saying all the proper bitcoins were in cold store...... look what happened.

the bitcoin i own is in itself the asset, backed by but maths which is the bitcoin. its not stored in any third party service or by anyone else that can run off with it.

any crypto coin backed by an asset makes the crypto coin no longer the actual asset, but simply an IOU, which gets redeemed if you ever get to have an agreement that you have the real asset delivered to you.

we need to keep the crypto technology out of the old IOU game

[taylortyler]

This is true... it does add a third party trust to the equation, which is never good. But they are supposedly stored in Brinks vault in Salt Lake City. Maybe one day,  a decentralized crypto protocol will be able to weigh our precious metals and convert them into crypto immediately. Then we can truly all be our own central banks backed by real assets. Damn, that's a great idea if I do say so myself.

not really, lots of people trusted mark karpeles to store the real value in his cold store (safe) while they traded digital representations on an SQL database and look where they are. he ran off with the real value.

bitcoin itself is flawless in my eyes, but having to trust a third party with something that 'backs it' .. thats not for me
secondly 'goldmoney.com' doesnt use its 'receipts' for buying real world stuff or paying wages with. so if the company went bankrupt the receipts retain no other purpose.

same with the new independance coin. its distributed under Anthem Hayek Blanchard's new company, probably only traded on his exchange and only maybe, just maybe convertible to real gold delivered to your house by him too...

in short
no matter how secure he makes his IOU's, no matter how uncounterfeitable the IOU's are.. they are still IOU's of gold.

he might aswell make facebook credits that are only useful for poker chips within facebook.... in my eyes. even if those chips are real.. i prefer not have to trust a third party

"Not really" what? I agreed with you and then proposed a different idea. I think you got confused.

If I had a choice between a digital currency backed by individuals who secured their commodities themselves and a digital currency in which centralized institutions who were regulated and audited stored the commodity I would choose the latter. Both are dangerous and open to corruption. Your suggestion is far more dangerous however.

How do you prevent fraud, anonymity or the theft of the commodity after it has been registered?

Who knows. It was just a spur of the moment idea. But, I could imagine some sort of device that can chemically test the metal to ensure that it's real, then weigh it and pair it with a cryptocurrency. How do you prevent your paper wallet from theft? Maybe by then there will exist cloaking devices of some sort.

[taylortyler]

"Not really" what? I agreed with you and then proposed a different idea. I think you got confused.

bitcoin needs backing by nothing.
if i want to invest in an asset i want the asset, not a IOU voucher, receipt, certificate that represents the asset whilst someone else physically holds it.

EG mark karpeles
while people played on his exchange pressing buttons and moving SQL database balances (IOU's which get redeemed for real bitcoins at withdrawal). karpeles was saying all the proper bitcoins were in cold store...... look what happened.

the bitcoin i own is in itself the asset, backed by nothing. any crypto coin backed by something else is not an asset, it is simply an IOU, which gets redeemed if you ever get to have an agreement that you have the real asset delivered to you.

we need to keep the crypto technology out of the old IOU game

I never said bitcoin needs backing. I'm saying that I think that bitcoin will coexist along with other cryptocurrencies backed by precious metals. Because people are most likely going to prefer having a physcial asset backing their currency, if given a choice.

[franky1]

I never said bitcoin needs backing. I'm saying that I think that bitcoin will coexist along with other cryptocurrencies backed by precious metals. Because people are most likely going to prefer having a physcial asset backing their currency, if given a choice.

i understand.
id say having a coin backed by gold is far far far better, instead of a receipt/certificate number stored on a central database. BUT (for me a big but) this in my experience should be used for day traders to play the gold markets short term. i prefer for long term, where it does not require lots of handling.. to convert that coin/certificate/IOU into physical gold.

id never hold a certificate/independance coin for more then a couple months. but id hold a bar of gold for the rest of my life.