11 Trillion USD Digital Gold
11 trillion USD Digital Gold, The London gold market is one of the oldest in the world, and it depends on a network of high-security vaults located underneath Greater London. There, some 50,000 gold bars, each worth more than $650,000, change hands every day among the four big banks in charge of processing transactions.
Topics
The World Gold Council (WGC)
Gold: The New Currency of Choice?
Correlation
The World Gold Council (WGC)
The World Gold Council (WGC) has recently partnered with Swiss-based DLT infrastructure and application developer aXedras Group. This partnership might make gold trading more accessible and automated.
The system has been trundling along with little change for most of the past two decades. But David Tait, who heads the World Gold Council—the main lobby group for miners of the metal—thinks it’s time for an overhaul. “We think there is scope to make this market much more efficient and fit for purpose in today’s digital world,” he said recently.
Tait’s comments come as central banks around the world are increasingly turning to gold as a store of value amid concerns about global economic instability. In 2018 alone, central banks bought 651 tons of gold—the second-highest annual total on record. And many experts believe that demand will continue to rise in 2019 and beyond.”
However, some insiders are sceptical of the relationship between the WGC and aXedras. Some believe that the WGC is trying to control the gold market by partnering with a company that can help them automate gold trading.
Others believe this partnership will ultimately benefit both parties involved, making gold trading more efficient and less expensive. Only time will tell what effect this partnership will have on the gold market. They also question whether aXedras has the expertise to deliver on its promises, Critics say that if the WGC is serious about making gold trading more accessible and automated, it should partner with an established player in this space rather than take a gamble on a relatively unknown start-up.
Gold: The New Currency of Choice?
But now, one former investment banker is trying to push through changes he hopes will significantly increase demand for gold, by making it easier to trade. His plan involves a database using blockchain technology to keep track of almost every gold bar in the world. Once that’s up and running, he says, it should be possible to create a digital token backed by physical gold that can be more easily traded.
The new system could make it much easier for investors to buy and sell gold, without having to go through the hassle (and expense) of storing it themselves. And if successful, it could give a boost to the flagging price of gold. So far, though, there are still some hurdles to overcome before the plan can become reality – not least of which is getting enough support from other traders and investors.
The next step in the plan could be to create a digital token backed by physical gold that can be more easily traded than the 400 oz gold bars, doing this, it would allow smaller investors to trade gold without having to worry about the large size and weight of traditional bars.
This would also make it easier for central banks to hold reserves of gold as they could simply store the tokens on a computer server. Overall, this would make trading and invest in gold much easier and more accessible for everyone involved.
Correlation
While gold and digital tokens may appear to compete with each other, they complement each other quite nicely. Gold has been used as a store of value for centuries, and its role is not likely to diminish any time soon. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is still in its infancy but shows great promise as a new asset class.
Investors would do well to consider both gold and digital tokens as part of their portfolios. While there may be some volatility in the short term, over the long run these assets are likely to provide stability and growth potential.
The World Gold Council (WGC) has announced a new initiative called Gold247 that it says will make gold more accessible and transparent to investors. The initiative is based on the creation of gold-backed tokens that can be used to purchase physical gold.
However, some market participants are sceptical about the chances of success for Gold247, given the failure of previous attempts to create a digital currency backed by gold.