Innovative Form of Gold Currency
We have been fascinated by gold for thousands of years. While some claim it has no
real value, other than what fear attaches to it, and even call it a "barbarous relic" (Warren Buffett), gold has
been used as medium of exchange for at least 5,000 years. It's a long time for something to be growing in
value that some believe it has no such value.
In the meantime, every known fiat currency has failed and the same fate awaits
those we are using now. It just a matter of time. This is the real reason why people place solid value on gold.
Yes, fear plays a part in it, but it's more to do with gold's hard redeemable value, which grows as fiat (paper)
currencies wither and vanish.
Due to current health and financial crisis,
the value of an ounce (oz) of gold has been nudging $1,900, after briefly hitting $2,000 recently. It's believed
though that this only a brief respite before gold's bull market resumes. Seeing many, if not all, major countries'
reserve banks printing money, the value of gold can only raise, despite all market manipulations that are still
used to keep the value down. Not to mention the wholesome destruction of savings through zero and even negative
lending rates.
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Created by the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, this mini
gold bars stored in a plastic card
present an innovative form of gold currency, that can be used for purchase or
savings. |
Innovative way to use gold as
currency
It's no surprise that some innovative ways are being implemented to start using
gold as a form of currency, as a safe store of value. This particular one comes from the former Soviet republic of
Uzbekistan.
They have created a 10-gram bar of gold (about a third of an ounce), sealed in a
credit-card like package. This handy bar of gold will set you back about $600 at the current price of an ounce of
gold being just over $1,800.
This innovative form of gold currency has been released last month by the Central
Bank of Uzbekistan - CBU. Their aim is to make gold accessible to more people for large payments, or as a means of
saving.
According to the veteran gold market analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs, writing at his
Substack site, these new gold bars have a special protective packaging with 3
security layers:
- a unique serial number
- a QR code for real-time digital authenticity verification
- and a membrane that changes colour when broken
These gold bars come in weights of 5, 10, 20 and 50 grams. They're available to
purchase at 28 commercial banks in Uzbekistan. An added value is that they can be sold back to the bank at any
time, even if the security seal (membrane) is broken.
It's a good example of traditionally valuable gold meeting some modern technology,
as means to authenticate it, while smaller packages make it handy to purchase it as needed. It's yet another way to
store value, without relying on value-losing paper currency.
Sources: - 5 Min. Forecast - 4. Dec.
2020
- Jan Nieuwenhuijs - https://thegoldobserver.substack.com/
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