I've been kicking around the idea of physical gold ledgered on a blockchain and having a gold backed crypto asset since about 2012. Come full circle now we are in 2017, and we are seeing several gold crypto asset projects pop up. The problem is, none of them actually provide any value to a buyer of their coin or asset.
OneGram essentially charges 10% spread on gold. It seems to me they are focusing on the Shariah compliant market, and charging the exorbitant 10% fee and expecting people not to notice. By the way, I can head down to a coin store and pay a very egregious 5-6% to buy a minted coin! Bullion certified and assayed an investor is probably paying BPS spread (not even a full percentage point)
Digix essentially provides gold priced to LBMA as a ledgered asset. Let me ask something here, why do I need Digix to buy gold at LBMA pricing? Why do I care if it is ledgered on a blockchain or not? They say one gram equals one token. But if their only pricing mechanism is priced to LBMA plus a transaction fee of 0.13% or 13 basis points, then why bother? In addition their FAQ says that storage fees are deducted automatically daily in the blockchain at ACT / 360 daily at 0.60% pa or 60 basis points per annum. It is not clear if the transaction fee applies to buyer, seller, or both. They also have recasting fees if you want to collect 100 gram bar physical gold. To recast dgx tokens into 100g gold bars for redemption will cost 1DGX (so effectively 1% spread to collect your physical gold)
I would like to hear what people think of the concept of crypto gold coin that is not priced to anything. By this I mean folks could let the crypto market decide the value and hence this would create an arbitrage opportunity where the blockchain asset rises compared to LBMA or visa versa. I think we have a business model where this would be possible without a transaction fee, with similar storage fees and assay fees, and a lower than 1% fee remove the gold from secure storage (provided KYC and AML due diligence is passed.
Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated!