For many centuries, humankind’s most stable form of currency has been precious metals. As they are rare, they offer a method of hedging against any pitfalls that come with the ownership of fiat currencies or government-issued money. The money issued by the government is subject to becoming diluted in value due to the printing of notes, forcing sensible long-term investors to move towards precious metals to preserve their wealth.
However, this wealth is slowly eroded by the fees that come with the storage of precious metals. This includes expenses such as management fees and storage fees, and thus decreases the economic viability of storing gold for an extended period of time. Moreover, it is not easy to utilize it in everyday transactions as no modern merchant accepts gold or silver coins as payment.
There exists a way to circumvent all of this and make precious metals realize the potential they have accumulated throughout the time they have existed. With the advent of the blockchain, it is possible to tokenize any asset and give it the ease of access and transfer on the blockchain without changing its actual physical location.
Airgead Coin aims to be the trend-setter in this area and is based on digitizing real-world assets in order to provide a stable currency to hedge against inflation. This is due to the fact that precious metals protect the wealth and value of central bank currencies, offer a fair value of trade worldwide and a stable saving opportunity for investors.
Airgeadcoin stores precious metal coins and bars in secure storage facilities with no storage fees or management fees for holding the metals. They will offer users ease of access to their assets through the digital precious metals wallet. This allows for the safe storage and management of their precious metal coins. As a part of the Airgead Coin ecosystem, a precious metal exchange will allow the value of all coins and bars to be valued in real time.
All of this transaction will be conducted through a blockchain, thus harnessing the power of decentralization to remove power from governments. This effectively lets users of AirgeadCoin be their own personal bank.
The wallets, in question, have classifications for 4 coins depending on which metal they are backed by. The platform aims to offer gold and silver at launch and add platinum and palladium as the prices for the former two are established.
The coins are further broken down with more data points such as content, purity, year and all other data required for transacting precious metals.
New users do not need to have complex knowledge regarding precious metals as all of the required information is provided with data points such as value, historic value, and the exchange rate of these precious metals.
Each coin holds a specific title that is unique and is determined by what it contains. This includes details such as weight, which metal the coin is made of, the year, and the purity of the coin. This data is encrypted using a secret key, with the coin itself being comprised of both the data and the key.
As Airgeadcoin requires the storage of data in large files, a traditional proof-of-work blockchain would not be able to fulfill its purposes. Therefore, the development team created the Decentralized Precious Metals File Sharing [DPMFS], a peer-to-peer protocol where nodes store a hashed version of the files that include the data of the coins.
This allows the digital precious metals wallet to access the abstraction layer of the blockchain, where the hash of the digital coin file is called. The DPMFS system then combs through nodes to access the data and provide it to the user.
Airgead Coin aims to circumvent the usual arduous, time and capital-consuming process of trading precious metals physically. It does so through its market, which functions as an auction market exchange.
Users can buy and sell precious metal coins between one another with the highest bidding price being matched with the lowest asking price. The pricing and valuing of assets on the market are without any extra costs, restrictions or barriers as seen with traditional precious metals markets.
After the establishment of the 4 main assets on the markets, namely gold, silver, platinum and palladium, Airgead will begin introducing generic, semi-numismatic and numismatic coins and bars for trading on the platform through auctions. The numismatic and semi-numismatic coins, in particular, are heavily preferred by collectors and will allow users to invest in high-valued precious metals or coins.
Payment systems in the real world will also be advanced and will be implemented to allow for payments with complete protection over precious metals. Airgead Coin also offers credit and debit cards so as to ensure the smooth integration with existing payment systems.
Airgead Coin has strict policies when it comes to storage facilities for precious metals. Any willing facility has to check off a laundry list of security and accessibility features such as systems in place for offshore jurisdiction and strong privacy. Moreover, they must also provide insurance, support for external audits, be able to exchange gold for Airgeadcoin and vice versa.
The makers of Airgeadcoin are holding the ICO as they do not have support from the government or other similar organizations. The holders of the Airgeadcoin will be rewarded with profits generated for Airgead. Moreover, they will also be paid in dividends in the form of precious metals.