Goldchip Investments (Goldma) has a very intriguing concept. Goldma is introducing a new token, Goldchip Mining Asset (GMA) that allows for the blockchain based investment in gold mining operations in Zimbabwe. A portion of the profits of the gold mine will be set aside to be disbursed as Ether to the GMA token holders.
The problem that GOLDMA has identified is that currently, investment in gold mining operations is heavily slanted towards big business and large investors. The individual investor has basically no opportunity to invest meaningfully in gold production, only in buying and selling gold on the market. They feel that this is a tremendous untapped market for both individual investors and for gold and mineral extraction operations as smaller investors can buy into these extraction operations at much smaller but more numerous shares than traditionally allowed, and extraction operations can market themselves to the individual investors instead of the few gigantic investors that control the investment market at present.
GoldMa Vision
Goldchip is currently expanding operations at their Zimbabwe location, transitioning from a manually fed system to a mechanized processing and recovery plant. This is a giant step up from their current operations which have netted approximately $275,000 in actual gold sales thus far.
Goldchip intends to use the investments from their token offering to expand operations at their 16 current claims. This will include the building of a centralized milling facility that will offer milling services to local small scale miners at a reasonable rate in addition to processing the output from Goldchip’s mines. Aside from another income stream, providing the use of the milling facility to local miners should increase goodwill and local sentiment around the project.
Immediately, 5% of all mining profits per quarter will be paid as Ethereum to GoldMa token holders. Long term, the goal will be to build a blockchain platform which will work to provide fundraising opportunities for gold mining projects worldwide. They would like to build a community of investors to explore and exploit gold deposits globally.
ICO Details
Token Symbol: GMA
Tokens Available: 730,300,000 GMA
Value: $.13/GMA
Soft Cap: 12,500 ETH
Hard Cap: 175,000 ETH
Stages:
- Pre-Private: April 23 - 30, 2018
- Private: May 3 - June 4, 2018
- Pre-ICO: June 7 - July 9, 2018
- ICO: July 12 - Oct 12, 2018
- 51% - ICO
- 25.5% - Pre-ICO
- 20.4% - Early Investors
- 3.1% - Bounty, advisors
- 45.2% - Equipment
- 16.6% - Reserves
- 4.4% - Gold Buying
- 12.3% - Consulting
- 3% - Administrative
Holders of GMA tokens will receive quarterly dividend disbursements based on the amount of tokens they hold at the time and the amount of profit generated that quarter.
Goldma will be buying back tokens, using 20% of each quarter’s gross revenue in that manner. Token holders will be notified before the general public as to when the tokens will be purchased.
Conclusion
The use of blockchain in minerals extraction investment is the kind of groundbreaking, pardon the pun, thinking that has made blockchain such a successful technology in such a short time period. Greatly reducing the investment overhead in this market could pay astronomical dividends to investors and companies alike. Aside from bringing in a more diverse investor pool, comprised of many interested investors instead of a few monolithic ones, this concept also allows for the exploration and extraction of smaller mines in a way the current paradigm simply doesn’t support. Even further, because the risk is so well spread out, even unsuccessful extraction attempts will cause relatively little pain to any one particular investor.
Minerals extraction and gold extraction in particular are very advanced and specialized fields, and while everything appears to be covered, this is definitely a time when due diligence is required. Interestingly, they are offering to allow any investors access to the mine to confirm its existence and operations, though travel costs are not covered. Fund distribution appears to be in line with the major risks and concerns of a minerals extraction operation, with the largest chunk going to equipment and development, both critical to the success of the mine and the token. It’s also great to see that 12% is going to consulting, as making sure that the best possible procedures and methods are followed is a great way to stay ahead of the pack and keep a competitive edge.
More exciting, perhaps, than even the current and medium term plans relating to minerals extraction is the long term plan to build a blockchain based investment platform for gold production on a global scale. Enough interested investors could easily fund multiple small to medium sized projects that would fly well below the radar of the major multi-national extraction corporations. This could well be a boon for the gold extraction industry as a whole, as more jobs would likely be created in small mines and claims, and that would lead to a healthier industry, though it may lead to a lowering in gold prices directly. Taken even another step, this could be applied to other precious or valuable minerals, too, moving perhaps from the giant multi-nationals owning huge mines to a network of smaller operators running smaller claims funded by crowdsourced fundraising. This could easily be used for other precious metals, gemstones, industrial resources and more.
This appears to be a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of not only a new business, but a new sector for blockchain based investment. This should be a leading project that others will likely follow and that tip of the spear inertia is likely to help lead this project to success. Smart management and appropriate on-the-ground expertise are both also critical to the success of the mines and that appears to be in place, from the information provided. Further, the business model appears well developed and the dividend sharing appears to be well thought out and fair.
Links
Website
Whitepaper
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