Digital Gold Magazine Jan 2016

8/20/2019 Digital Gold Magazine Jan 2016

1/49DIGITALGOLD.MONEY 1

DIGITALGOLD

January 2016 Vol. 1 Issue 1

Available January 2016

INSIDE THE NEW DGX UI

SILENCING BITCOIN

BITGOLD:A MODERN REVOLUTION IN FINANCE

COEPTIS IS LIVE BETA


2/492 JANUARY 2016

DIGITALGOLD

MAGAZINE

Publishedby

Digital CurrencyIntelligence Authority

DCIA Ltd.71–75 Shelton Street,

Covent GardenLondon, UK

[email protected]@dcia.us

Skype ‘digitalcurrency’

Digital Gold Magazine ispublished 12 times a year

online. Some of the productsfeatured in this magazine

are not yet available to U.S.residents. Please check local

laws before using any productmentioned in this digital

publication.

No part of this publication may be

reproduced or transmitted in any

form without written permissionfrom DCIA Ltd. The information

contained herein are opinions of

sources and interviews. DCIA Ltd.

claims no reliability or accuracy to

any information contained within.

The Digital Gold Magazine is

published for reference purposes

only and is not materially

responsible for errors.



ContentsDigital Gold Magazine - January 2016 www.digitalgold.money

5 Coeptis is Live in Beta

7 Coinify & DigixGlobal Announce Bitcoin Partnership

9 The Power to Issue Money by Jim Davidson

12 Silencing Bitcoin

17 A Sneak Peek at the New DigixGlobal User Interface

32 Bitgold: A Modern Revolution in Finance by Nick Marinoff

36 The Digix Asset Tokenization Process

45 New EU License for WebMoney Brings New Requirements

46 What Group Will Soon be Enjoying the Benefits of Digital Currency?


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http://gb.ae/http://gb.ae/http://gb.ae/



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Melbourne, Florida (December 26, 2015) – CMO, Inc. (COEPTIS) has launched a beta of its Global Standard

System, which is an alternative global payment system utilizing next generation technologies mobilizing the

value of gold for electronic transfer of value on the Internet.

The System resolves shortcomings that plague online payments by providing substantial benets to both

businesses and consumers while achieving high levels of consumer protection and privacy. The patent pending

System is secure, easily accessible, makes e commerce more available to customers not adequately served

by traditional payment systems and brings greater efciency to payment settlement in an increasingly global

economy. The System currency (AUG) is 100% reserved by physical gold. Payment occurs on a centralized

settlement platform which is universally accessible to customers. Payments are very efcient, settle immediately,

and are nal. The cost of a transaction is lower than alternatives. The system has strong controls for anti-

money laundering and consumer protection; and meets or exceeds all federal, state, and international regulatory

requirements.

COEPTIS is licensed or otherwise authorized to operate in U.S. states representing nearly two-thirds the U.S.

population and will be obtaining approvals in the remaining states as well as Canada and Europe before expanding

to a larger global market. The current beta launch is designed to manage the expected high early growth of the

System. Sign-up is currently by invitation only with priority to persons in states in which COEPTIS is currently

licensed. A request for an invitation can be made at www.coeptis.com. Full launch of the System is expected

soon.

Bill Cunningham, CEO of COEPTIS, said “We are very excited to bring this System to the market. Our team has

worked hard to ensure we bring great benet to consumers and businesses while also providing the protections

required by these consumers and our regulatory authorities.”

COEPTIS recognizes that global payments are too slow, uncertain, costly, and inefcient globally, and that there

is a growing concern with identity protection. COEPTIS was started in 2013 to build out intellectual property

to address these market concerns while also addressing public policy and regulatory concerns with payments.

COEPTIS is headquartered in Melbourne, FL.

For further information, contact:

[email protected]

855-673-7176 (701)

http://www.coeptis.com/#/abouthttp://www.coeptis.com/#/abouthttp://www.coeptis.com/#/abouthttp://www.coeptis.com/#/abouthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsRBPPz-plAhttp://www.coeptis.com/#/about


6/496 JANUARY 2016

WebMoney Gets a EULicense and Expands itsPresence in The EuropeanUnion

November 18, 2015

The global settlement system WebMoney Transfer

has entered into partnership with a new guarantor

licensed to issue e-money within the European

Union.

The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) license

granted to WebMoney Europe Ltd with head ofces

in Cambridge, United Kingdom has secured the

company`s status as an e-money issuer in all countries

within the European Economic Area. As a result,the Euro purses within the system are acquiring the

status of e-money and are in full compliance with

the legislation of the European Union.

As a part of the expansion of its presence in Europe

in the recent months, WebMoney has signicantly

increased the number of top-up points for Euro purses

as well as the number of online stores accepting

WebMoney. The WebMoney technical support team

is already providing support for Euro purses whilethe services within the system are being adapted for

the European users.

Currently, the system is used by over 29 million

users worldwide, with around 10 thousand users

registering with the system daily. WebMoney is

accepted as a payment method by more than 100

thousand online stores globally.

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) haslicensed WebMoney Europe Ltd as anemoney issuer in all European Unioncountries. With more than 29 millioncurrency users, WebMoney is acceptedby more than 100 thousand onlinestores around the world.

An announcement from BitGold December 31, 2015.

The Request Gold Payment tool is now live, allowing

users to earn gold onto the network by sending

payment requests for their time, labour, goods or

services.

We believe that transferring value online should beeasy, instant, and secure. BitGold allows you to send

a payment request to other individuals, anywhere in

the world – with or without a BitGold account, with

the resulting payment settled in gold to your private

vault account.

Someone working in Greece and parting with their

services can be earning gold in Canada, London,

Zurich or elsewhere.

Just log in to your BitGold Dashboard and select the

Request Payment tab to get started. It is as easy as

entering the contact name, email address or mobile

number and the amount you are requesting.

Once you have sent a Request for Payment, the

recipient will receive an email that will prompt them

to open their BitGold account, if they haven't already,

fund their account and complete the payment request.

Unfortunately, at this time, U.S. users will not be

able to send, receive, or request gold payments on the

platform. Additionally, gold received into the Dubai

vault may be restricted from some functionality.

Contact the company for more details.

© Copyright 2015 BitGold Inc., 334 Adelaide St. W,

Toronto, ON M5V 1R4. All rights reserved.

Request Gold PaymentTool Has OfciallyLaunched on the BitGoldPlatform



October 26, 2015

Coinify and DigixGlobal Private Limited (Singapore

UEN: 201479386E) are proud to announce a formal

business partnership. All bitcoin payments going

through Digix will solely be processed throughCoinify.

This represents a signicant initiative between

Ethereum and Bitcoin based companies demonstrating

how both blockchain ecosystems can work together.

The partnership between an Ethereum based company

and a Bitcoin based company is one of the industry’s

rst, signifying that both ecosystems can grow

together. Bitcoin users can now easily own Ethereum

digital assets apart from Ether.

Digix allows users to purchase assets like investment

grade gold bullion with bitcoin, thereafter facilitating

physical asset issuances on the blockchain. These

digital keys issued on the Ethereum blockchain will

have the same transactional utility of Bitcoin and can

also be made fungible into divisible digital tokens

called “ Digix Tokens ” representative of grams of

gold allocated 1:1.

Morten Bebe, Coinify’s sales manager, believes that

this is a signicant step in future collaboration with

other blockchains. “ Digix’s unique and decentralized

approach in the creation of gold backed tokens will

help promote the crypto ecosystem.”

“We are very excited to be working with Coinify,”

says Kai, the CEO / Co-Founder of Digix. “We have

looked at other payment processors and found Coinify

Coinify and DigixGlobalAnnounce BitcoinPartnership in Singapore

Coinify is the first bitcoin payment

processor to partner with an Ethereumbased company processing bitcoinpayments for crypto-assets onEthereum.

to be the best in terms of service, reliability, and

willingness to innovate with young companies in

Asia.

Now end users can easily purchase crypto assets on

Ethereum with bitcoin.” Kai adds, “We have always

been open to collaborations and100 thousand online

stores globally.

About Coinify:

Coinify ApS drives mainstream adoption of digital

currencies, such as Bitcoin, for merchants and

consumers. Merchants benet from Coinify’s

Payment Service (PSP), enabling free, instant

settlements in a fraud-free and chargeback-free

blockchain payment environment, while customers

get access to secure, one-click payments that reveal

no sensitive information. Coinify is backed by a

multi-million dollar capital injection from SEEDCapital (funded by the Danish government) and

Accelerace, and is the leading European digital

currency market player. For more information about

Coinify, visit their website at coinify.com

About Digix:

Digix is an asset ownership certication and

tokeniization platform for physical assets. Users

who purchase or store gold bullion with Digix’s

participating suppliers and custodial vaults will be

able to own digital assets on the blockchain and

create divisible gold tokens that have the same

transactional utility and functionality as bitcoin. For

more information please contact:

Coinify ApS

Herlev Hovedgade 15B, 1.

2730 Herlev, Greater Copenhagen, Denmark

+45 3693 4994

Marketing and PR - Lenka Hudakova

Email: [email protected]

DigixGlobal Pte Ltd

10 Anson Road #05-17

International Plaza S079903, Singapore

+1-917-267-8977

Co-Founder & CEO - Kai Cheng Chng

Email: [email protected]

http://dgx.io

http://dgx.io/http://dgx.io/


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Who should have the power to issue money?

It seems likely that a great many people probably haven’t thought about this question, ever. After all, since

the beginning of recorded history, various types of governments, including republics, kings, priest-kings,

and dictatorships have issued money.

If you open up your wallet, you probably nd some paper money in there issued by some government, or on

behalf of a central bank that is authorized by some government. Very likely, you also have some credit or debit

cards issued by banks or credit unions, but these are only corporate extensions of governments, so not really that

different. Some people have gift cards from various companies, but these are corporations, therefore creaturesof the state. Moreover, most gift cards are denominated in national currencies.

My own wallet has a couple of Ron Helwig’s Shire silver and gold wire cards, too. These are laminated cards

which contain thin strips of silver in one case, and a length of thin gold wire in the other. In other words, they

are actual gold and silver visibly embedded in the clear plastic laminate of the card.

If you are fond of history, you may have heard of the tendency of Roman emperors to debase their gold and

silver coinage, and the tendency of the Byzantine emperors to stick with the good stuff. You may have heard

that Revolutionary France was beset with inated paper money called the assignat by the national assembly and

the mandat by the Directorate – the same Directorate that used guillotines in its search for peace and justice and

discovered only baskets of severed heads and rivers of blood.

You may know that one of Napoleon’s secrets to popularity was restoring gold and silver coins to circulation

and melting the printer plates used to make the paper money. You may be aware of the adventures of Marco

Polo with paper money in China under Kublai Khan. And you are probably aware of the creation in late 1913

of a Federal Reserve that gradually replaced gold and silver coins in the United States with book entry and paper

money along with coins made out of base metals like zinc.

If you aren’t fond of history, essentially nothing in the preceding two paragraphs means anything to you. Which

THE POWER TO ISSUE MONEY

BY JIM DAVIDS ON

AH TAKE THE CASH AND LET THE CREDIT GONOR HEED THE RUMBLE OF A DISTANT DRUM

~EDWARD FITZGERALD, THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM


10/4910 JANUARY 2016

might be ok, if you weren’t living in interesting times.

As it turns out, Thucydides was correct in believing

that the future, if it does not mirror the past, at least

reects it. And, of course, Santayana says that if you

won’t learn the lessons of history, you may be doomed

to repeat them.

Given that there is currently a sovereign debt crisis

that has turned Greece into an economic wasteland,

plunged China’s markets down, and which is spreading

to many other countries in the coming months and

years, and given that the money you have in your

wallet is only backed by the full faith and credit of the

United States, which has not exactly shown itself to be

credit-worthy or faithful, you may nd yourself very

interested in the question: who should issue money?

Your Power

Now, if you believe, as I do that the only just formof government is one that derives its powers from

the unanimous consent of the governed, you should

recognize who has the power to issue money. Since

governments are issuing money and since all the

powers that governments have must have been either

seized from the people or delegated to the government

with the consent of the people, it follows naturally

that the power to issue money comes originally from

the people. It is also my view that powers are not

collective in nature but, like rights, are individual in

character. In other words, you have the power to issuemoney.

Whether that comes as a surprise to you or not, it is

clear from simply looking around that not everyone is

issuing money. If each individual has the power to

issue money, why isn’t everyone doing so?

It turns out that one of the key features of money is

acceptability. It matters a great deal less if you issue

money than it does if someone else accepts it. In orderto generate demand for its currency, your national

government accepts that currency for payment of

taxes. The fact that there are a great many taxes, not

only at the national level but also at state and local

levels, means that there are lots of places where the

national government’s currency is accepted. Not only

is it accepted by tax authorities, it is also accepted

by merchants because they know they can use it to

pay their taxes. It is therefore accepted by those who

supply merchants with products, so they can pay their

taxes, and so forth.

So, the problems of central bank policies, the

problems with the economy, the problems with many

government policies are, to put it simply, your fault.

You choose to use the national currency of your

country. You choose not to accept alternatives, even

though alternatives exist, and have existed in the case

of gold and silver coins for thousands of years. You

choose to engage in trade and commerce for at money,

which means that the problems of at money, the

problems of central planning, the difculties you face

as a result of errors in what the Federal Reserve and

other monetary manipulators do, are your problems.

They are caused by your choices just as much as by

the choices of hundreds of millions of others in your

country and billions around the world. You have the

power to change this situation, directly, to your ownadvantage. Does that seem harsh?

Taxation Is TheftMany years ago, at the end of the last century, I met a

member of the Somena First Nation up in Canada. I

was attending the world congress of the International

Society for Individual Liberty at the time. Meaghan

Walker-Champion explained to me that she had

spoken to the elders of her community and they had

many long talks among themselves thinking about

what the Somena word for “tax collector” would be.They concluded that the word in their language was

the same as the word for “thief.”

Writing at the end of World War Two, E.C. Riegel

reached the same conclusion. He noted that money

is extremely useful in trade and commerce, and that

the issue power properly belongs to those engaged in

free enterprise. Since governments are not engaged

in buying and selling, but only in stealing from others,

they are entirely inappropriate to the purpose of issuingmoney. He makes these and many other excellent

arguments against state socialism in A New Approach

to Freedom. My friend Spencer MacCallum helped

organise E.C. Riegel’s papers. An authorized, free,

and complete version of A New Approach to Freedom

is available on the web here.

To be continued on page 37



https://secure.cryptohippie.com/


12/4912 JANUARY 2016

SBC - What Is Silent Bitcoin?

Silent Bitcoin (or SBC) is a digital voucher currency 100% backed by bitcoins. This means that

1.0 SBC equals 1.0 BTC. When a user spends BTC to a wallet hash controlled by SilentVault,

they receive in exchange a voucher (a cryptographically signed XML object) for the same

amount in SBC. Thereafter the SBC voucher value circulates privately off-chain between

SilentVault wallets, until a holder redeems their SBC voucher for BTC. At that point the SBC

value is decirculated, and a BTC spend is made from SilentVault’s reserve to the address hashdesignated by the user who surrendered the voucher. (Which is probably, but doesn’t have to

be, the user’s own.)

Using SBC

The Voucher-Safe network operates differently from the Bitcoin network, in several important

respects:

Silencing BitcoinSilentVault lets you spend andreceive bitcoin (and litecoin) offthe blockchain entirely, and move your coins to and from regularbitcoin addresses whenever youwant. Our wallets are multi-assetand can hold any supported assettypes side-by-side.

https://www.voucher-safe.org/https://www.voucher-safe.org/


13/49


14/4914 JANUARY 2016

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Élan Max Security VPN: This VPN service is bundled with email addresses and

aliases, 1 GB file storage, plus 25 GB of monthly bandwidth.Our Élan Max Security VPN service is a premiere multi-hop VPN, which lives up to its name.Multi-hop means that traffic flows between multiple points along its route from the entry gatewayto the exit nodes, something like changing planes a couple of times during an extended trip.Inside the network, internal routes are varied, traffic is mixed alongside that of other users,and random delays get inserted to defeat traffic analysis. This technique, known as “servercascades,” same features and benefits as provides many of the Tor. (Given that the Deep Stateagencies in various countries are now running most of the Tor exit nodes, it might be evenbetter.) As a subscriber, you’ll also get private email addresses and email aliases, plus 1 GBof very secure file storage. Because of its multi-hop architecture, this VPN is less suitable for

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We’re long-time industry professionals with over acombined forty years in the IT industry. We’re alsocommitted advocates of human liberty and personalprivacy. With all the global spy networks, hacks, anddata mining in the world today, internet privacy isunder attack as never before.We agree with E. C. Riegel, who wrote:

“ To desire freedom is an inst inct . To secure it requires intelligence. It must

be comprehended and self-asserted. To petition for it is to stultify oneself,

for a petitioner is a confessed subject and lacks the spirit of a freeman....

The rst requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.”


16/4916 JANUARY 2016

What does Digix do?We are a Smart Asset companythat allows anyone to securely send and receive ownerships of assets for eventual redemptionon the blockchain. The first asset listed is Gold, and other assets, such as diamonds will beavailable in the near future.

What are Proof o f Asset (PoA) Certifi cates?Proof of Asset (PoA) Certificates prove the existence of gold through the entire chain of custodyfrom the supplier to the custodial vault. They are automatically created when a user purchasesand stores gold at our participating custodial vaults. It consists of 3 digital signatures from3 independent entities: vendor, custodian, and auditor. Through this process, a PoA card isissued representing your asset ownership on the blockchain. This PoA card can then be sentand received by anyone on the Ethereum Blockchain for eventual redemption. PoA certificatescan also be sent to a Minter DAE to create DGX Gold tokens for fungibility.

What are Digi x Gold Tokens?Digix Gold tokens can only be created when a user sends in their PoA Certificates in exchangefor them on a 1:1 weight basis on the Digix Minter DAE. Each Digix Gold token represents 1gof gold. For example, if a PoA Certificate represents the ownership of a 100g gold bar, it canbe sent to the Minter DAE in exchange for 100 DGX tokens which will be deposited in yourethereum wallet.

How do I know if t hese tokens or PoA certif icates are safe from fr aud or dupl ication? All tokens and PoA certificates are created on the Ethereum Blockchain, a public ledger whereinformation stored can never be manipulated or counterfeited. Our smart asset service can onlyexist because of blockchain technology.

Where are the physi cal gold bars stored?Physical gold is kept with a participating custodian. Each PoA Certificate will specify the nameand location of the custodian that holds the gold. The first participating custodian on the DigixGold platform is Malca-Amit which maintains a high security storage facility at the Singapore

Freeport

Why Singapore?DigixGlobal is incorporated in low crime and politically stable Singapore. Investment PreciousMetals are exempted from GST locally, so you are purchasing gold at the lowest premiumsavailable in the world.

• There are also no permits required to import or export precious metals.• Singapore also has no jurisdictional relations with USA or Europe.• We will only release your personal information by order of the Court of Law in Singapore.

FrequentlyAskedQuestions

http://dgx.io/http://dgx.io/http://dgx.io/http://dgx.io/http://dgx.io/



A Sneak Peek at the NewDigixGlobal User Interface

It will be available to the public in January 2016 for multiple operating systems and mobile platforms.This software will manage client transactions for PoA™ Digital Ownership Certificates, Digix AssetTokens, and Ether tokens.

DigixGlobal can create a digital asset certificate for any storable physical property. Future versionsof this software will include additional digital assets such as diamonds.

When the interface opens, users are presented with the main dashboard menu as shown below.

Access to all primary services and tools is available from this opening screen.


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DIGIX GOLD MARKETPLACEVendor Information - Custodian Information - Auditor Information

To ensure quality and authenticity, participating gold vendors only sell LBMA approved goldbars. Gold purchased from an LBMA certif ied refinery is globally known for its quality. Thesebullion sources guarantee the authenticity and purity of every single gold bar used on theDigix network. Buying gold from the marketplace is the first step in the process of generatinga PoA™ Digital Ownership Certificate.

18 JANUARY 2016


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DIGIX GOLD MARKETPLACEShows gold bullion available for purchase as a digital gold certificate.

DIGITALGOLD.MONEY 19


20/4920 JANUARY 2016

GOLD TOKENS AND ETHER WALLETFrom this area a user can send Digix Gold Tokens or send Ether.



The transaction hash for a completed certicate purchase is also available with just one click.

(see below Raw Transaction Data / Transaction Hash)

The Digix Aegis Vault is a smart contract enabled digital Ethereum wallet that features

several unique features that set it apart from other digital crypto wallets including multi-signature control, air gapped cold storage, configurable daily withdrawal limits, and two-factor authentication, to name a few. It is designed in a way so that nobody, not even Digix,its employees, its corporate officers, government authorities, or anyone else would be ableto spend or control its funds and assets. Individual users can create Digix Gold and Assettokens by giving ownership of a physical asset (PoATM Certificate) to the Minter DAE. It is away to represent gold bars as units of tokens on the Ethereum Blockchain database. OneDigix Gold token represents 1 gram of gold.

(Q) How do I know that there are actual gold bars backing PoA certificates or Digix Gold

tokens?

All material documents from the Proof of Asset protocol are made available via Swarm -Ethereum’s distributed file sharing. This would mean that all assaying certificates, custodialreceipts of deposits, and independent auditor documents from the entire chain of custodywill be uploaded for public viewing to ascertain the authenticity of all PoA certificates andDigix Gold tokens. Each entity in the chain of custody will also digitally sign on our PoACertificate. We only deal with vendors, custodians and auditors that have passed our duediligence, and that are world renowned with a history of excellence. Private audits are alsoavailable for added assurance.

The Ethereum platform allows users to createapplications that run on a decentralizedpeer-to-peer network of computers withoutany central control and free from humaninterruption or corruption. Vitalik Buterininvented Ethereum in late 2013, it wasformally described by Dr. Gavin Wood in2014, then developed as an open source

software project under the GNU LesserGeneral Public License. It was officiallylaunched on July 30, 2015. The project ismaintained by the Ethereum core developerteam (ETHDEV) under the guidance of thenon-profit Ethereum Foundation, which hadraised 31,591 Bitcoins during their 2014crowdsale.


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From this page, users may also view the asset’s history of trading within the Digix system.

GOLD ASSET HISTORY


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PoA™ DigitalOwnershipCertificates

are Ethereumsmart contracts

that providesa legally and

cryptographicallybinding

determinationof ownership of

physical goldor other assets

currently underthe guardianshipof a participatingcustodian on the

Digix decentralizedplatform. It

also certifiesthe agreement

between the user,the vendor, the

custodian, andthe independentauditor.

The PoA™ provides a complete historyof the chain of control from the vendor,

the custodian, and all audit reports. Thisproof guarantees that the purchase ofthe gold by the user, its storage by the

custodian, and regular inspection by the

auditor has taken place.

PoA Certificates can be transferred orsent to any Ethereum account, sent to theMinter DAE in exchange for Digix Asset or

Gold tokens, or redeemed from the RecastDAE in exchange for Digix Asset or Gold

Tokens.

Copies of the orignal signed documents are included as

a part of the certicate’s registration in the blockchain.

DIGITALGOLD.MONEY 23


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GOLD EXPLORER /RECASTER (Above)

The Digix Minter DAErecognizes all valid DigixPoA™ Certificates and canaccept them from a userin exchange for divisibleDigix Gold or Digix Assettokens. The rules of theDigix platform dictates thatonly the Digix Minter hasthe authority, through the

request of the owner of aDigix PoA™ certificate, toallow that owner to issuetheir own Digix Gold or DigixAsset tokens in exchange forthe PoA™ Certificate.



The interface conveniently walks customers through the online purchase of a Digital Gold PoA Certicate.


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A completed purchase of the digital gold certicate representing this bar.



TOOLS AND SETTINGS

The Digix Aegis Vault is a smart contract enabled digital Ethereum wallet that featuresseveral unique features that set it apart from other digital crypto wallets including multi-signature control, air gapped cold storage, configurable daily withdrawal limits, and two-factor authentication, to name a few. It is designed in a way so that nobody, not even Digix,its employees, its corporate officers, government authorities, or anyone else would be ableto spend or control its funds and assets.


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GENERATE A NEW WALLET

28 JANUARY 2016

RESTORE WALLET

In addition, to its security

features, users can configurethe Aegis Vault to assignbeneficiaries, set the time-based distribution of fundsor assets, and delegate apower of attorney to anotherindividual or a group ofpeople.

Digix is committed tobringing Ethereum use tothe mainstream, and theavailability of a secure walletis essential for realizing thisgoal.



GENERATE A REDEMPTION KEY

(Q) What is the DigixRecaster Smart Contract?

Digix Recaster SmartContract allows the

conversion of Digix Goldtokens to a PoA card. The

PoA card can be sent orreceived on the blockchain

representing an ownershipof an entire gold bar, orbe used for redemption of

the physical gold bar atour office. For example, if you have 100 DGX tokens

representing 100g of weightin gold, you can exchange

for a PoA card representinga 100g gold cast bar at

Digix. This PoA card can besent and received on the

Ethereum blockchain, or beused to schedule a local

pick-up of the physical goldbar at Digix redemption

center in Singapore.

You can currently recastinto PoA certificates of

100g (100 DGX) or 1000g

(1,000 DGX) gold cast bardenominations.


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(Q) What about t he Digix audit process?We have four types of audits at Digix.

1. PRIVATE AUDITS: Clients are welcome to come to our certified custodial vaults in

Singapore to inspect your gold bars in a highly private and secure environment.

2. EXTERNAL AUDITS: We have engaged Inspectorate Singapore (www.inspectorate.com)

to audit our inventory and match them off with customers’ holdings at DGX. We will hold

such inspections at least twice a year.

3. CUSTODIAL AUDITS: Our certified custodians will provide a physical certification of proof

that your gold bars are stored safely in their vaults. They will take photographs of your

serialized bars per request basis and have them keyed into their inventory management

systems. Some of our certified custodians’ reputation are also on the line to provide us

with their appraisal and storage services, as they have to answer to their shareholders as

a publicly listed company in Singapore.

4. INTERNAL AUDITS: We have patented a certification process called Proof of Asset (PoA),

where auditors sign on the existence of Gold in our PoA certificate. The digital certificate

is then uploaded onto the Ethereum Blockchain.

(Q) Are there KYC/AML requirements? All users who wish to redeem PoA certificates or Digix Gold Tokens for physical gold bars will

have to go through KYC requirements at the pickup. The gold bars will only be available for

pick up at our office location in Singapore. We must ensure that DigixGlobal and participating

organizations are protected from any potential liabilities resulting from government prosecution

and asset seizures, so we ensure that we comply fully with regulatory requirements for Know

your customer (KYC) and Anti-money laundering (AML).

ADDRESS BOOK



SilentVault is a secure private online wallet for makinguntraceable p2p payments.

Unlike other crypto currency wallets SilentVault wallets support heterogeneousasset types such as fiat dollars euros metals gold and silver and crypto coinsbitcoin litecoin. SilentVault provides anonymous off blockchain payments madein bitcoin and litecoin. It also features an integrated p2p escrow exchange whereusers can trade anonymously among different asset types with other users such asexchanging bitcoins for silver.

The SilentVault Spark client is a fully functional Jabber chat client that is a brandedand updated version of Spark. Since Spark supports a plugin architecture our walletclient is implemented as a plugin. You can obtain the SilentVault Spark client withplugin from this page. You can also find the source code for both the plugin andSilentVault's customizations to the Spark source base elsewhere on this site. Atutorial on SVSpark is here.

The SilentVault wallet webstart client is a stand alone program that you can installfrom within your browser. Like the SilentVault Spark client it communicates with theVoucher Safe payment network using extensions to the XMPP protocol. This typeof communication makes economic transactions indistinguishable from ordinaryencrypted instant messaging traffic and avoids any need to run within an insecurebrowser environment or rely on web domains. All client source code is publishedon this site and while you can run a prefabricated client you are also invited to

build your own from source.

You are also invited to develop applications for our integrated marketplaces thatappear within SilentVault wallets. A full API is available for your use as a developmenttool. Please contact our team for details.

The SilentVault technology is based on Voucher Safe which was developed 20082011. Voucher Safe is also the core technology of the Digital Cash Alliance.

https://silentvault.com/

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32/4932 JANUARY 2016

“I love go-o-o-o-ld!”-Austin Powers in Goldmember

Not surprisingly, most people feel the same.

According to the Wall Street Journal, gold prices and

safe-haven demand in Asia have been skyrocketing

since mid-November (1), proving that you don’t have

to be a sea-faring pirate or a squire in a king’s castle

to enjoy its natural glare, beauty, and above all, its

ability to stimulate wealth.

Since the days of the California Gold Rush, people

have enjoyed panning for it, selling it, and most of

all, owning it. Long considered one of the planet’s

most precious and desired metals, gold has grown

heavily in value over the last several years, and it

appears more and more are trying to get their hands

on it every single day.

Something else is growing as well… Bitcoin. Often

regarded as America’s most popular cryptocurrency,

Bitcoin has jumped heavily in value over the last few

months, spiking from $230 to nearly $350. Unlike

gold, which exists in solid, physical form, Bitcoin

exists in ones and zeros; binary coding that travels

through the blockchain, the technology that makes

Bitcoin transactions possible between users and

respective merchants.

BITGOLD: A MODERN REVOLUTION IN FINANCEBY NICK MARINOFF

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attack-fuels-safe-haven-demand-for-gold-in-asia-trade-1447639438http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attack-fuels-safe-haven-demand-for-gold-in-asia-trade-1447639438



It’s interesting to witness nearly equal popularity

rising for two different things that ultimately serve

the same purpose and share similar goals. Both

are designed to enhance the world of nance. Both

can rise in value, and both have the ability to make

someone rich overnight… So what if we could

combine the two? What signicant differences could

there be if Bitcoin and gold were fused into oneentity?

Well, it’s already been done. Say hello to BitGold,

an early startup company stationed in Toronto,

Canada. BitGold aims to offer international services

for people and businesses to send payments and

hold savings with physical gold (2). The company

was founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Roy Sebag

and Josh Crumb. Both have a long history in the

nancial sector, with Sebag previously serving as the

Founder and Managing Principal of Braavos Capital(an international private investment organization),

and the Chairman of Natural Resource Holdings, an

investment company involved with natural resource

assets (3). Josh Crumb was previously the Senior

Metals Strategist at Goldman Sachs (4).

The company alleges that gold bullion is “the world’s

oldest asset class and the century’s best performing

currency” (5). According to BitGold’s website, their

mission is:

“…To make gold accessible and useful in digital

payments and secure savings… We’re advancing

the digital payments revolution by helping people

securely acquire, store, and now spend gold with

unprecedented simplicity. BitGold accounts are

free and can be opened in minutes. We provide users

with a secure vault account to purchase and hold

gold, the ability to make and receive instant gold

payments, and a prepaid card for spending gold

at traditional points of sale. Through our networkof ATMs, customers can fund their accounts with

local-currency” (4).

Present investors backing BitGold include Dundee

Capital Markets, GMP Securities, and Sandstorm

Gold, although the initial investor in the company

was Soros Brothers Investment, which is presently

run by Alexander Soros, the son of Hungarian

business magnate George Soros (2).

2015 has been a big year for the company. CNBC

has stated that BitGold currently serves over

100,000 active customers, and the platform stores

approximately 276 kilograms of bullion within its

walls. That’s nearly $11 million total and over $100

per active user (6). In May, BitGold began trading on

the TSX Venture exchange in Canada and announced

the purchase of GoldMoney, worth nearly $52million in Canadian dollars (7).

In June, the company made citizens of the United

States very happy with the following announcement:

“US residents can sign up on the BitGold platform

and buy, sell or redeem gold using BitGold’s Aurum

payment and settlement technology. US residents

will also have access to the BitGold mobile app and

a prepaid card when these features launch over the

coming weeks” (7).

The platform offers a number of products and services

benecial to any gold-lover across the country. As the

above quote suggests, BitGold offers what’s known

as Aurum, the gold-settlement technology that’s

compliant with several U.S. nancial institutions

such as JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, Bank of

America, US Bank, Fidelity, Capital One and Charles

Schwab. Users with an account at any one of these

nationally-recognized banks can instantly redeem

gold or authorize gold deposits. The transactions

thereby increase in safety and automation. Users

also receive a bonus in that they are usually able to

avoid bank wire fees through the process (7).

Using the BitGold app, users may also send and

receive gold as payments to and from any other

user or seller without paying any transaction fees.

They can even send gold to non-BitGold users

via their mobile phones or through a simple email

message. The company also issues prepaid debitcards, allowing users to spend funds directly from

their BitGold accounts. The card is compatible with

ATMs so that users may withdraw local currency (7).

Lastly, the company issues special ten-gram gold

cubes, worth approximately $380 each at press

time. Users may redeem these cubes on the BitGold

platform and may demand physical delivery when

they see t (7).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGoldhttp://seekingalpha.com/author/roy-sebaghttps://www.bitgold.com/abouthttps://www.bitgold.com/https://www.bitgold.com/abouthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGoldhttp://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000364663https://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#is-bitgold-a-scamhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#is-bitgold-a-scamhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#about-bitgoldhttp://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000364663https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGoldhttps://www.bitgold.com/abouthttps://www.bitgold.com/https://www.bitgold.com/abouthttp://seekingalpha.com/author/roy-sebaghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGold


34/4934 JANUARY 2016

Vice-president of communications and PR Emily

Cornelius explained in an email that they have no

“stereotypical” user of the company’s services, but

that there are predominantly three main use cases:

“The traditional gold investor will gravitate to

BitGold because our gold is unprecedentedly

priced within 1% of spot price and we offer freestorage in a Brinks vault of their choice globally…

The second use case is the user who seeks a more

stable currency for their national savings, outside

of their potentially volatile local at currency…

Gold has gained over 3,000% vs. the US Dollar,

which is arguably the world’s strongest at money.

Gold may seem to go up, down or sideways but in

reality and when viewed over long timescales such

as the avg. human lifecycle – it always rises…

Gold has been rising against 9 of the world’s

most famous and well-known currencies almost

every year since 2000… Thirdly, BitGold is a

powerful payments platform… BitGold allows a

user to send an invoice for your labor to someone

else anywhere in the world, which the recipient

can pay using any traditional payment method…

This gold is vaulted anywhere, even outside their

jurisdiction… This is important as it allows users

to achieve upward mobility that are otherwise

hindered by localized issues that are exogenous to

their personal journey.”

Cornelius also explained that the company offers

“all the benets and efciencies of a service like

PayPal and a MasterCard but with a universally

accepted, more stable store of value.”

Presently, regulation over BitGold appears to be

fairly non-existent. BitGold does not list which

regulators hold jurisdiction over its staff and

operations, nor do they list regulatory information

regarding their trade practices (7). In fact, co-founder Roy Sebag has stated in the past that he

believes BitGold is not a bank, nor does it serve as

a nancial institution in any traditional sense as it

does not engage in fractional-reserve banking (2).

According to page 20 of the company’s initial

public ling, BitGold is not:

“…Eligible to be registered with the Financial

Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of

Canada… There can be no assurance that BitGold’s

services or Internet platform will be acceptable to

foreign regulatory bodies. Foreign governments

may seek to restrict access to BitGold’s services,

block BitGold’s website, or impose other

restrictions that may affect BitGold’s ability to

offer service to new or existing users in those foran extended period of time or indenitely” (8).

Despite this, it was conrmed in July of 2015 that the

company did offer its services under the Canadian

Bailment Law (9). This occurs in situations where

physical, personal property is transferred from one

person (the bailor) to another for safekeeping, and

doing so does not require the binding notion of a

written contract (10).

Presently, the company employs 26 people,

including Sebag and Crumb. Other notable BitGold

personnel include Chief Executive Ofcer Darrell

MacMullin, Chief Technology Ofcer Alessandro

Premoli, Lead Mobile Engineer Paul Mennega,

and Team Manager Karman Lee. The company

also employs several vice-presidents, ve software

engineers and two compliance ofcers (4).

It can be said that BitGold has accomplished quite a

bit in less than two years. It’s likely such a volatilecompany has some big plans waiting in the wings

for 2016, but Emily Cornelius isn’t dropping any

hints as to what they could be:

“We have a number of new features, services, and

products coming… You’ll have to wait and see.”

BitGold is steadily making its mark. It has the

backing, the funds, the technology, and above all,

the drive. Put all these items together (and add a

touch of air and public desire), and it’s clear thatBitGold has what it takes to make the world of

nance its own.

https://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#is-bitgold-a-scamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold-filing.pdfhttp://business.financialpost.com/investing/bitgold-begins-trading-on-tsx-venture-exchange-as-gold-transaction-platform-builds-momentum?__lsa=c93a-82d8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailmenthttps://www.bitgold.com/abouthttps://www.bitgold.com/abouthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailmenthttp://business.financialpost.com/investing/bitgold-begins-trading-on-tsx-venture-exchange-as-gold-transaction-platform-builds-momentum?__lsa=c93a-82d8https://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold-filing.pdfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitGoldhttps://www.weusecoins.com/bitgold/#is-bitgold-a-scam



Classes in Data Security &

Communications Privacy

One of the key elements of your individual sovereignty is your

ability to have private information and either keep it private or

communicate it privately to other people. In order to have effectivedata security and communications privacy, you need to understand

a signicant array of technologies. Fortunately, we have teachers

well versed in these matters who are available to help. In addition,

we are helping to organize a series of seminars throughout the year

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help you make the most of these techniques.

Our comprehensive course is regularly $500 but for a limited time

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The comprehensive course is intended to provide a detailed review

of information and communications security technologies that are

suited to your business operations or personal needs. It includes a review of the following areas:

• E-mail encryption using Open PGP systems• Web mail encryption using Mailvelope and similar• Computer operating systems and open source choices• Encrypted root data storage• Deleting versus over-writing• Keeping encrypted back-ups• Computer software systems, proprietary and open source

• Connectivity choices including VPN tunneling, multi-hop VPNs, TOR• Encrypted voice over IP• Encrypted text chat• Encrypted video conferencing• Crypto-currencies as payment methods and their limitations• Secure multi-currency digital wallet choices

We also offer customized courses that are designed to provide the best results for your particular business or

personal needs. We also offer individual courses in each one of the above areas of technology for only $49

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We have the ability to accept payment in various forms. Among the payment choices we currently like are

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details or to arrange payment.

Individual Sovereign University Association www.indsovu.org2040 West 31st Street Suite G169

Lawrence, KS 66046 +1-913-538-5597

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36/4936 JANUARY 2016

There are 3 modular processes at Digix - Proof of Asset (PoA) Certication to create PoA Asset cards,Minter DAE to create DGX tokens, Recaster DAE to convert DGX tokens back into PoA Asset cards.

Proof of Asset certication consists of:

1. The digital signatures from our chain of custody (Supplier / Custodian / Independent Auditor 2. Documentation and proof of receipts from each of these entities that are uploaded for

verication.

The above allows the creation of PoA Asset cards.

Each PoA asset card represents your ownership of Gold bars kept at our participating custodialvaults.

PoA Asset cards in themselves can be sent and received on the Ethereum Blockchain.

To make these assets fungible and divisible into DGX Gold tokens, you can move on to the next 2autonomous services that we have created at Digix.

These 2 services would be the Minter and Recaster DAE. DAE stands for “Decentralized AutonomousEntities”. They are open sourced smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain.

These smart contracts perform the autonomous role of accepting PoA Asset cards and converting theminto fungible / divisible DGX tokens.

For instance, if you send a PoA Asset card representing a 100g gold bar to the Minter DAE, it willin return issue you with 100,000 DGX tokens (where each DGX tokens represents 0.001g of gold)to your Ethereum Wallet. Each of these DGX tokens are backed by the amount of gold in the DGXnetwork pool, which is owned by the users of the smart contract / Minter DAE.

To convert DGX Tokens back into a PoA Asset card or gold bar for redemption, simply use the RecasterDAE by sending the requisite amount of DGX tokens (on a weight basis) to the Recaster smart contract.Due to AML laws, we will KYC individuals who wish to do any physical delivery of gold bars at thisstage.

THE DIGIX ASSETTOKENIZATION PROCESS

Digix Gold and Asset tokens can be issued by individual users by giving ownership of a

physical asset (PoA™ Certicate) to the Minter DAE. One Digix Gold token represents a1 gram share of a physical gold bar under the control of the Minter DAE.



Continued from page 10

Copies of the book in hard cover were still available

from Spencer’s the Heather Foundation the last

I heard. I very strongly recommend this book to

anyone interested in the topic of money. Here is a

brief excerpt:

“To desire freedom is an instinct. To secure it

requires intelligence. It must be comprehended and

self—asserted. To petition for it is to stultify oneself,

for a petitioner is a confessed subject and lacks the

spirit of a freeman. To rail and rant against tyranny

is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but

ignorance; to be conscious of one’s powers is to lose

consciousness of tyranny. Self-government is not a

remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact.

To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all

tyranny is the miscarriage of self-government. The rst requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility

for the lack of it.”

You see, I’m not the only one being harsh. If you

feel you aren’t free, whose fault is that? Who is

responsible for your freedom? I’m responsible for

my freedom. You should take responsibility for

yours.

If you don’t like the Federal Reserve, why do you

keep using Federal Reserve notes? Are you afraid?

Do you hope that the powers that be have some of the

omnipotence they pretend is theirs? Or are you simply

unwilling to do anything to change your economic

situation because you risk losing something in the

transition? What if I told you that you risk losing

everything if you don’t transition?

Denationalisation of Money Brings FreedomAnother author who wrote extensively on the topic

of money was FA Hayek. Hayek is widely knownas the Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1974 for

his “pioneering work in the theory of money and

economic uctuations.” In my opinion, Hayek’s

greatest contribution to economics was his 1976

(and subsequently revised through 1990) book

Denationalisation of Money - The Argument Rened:

An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent

Currencies.

Again, if you really want to understand money, who

should issue it, and what damage is done by having

governments issue money, you should read Hayek’s

book. The paperback, used, from Amazon’s network

of resellers, might set you back $3 or more.

Here is a brief excerpt to give you some of the avour:

The truth is indeed that legal tender is simply a

legal device to force people to accept in fullmentof a contract something they never intended when

they made the contract. It becomes thus, in certain

circumstances, a factor that intensies the uncertainty

of dealings and consists, as Lord Farrer also remarked

in the same context, ‘in substituting for the free

operation of voluntary contract, and a law which

simply enforces the performance of such contracts,

an articial construction of contracts such as would

never occur to the parties unless forced upon them by

an arbitrary law.

Hayek is correct. Legal tender is a scam. But, so

is every other aspect of government imposed by

coercion. Without your explicit consent, government

is just bullying. Perhaps you should stop being

bullied.

Hayek went on to write, in the same book:

“It seems to me to be fairly certain that

“(a) a money generally expected to preserve its

purchasing power approximately constant would

be in continuous demand so long as the people

were free to use it;

“(b) with such a continuing demand depending

on success in keeping the value of the currency

constant one could trust the [issuers] to make

every effort to achieve this better than would any

monopolist who runs no risk by depreciating his

money;

“(c) the issuing institution could achieve this resultby regulating the quantity of its issue; and

“(d) such a regulation of the quantity of each

currency would constitute the best of all practicable

methods of regulating the quantity of media of

exchange for all possible purposes.”

Issue MoneyThere is an old saying that when it becomes time

to steamboat, you’ll nd many people building and


38/4938 JANUARY 2016

operating steamboats. The same seems to be true of

other inventions such as railroads. Until then, it may

be possible, but it won’t gain widespread acceptance.

So, the fact that more than one group is now offering

the opportunity for competing currencies in the same

wallet seems to suggest that the era of competing

currencies has begin.

Two particular new developments in this area are

from Kevin Wilkerson and Chris Odom. Wilkerson

is the mind behind the Voucher-Safe technology, and

has recently announced the Digital Cash Alliance to

promote private, anonymous, digital cash. Odom is

the mind behind Open Transactions and has recently

announced Stash Crypto. Both of these systems

allow for different companies, non-prots, and even

individuals to issue their own currencies.

At roughly the same time, there are dozens of newcrypto-currencies, a trend which was begun by Satoshi

Nakamoto with the Bitcoin white paper. Among the

many other similar currencies are Litecoin, Dogecoin,

Dash, MaidSafeCoin, Peercoin, and more than 600

others. The same technology built into Bitcoin, the

“block chain” is also being used for domain name

ownership, real estate ownership, and publication of

facts of various kinds.

Where does all this new currency activity come

from, and where is it going? Also, to the extent

that many of these new currencies represent

mathematical computation power, such as solving

hashing algorithms, to what extent are these “crypto-

currencies” better, or worse, than national currencies

issued by central banks or governments?

Origins in CryptographyThe origins of digital cash and digital currencies

go back to 1982. David Chaum, a cryptographer,

published a paper on anonymous communicationsin 1981. A year later, he put together the ideas on

blind signatures which form the basis for digital

cash. His paper, “Blind Signatures for Untraceable

Payments” was accepted for publication at Advances

in Cryptology in 1982.

Chaum went even further, founding a company

in Amsterdam in 1990 to purse his digital cash

concepts. The company, Digi-Cash eventually put

forth a web site and a system of payments involving

the Mark Twain bank in the USA and Deutsche Bank

in Germany. I remember visiting the Mark Twain

bank web site around 1995 and being impressed with

the availability of Digi-Cash for micro-payments.

However, it seems, only a few thousand customers

ever came forward.

The Mark Twain bank was purchased by another

banking company near the turn of the century. It may

be partly due to the fact that the purchasing bank was

involved in credit card payment processing, or it may

be the rather small number of customers involved,

but, for whatever reason, by 1999, Mark Twain bank

was no longer involved. Digi-Cash closed its doors

about that time.

Another important development about this time was

the work of James Turk. Turk had been involved inthe mainstream banking sector, was very concerned

about some of the risks implied by a 1974 market

crash, and had a longstanding interest in the use of

gold as money. He received a bachelor’s degree

in international economics in 1969 and worked for

Chase bank for a time. He moved to the United

Arab Emirates in 1983 and worked as manager of the

commodity department of the Abu Dhabi investment

authority. He resigned from there in 1987 and about

the same time began writing for his Free Market

Gold and Money Report newsletter. By at least June

of 1995, and possibly earlier, Turk had applied for,

and received, a patent on the concept of a digital gold

currency. I found reference to the June 1995 date

on this site: http://patents.justia.com/inventor/james-

j-turk

So, it is clear, to me, that within about a decade of

the invention of digital cash, and within about ve

years of the rst business creating digital cash (Digi-

Cash, started by Chaum roughly 1990) an inveterategold bug had come along to gure out how to create

digital gold. However, it would be several more years

before the gold enthusiast, Jim Turk, established a

business to capitalize on his patented idea.

Digital Gold CurrenciesThere is a lot to say about the era of digital gold

currencies, and I have been involved in saying quite

a bit of it. You can nd a 2004 industry report on my



Indomitus.net website, for example, which goes over my direct personal experiences meeting various people

involved in this industry. It also details the amounts of gold, silver, and other precious metals in storage, and,

where published, the numbers of accounts and volume of economic transactions taking place in the various

currencies.

This phase of activity in the digital cash arena runs from 1996 to 2007. Doug Jackson founded e-gold.com

in 1996. Bernard von NotHaus founded the Liberty Dollar in 1998. Jim and Pam Fayed built e-Bullion.com

which went online in 2000. Zeno Dahinden created the e-dinar in 2000, which was initially a variation of e-gold

and worked directly with the e-gold site. GoldMoney was founded by James Turk and Clifford Press in 2001.

JP May started “one more digital currency” or 1MDC in 2001. Sidd Davis brought Pecunix.com online in 2002.

There were several others, including a Phoenix Dollar made of silver, a Loom on which gold, coffee, and other

assets were traded, and a truly excellent Gold Global, all of which came a little later.

If you want to read the story of this industry, perhaps one day I might be encouraged to write it. Recently,

I learned from my friend Carl Mullan that he is writing a book about digital currencies, which, given his

involvement in digital gold, suggests quite a bit of the story is going to be available, soon. In any event, it is

a long story, though, and quite beyond the scope of this essay. My own involvement in digital gold began in

December 1998, and has not yet ended.

During that time, I met or corresponded with extensively, every single one of the founders of the various

companies mentioned two paragraphs ago, with the exception of Clifford Press. I met Doug Jackson and Pam


40/4940 JANUARY 2016

Fayed at a conference in Atlanta in April 2002. I met

Jim Turk at one of the conferences founded by the late

Jim Blanchard in New Orleans later that same year.

Over the years, I also went to events deliberately to

meet investors, merchants, and key players in the

industry.

What happened? Well, the FBI decided to destroye-gold, in my opinion, and did so very thoroughly in

April 2007. Doug Jackson ended up being advised,

as I understand it, to plead guilty to a federal crime

involving money laundering, and, I think that was

pretty much the end of e-gold. It wrapped up within

a few years of this plea, with people who were willing

to claim the contents of their accounts going through

a process to identify their claim and have it fullled.

The death of e-gold in 2007 was also the death of

1MDC, as far as I can tell. By way of contrast,

Dahinden and associates chose to separate frome-gold roughly July 2004 and became an independent

payment system.

The same agency decided to destroy the Liberty

Dollar in September 2007, in my opinion, and did

so. Bernard von NotHaus did not enter into any sort

of plea agreement, and was convicted in a court in

Statesville, North Carolina quite a few years later,

and, later still, eventually sentenced to some months

of house arrest, as I understand it. I have several

friends who have identied their claims to various

Liberty Dollar warehouse receipts, e-Liberty Dollars

digital warehouse receipts, silver rounds, copper

rounds, and so forth. Based on what I’m told, they

have each been informed that their property was

improperly seized and is to be returned to them, and,

again, in each case, they have not received any of

their property.

The e-Bullion story came to a very dramatic close

when Jim Fayed hired a killer to murder his wifePam. Jim Fayed has since been convicted and was,

I believe, sentenced to death for the murder. Since

these events took place in California, which isn’t

currently executing anyone, it seems likely that he’ll

spend the rest of his life in prison.

One good story that has not ended is c-gold, a system

based in Malaysia which is eerily similar to the old

e-gold site. The c-gold system has a fairly small

user base, with gold in audited and secure long term

storage.

As well, the GoldMoney story hasn’t ended.

GoldMoney became a publicly traded stock not long

ago and was recently purchased (2015) by bitGold.

It isn’t clear whether the Pecunix story has ended,or not. Rumors abound, and I have no clear

understanding of what, if anything, is going to happen

with Pecunix in the future. But, the end of e-gold in

2007 combined with the end of the Liberty Dollar

that same year, was denitely a setback to many of

the people involved in the digital gold industry.

Blockchain CurrenciesThe next phase of activity began in 2008. Two

important projects got started that year. One of them,

Bitcoin, has since risen to a great deal of fame, somereally stunning currency valuations, and seems to be a

strong currency today. The other, Voucher-Safe, took

a bit longer to develop, and is just now stretching its

legs. Other important currencies and ideas in this

space include Litecoin and the Open Transactions

system.

Earlier I mentioned the original white paper on

Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody seems to

be quite sure who this fellow Satoshi Nakamoto

actually is, but it is widely believed that the name is

a pseudonym. I gather from some people who have

analyzed the name that satoshi is a Japanese word for

wise or quick-witted. The word naka means inside.

The word moto means foundation or origin. So

perhaps the author is claiming to be clever, an insider

and original.

The white paper itself describes a process for

extending then-known cryptographic protocols to

create a digital currency software system. Very soonafter the white paper was published, a group of

software developers put together the original Bitcoin

Core protocol which is the basis of the entire Bitcoin

industry.

It took only a few years for the idea to catch on

and become, as we say about ideas on the Internet,

“viral.” By summer 2011, the price of a bitcoin had

grown from nearly nothing to about $25 each.



DONATE WITH ANONYMITY

FROM THE

DIGITAL CASH

ALLIANCE

What is the Digital Cash All iance?

The Digital Cash Alliance exists to move the world toward digital cash. Our alliance consists of individuals

and companies committed to a future which includes greater freedom for everyone. Cash has long been the

sine qua non of privacy, anonymity, and individual liberty. Places where cash may be used to make purchases

and where cash may be accepted to make sales tend to be places where people are more free to choose than places where cash is forbidden. We believe that the global marketplaces online which seek to provide for

individual liberty, privacy, and anonymity would be greatly improved with digital cash. Accordingly, we seek

to promote, publicise, and encourage the use of digital cash. We hope you’ll join us.

How does DCSpark work?

Our XMPP client is both a robust Jabber chat client (based on Spark 2.7.1) and a secure p2p wallet client. The

wallet client is implemented as a Spark plugin. Other plugins provide OTR (off-the-record) for end-to-end

chat encryption, real time language translation, and a host of other features.

The XMPP servers operated by the DCA sit behind PageKite gateways, so that they do not need any public-facing IP addresses. In addition to increased security, this means that while connected to our server, you

can only chat with other users of our client. Our server allows you to log in anonymously, or with a specic

username, for either 1-on-1 chats or in multi-user chatrooms. You can only access your wallet through our

private XMPP network.

Who is the Digital Cash Alliance?

Our founder is Kevin Wilkerson. He is a systems architect, software developer, and author. Other team

members include Tyrone Johnson and Justin Turrell. Our advisors are Paul Rosenberg, Jim Davidson, and

Bruno Delpeuc’h. Everyone on our team is committed to individual liberty and economic privacy.

How do I get digital cash?

Once you download and install the DCSpark wallet, you can move bitcoin or litecoin into your wallet within

about an hour (to allow for conrmations). Our multi-currency wallet also supports silver, gold, and token-

backed currencies. We want you to issue your own money, or build an in-wallet merchant app, or start an

exchange agency, and bring your user community to work with ours.

DIGITAL CASH IS THE FUTURE OF YOUR ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND PRIVACY.

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42/4942 JANUARY 2016

Throughout the industry generally, and in this paper,

Bitcoin is capitalized when referring to the concept

or the currency itself. The use of lowercase “bitcoin”

refers to an individual unit of the currency or the

price of something measured in the currency.

At the start of 2013, it was about $13. Due toexcitement, market mania, and the use of bitcoin at

a large number of online retailers, the price spiked

to over $1,000 by the end of 2013. During 2014,

the price dropped very substantially, with many

mainstream reports that it would soon be of no value,

once again. However, those gloomy predictions have

not come to pass, and bitcoin is currently trading

above $290 as I write this paper in late October 2015.

Bitcoin today is involved in something considerably

in excess of $27 billion per year in economictransactions. That fact makes the bitcoin economy

larger than the economies of about 80 nations,

including familiar places like Estonia, Afghanistan,

Haiti, Honduras, and Mongolia, to name a few.

Naturally with all things open source, there are a great

many variations on the theme. Bitcoin has inspired

about 635 similar “crypto-currencies” or currencies

as they might be envisioned by cryptography experts.

Perhaps the most important of these alternatives,

second only to Bitcoin in market capitalisation, is

Litecoin.

Litecoin was developed as a variation of Bitcoin

differing primarily by having a decreased block

generation time, increased maximum number of

coins, different hashing algorithm and a slightly

modied graphical user interface. It was intended

that each litecoin be less valuable, since there would

be many more of them. Transaction timing was

intended to be much faster, and transaction fees have prevented some types of high volume, low value

transaction attacks.

Competing Currency Wallets

Say what you please about Bitcoin, whether it is great

(and doing over $27 billion a year in transactions

suggests it is great to many people), or whether it is

awful (since it is based on nothing but mathematics,

not a tangible good like gold or silver). But it

isn’t your currency. It is the invention of Satoshi

Nakamoto, and it is maintained by the committee in

charge of the Bitcoin protocol.

Moreover, it has some serious privacy limitations.

Every transaction is made part of a permanent record,

a record which has grown in size and scope to include

something near 40 gigabytes of data.

You might not want your transactions to be recorded

on that blockchain. Then again, other forms of money

have their own limitations. Credit card money and

checking accounts are particularly compromised

with respect to your privacy, and they can be leveed

at any moment to make your funds accessible only to

the tax authorities. Little wonder, then that Voucher-

Safe wallets have provision for Bitcoin, and its major

competitor, Litecoin.

What Voucher-Safe provides for is the opportunity for people to not only issue money but to transact with

others, using money of their own choice, in complete

privacy. The Voucher-Safe system creates and

destroys vouchers with every transaction and does so

in a fashion that cannot be monitored. It can’t be

monitored because it isn’t based on a central server

keeping accounts and recording each transaction that

occurs. You can keep track of transactions in your

own individual wallet, or delete records, or even

refuse to allow transaction records to be created.

Best of all, the system uses XMPP, the messaging

protocol that was designed for the Jabber chat system.

Users of Jabber know that it includes encrypted

messaging, called OTR or “Off the Record.” The

Voucher-Safe system doesn’t use the web, except

for getting a copy of the open source wallet client to

your computer. So, you don’t have to wonder about

the numerous security holes, gaping holes judging

by recent experiences, in the so-called “secure web

sites” you visit. Because XMPP is a protocol that isdesigned to be extensible, applications can be added

to your Voucher-Safe wallet to make all kinds of

activities. I gather that a simple gambling game based

on coin ips has been demonstrated as a prototype.

What’s the Catch?The catch, of course, is that it costs money. If you

want to begin issuing your own currency, there are

fees to pay. There are costs collected from wallet



users, transaction fees. In other words, it isn’t free.

It is not so expensive that any company able to raise

a few hundred thousand dollars, or having prots in

that range, or any non-prot with similar nances, or

any new group of people choosing to work together

couldn’t become currency issuers. And, of course, as

with all new technologies, it is logical to suppose that

over time, the price of being a currency issuer maycome down – after all, electronic pocket calculators

in 1971 cost around hundreds of dollars and today are

just as effective for about $5.

But, you have free money from the government,

right? You’ve seen what it costs you to use the dollar,

or the euro, in terms of a loss of freedom (ask the

Greek people how they like being part of the euro,

today), in terms of taxes, and in terms of the not-so-

hidden tax of ination. If you don’t want to pay for

issuing your own currency, you certainly don’t needto do so.

There are also opportunities, not only for people

who would like to issue their own currencies, but

also for those who wish to be agents, including

exchange service operators, people who wish to be

merchants, and people who simply like the idea of

freedom to choose. In fact, there is an entire network

being developed to promote digital cash in all of its

splendor. At various levels of participation, members

get access to a virtual privacy network that is among

the very best in the world. So, your web browsing,

e-mail, and all other online activities can take place

within an encrypted “tunnel” to secure servers. The

new group is called the Digital Cash Alliance.

You can reach them at digitalcash.to which gives a

good overview of the alliance, its team members,

advisers, and plans. The link you want is to their

secure site at https://digitalcash.to/ Note that they

use a self-signed security certicate, of course, forall the numerous reasons that certicate “authority”

security certs are to be avoided, so your browser is

likely to warn you about the connection.

The Open Transactions system, which is used by

Monetas in commercial applications, also offers

a multi-currency wallet approach through Stash

Crypto. It seems likely that other competitors are

going to arise in this sector, as well.

Why Me?Why am I interested in digital cash? Quite simply

because things are not okay the way they are. If the

future I was taught to expect were here, I would have

a ying car and be taking frequent vacations beyond

the Moon. There would not be a giant military-

industrial-nancial complex gaming the peoplefor more debt-fueled wars, destroying privacy and

freedom, and enhancing the wealth of the richest

one-tenth of one percent. There would, rather, be

freedom. Look around you.

If you would seek reasons to have digital cash, look

about you. Look all over. You won’t nd freedom,

you won’t nd progress, you won’t nd prosperity,

you won’t nd peace, you won’t nd anything

resembling justice anywhere you look. If you want

those things, you are going to have to build them.

And if you want to build things so very radical as

freedom, progress, prosperity, peace, and justice,

you’ll need tools like digital cash. So, that’s why me.

If you want the global economy to be owned and

operated by national governments, central banks, and

their cronies at enormous banks and multinational

corporations, you have no need of digital cash, except

perhaps for some marginal savings over the costs

involved in the wire transfer system. But if you want

meaningful change, if you are not willing to beg the

governments to change their policies, if you want the

Federal Reserve to cease to be relevant, if you don’t

actually expect people in politics to do anything to

change a system that seems to serve them very well,

perhaps you should look into digital cash. I think

you’ll like what you nd.

https://digitalcash.to/https://digitalcash.to/


44/4944 JANUARY 2016

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Documents

Digital Gold Magazine Jan 2016