It’s the year of the blockchain – want proof? This notification from blockchain trust company Paxis is an excellent example.
In an interview earlier this week, Paxos CEO Chad Cascarilla said the company is working on a digital token backed by gold or other precious metals that is forthcoming this year.
Cascarilla also confirmed that a gold-backed token isn’t going to be just a ‘fiat’ cryptocurrency. Invoking the concept of a true stablecoin, Cascarilla said there will be gold on hand to back up the cryptocurrency.
“In order to put something in a blockchain, you have to make sure you have the right amount of inventory in the real world versus what is in the blockchain,” Cascarilla said according to coverage by Ana Alexandre in Cointelegraph today. “How you do with a gold token is how much gold do you have in a vault equals how many gold tokens outstanding.”
Cascarilla called gold an “obvious” choice and added that Paxos will work to provide a stablecoin that is fully audited and approved in the state of New York.
The tech media is excited about these revelations.
Investors will soon be able to buy gold and stocks in the form of cryptocurrency, the same way they might buy Bitcoin,” writes Jen Wieczner at Fortune magazine, detailing the unique status Paxos holds as a company with an account at the Depository Trust Company. The DTC is a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, a limited-purpose trust company under New York State banking law and a registered clearing agency with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Paxos is also the first virtual currency company to get a New York license.
Elsewhere around the world, the idea of gold-backed cryptocurrency is also gaining steam. There’s XAUR in the European Union, a gold based cryptocurrency where the collateral is stored at Loomis’ Turkish office. Then there are reports from places like Iran where leaders are looking at using central banks to roll out a gold-backed coin.
For right now, though, Paxos is making headlines because of its concrete plans to take advantage of the link between gold as a precious metal commodity and blockchain is a fast-breaking new technology.
Keep an eye on these types of proceedings and look at your portfolio to see if you can maybe merge gold and crypto or somehow follow and leverage these groundbreaking innovations.