Why the First Round of Digital Gold Companies Failed to Achieve a Free Gold Standard

From 1996-2008 the Internet facilitated the rise of an international digital gold system, with multiple issuers and exchange agents in many countries.  At its peak this system was seeing above 84 metric tonnes per year in gold transactions used for a very wide variety of purposes ranging from commerce to international remittances.
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Bitcoin – A Jack of All Trades is the Master of None

As cybercommerce begins it will lead inevitably to cyber-money.— James Davidson, The Sovereign Individual, 1996

The hype surrounding Bitcoin has gone off the charts in the past year.  For those of us who have been involved with digital currency systems since the 1990’s, it is interesting to see how people caught up in the hype think Bitcoin is wonderful but in many cases cannot clearly see the reason why.  Other enthusiasts think that Bitcoin is the ultimate solution for all payments.

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The e-gold story

As Bitcoin continues its move towards the mainstream and Bitcoin businesses experience rocky relations with bankers and regulators, now is a good time to look at previous leaders in the digital currency world.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, e-gold was the industry leader.  As one of the world’s first successful online payment systems e-gold was a pioneer using many now standard practices such as SSL connections and API’s.  Brought down by a run in with regulators in 2008 the e-gold story is required reading for anyone involved in the digital currency world.

Sent in by Wikipedia editor Cadwallader, below is a thoroug review of the e-gold story.

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Voucher-Safe, a Next Generation Digital Currency – Part I

Digital Gold Currency is a fantastic idea. Gold enjoys thousands of years of history as an excellent currency and store of value. It is a form of money that is constantly chosen by the market and that needs no legislation to support its value. Gold is stable, solid and cannot be pulled out of thin air. With modern technology gold can be used as a currency online without any more effort than it takes to check your email. Brilliant!

But as DGC’s were starting to take off and be recognized for their many benefits, the rug was pulled out from under the industry with the prosecution of e-gold. The old DGC business model is centralized and vulnerable to seizure, censorship and prohibitive regulation.

The Voucher-Safe system allows for a more decentralized, Anti-Money Laundering compliant way to anonymously exchange value. It’s DGC 2.0, a more flexible and resilient system where anything can be money. “The idea behind voucher-safe is that it isn’t about making just one thing money. Money  can be gold, it can be existing national fiat currencies, it can be bitcoins, it can be silver, it can be anything of value that people want to exchange.”

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