As the global demand for gold remains strong and the asset’s price has reached all-time highs, investors face a difficult choice between various gold investment vehicles. Traditional methods for investing in gold come with a number of drawbacks. Physical gold incurs substantial buy and sell fees, gold futures require advanced financial literacy, while gold-backed cryptocurrencies often lack reliable reserve audits, or their sources of gold are opaque.
IPMB: bringing together gold and cryptocurrency
The International Precious Metals Bullion Group (IPMB) combines vast experience in the gold industry with opportunities provided by blockchain technology to offer a novel approach to gold investing that is reliable and cost-efficient. By controlling the crucial steps of the supply chain, IPMB offers favorable pricing and transparency for investors in its gold-backed GoldPro Token (GPRO) and GEM NFTs.
A recent report published by Cointelegraph provides insight into this precious metals project. It gives an overview of the challenges gold tokenization solutions face, from physical gold issues to providing liquidity and backup guarantees for digital tokens. The report discusses an in-house solution developed by IPMB to track the gold supply chain, its GPRO token fully collateralized by gold, and the gold-backed GEM NFTs. The report concludes with an overview of the IPMB ecosystem and its future development plans.
Inefficiencies in the gold market
The supply chain for physical gold relies on multiple intermediaries, which results in price premiums that are ultimately borne by investors. Furthermore, physical gold investments incur premiums at purchase and come with substantial buy/sell spreads, as well as custody fees of up to 1% per year.
In addition to increased costs, complex gold supply chains make it easier to disguise the origin of gold ore and hide unethical mining. For instance, Ghana, a leading gold producer, has faced criticism for unregulated artisanal mining, which harms the…
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