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The Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) digital asset backed by a physical gold held in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's (RBZ's) reserves officially launched as a payment method. The RBZ first started issuing Mosi-oa-Tunya physical gold-backed tokens in 2022, and the ZiG was introduced in April 2023. The digital tokens can be stored in either e-gold wallets or e-gold cards and are tradeable for peer-to-peer and business transactions. https://twitter.com/ReserveBankZIM/status/1709929505144652153

"The RBZ says that these tokens can be used for payments, with tokens available for purchase via banks, which will create dedicated e-gold wallets and cards to facilitate person-to-person or person-to-business payments, both online and offline. This is, in effect, a gold-backed central bank digital currency. The economics of gold as a defence against inflation are somewhat heterodox but not absurd. Introducing a CBDC is a complex business, however. Questions around implementation abound. Not only will the central bank have to retain the currency reserves to ensure that it can redeem the coins and tokens, it will also have to maintain the gold reserves backing the tokens."

Paxos Trust Company launched PAX Gold a crypto-asset redeemable for physical gold approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Each token is backed by one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery Gold.

Libra is actually a revamped version of a much older payments model. In 1996, Douglas Jackson, an oncologist and fan of the gold standard, founded a payments system called e-gold. Backed one-to-one by reserves of the yellow metal, the e-gold system allowed users all around the world to make instant private electronic payments. Unfortunately, e-gold ran into problems with regulators...

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has said it is now "at an advanced stage in preparations for the rolling out of gold-backed digital tokens (GBDTs) for transactional purposes." The central bank said the rollout would see the gold tokens complement the U.S. dollar "in domestic transactions as retailers will be offered a safer, more convenient, and value-preserving medium of exchange." This will be Phase II of the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) project. The RBZ reports that "GBDTs have proved to be an effective monetary policy instrument with strong potential to help restore normalcy to the domestic financial and capital markets within the short term." GBDTs, fully backed by physical gold held at the RBZ, were introduced in May 2023.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is reportedly set to introduce a gold-backed digital currency to serve as legal tender in the country. The move will allow small amounts of Zimbabwean dollars to be exchanged for the digital gold token. RBZ Governor John Mangudya said that this will represent the first steps by the central bank towards using the country's gold reserves to tame Zimbabwe dollar depreciation. https://www.sundaymail.co.zw/rbz-introduces-gold-backed-digital-currency

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will start selling its gold-backed digital currency on May 8, 2023. Applications must be for a minimum of US$10 and US$5,000 for individuals and corporates and other entities, respectively, in U.S. dollars and local currency. The US dollar price will be "informed or guided" by the international gold price as determined by the London Bullion Market Association PM fix. Payment in local currency will be at a 20% margin above the willing-buyer willing-seller interbank mid-rate. Applications will close on May 10, 2023. https://www.rbz.co.zw/documents/press/2023/May/Gold-Backed_Digital_Tokens_Prospectus_-_4_May_2023_1.pdf

Bills introduced in the Texas House and Senate would require the state comptroller to establish a digital currency that is fully backed by gold and fully redeemable in cash or gold. The comptroller would be required to create a mechanism to use this digital currency in everyday transactions. In practice, individuals would be able to purchase digital currency from the state. The state would then use the money to purchase gold that would be held in the Texas Bullion Depository or another secure vault. The bills must next be assigned to committees, after which they must get a hearing and pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.

Working with wallet provider Blockchain and precious medal trader MKS (Switzerland) SA, Coinshares announced a gold-backed network for trading tokens representing digitized physical gold. The network launches with more than $20 million in gold held in a Swiss vault to back up its tokens. Each DGLD token is backed by 1/10th troy ounce.

JP Morgan analysts see a divergence between the behaviour of the older cohorts of the US retail investors' universe, and millennials in their preference for "alternative" currencies. The older cohorts prefer Gold while the younger cohorts prefer Bitcoin. Both Gold and Bitcoin ETFs have been experiencing strong inflows over the past five months, as both cohorts see the case for an "alternative" currency. This simultaneous flow support has caused a change in the correlation pattern between Bitcoin and other asset classes, with a more positive correlation between Bitcoin and Gold but also between Bitcoin and the Dollar as US millennials see Bitcoin as an "alternative" to the dollar. In addition, the simultaneous buying of US equities and Bitcoin by millennials since March has increased the correlation between Bitcoin and S&P500 since March.

A paper by the Harvard University's Matthew Ferranti explores the potential for Bitcoin to serve as an alternative central bank reserve currency asset to ex-ante hedge against the risk of financial sanctions. It uses a dynamic Bayesian copula model to simulate the joint returns of Bitcoin and other reserve assets under a wide range of plausible sanctions probabilities. Assuming mean-variance preferences, a modest risk of sanctions significantly increases optimal gold and Bitcoin allocations. If a central bank cannot acquire sufficient physical gold to hedge its sanctions risk, the optimal Bitcoin share rises further, suggesting that gold and Bitcoin are imperfect substitutes. It concludes that sanctions risk may diminish the appeal of US Treasuries, propel broader diversification in central bank reserves, and bolster the long-run fundamental value of both cryptocurrency and gold.

The Royal Canadian Mint has implemented a distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution to trace the source of gold used in the Mint's refinery and log gold bar transactions.

A new digital token backed by $300 million worth of gold guaranteed by the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange has just been released in Hong Kong.

In past periods of financial stress, investors seeking "safe havens" have shifted toward government bonds and gold. In recent years, some have questioned whether Bitcoin could also serve as a safe haven. This Kansas City Fed paper compares the behavior of government bonds, gold, and Bitcoin from January 1995 through February 2020 and finds that the 10-year Treasury note behaved like a safe haven consistently, gold occasionally, and Bitcoin never. During March 2020, however, none of the assets can be classified with confidence as a safe haven.

"The company AgAu AG was founded in 2018 and borrowed its name from the merger of the two atomic symbols "Ag" (for Silver) and "Au" (for Gold). As AgAu we plan to issue digital tokens corresponding to the direct ownership of allocated silver and gold bullions in Switzerland. We aim to be the easiest way to transact the direct ownership of allocated and redeemable physical LBMA quality gold and silver. The precious metals are audited and secured in regulated private vaults outside the banking system."

Swiss digital asset banking platform SEBA is offering a stablecoin backed by physical gold for any-time on-demand delivery of the physical metal. It was developed in conjunction with Argor-Heraeus, a leading service provider in the precious metal industry, and aXedras, a blockchain-based precious metal platform.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) launched a new "structured" currency called "Zimbabwe Gold" (ZiG) that will be anchored to a weighted value of the central bank's precious metal (mainly gold) and foreign currency reserves. As of April 5, 2024, the RBZ had reserve assets of US$100 million in cash and 2,522 kgs of gold (US$185 million) to back the entire local currency component of reserve money which stood at ZW$2.6 trillion (US$90 million). ZiG notes and coins shall be issued in denominations made up of 1ZiG, 2ZiG, 5ZiG, 10ZiG, 20Zig, 50ZiG, 100ZiG, and 200ZiG, but no mention is made of what becomes of the ZiG (now GBDT) wallets, assuming such wallets ever existed.

The gold industry is perhaps unrivaled in its wastefulness. A producer has to dig up about 20 tonnes of ore for enough gold to make a wedding ring.

The IMF has reportedly called on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to carefully consider the benefits of issuing a gold-backed digital currency versus the potential macroeconomic, financial stability, governance, legal and operational risks, plus the cost of forgone FX reserves. The IMF urged country authorities to rather use conventional measures to address economic challenges, such as maintaining a tight monetary-policy stance and accelerating the liberalization of the foreign-currency market.

"The HSBC gold token is undoubtedly a pioneering product working around complex market structures and regulations. However, its multi-layered structure brings legal, financial, and technical risks and constraints, potentially limiting the benefits and appeal of such tokenized assets."