Toronto company BitGold makes it possible for you to pay for anything from coffee to a movie with gold on prepaid Mastercard.
Gold is on a tear lately, and that’s been nice for a new Toronto company that has figured out a way for people to store bullion bars in their savings, or even spend it to make purchases.
BitGold (not to be confused with digital currency bitcoin) offers international savings and payment services that allow customers and businesses to make payments and hold savings with the precious metal, which was used as currency as far back as 5,000 years ago.
At the moment, the upstart Adelaide St. firm offers the only gold-backed, prepaid Mastercard in the world when you open an account, which is free. Payments are converted into local funds when they are made.
Co-founder Josh Crumb, former senior metals strategist at Goldman Sachs in London, created the business based on the premise that gold behaves more like a currency than it does other investments.
After all, gold bullion is the world’s oldest asset class and this century’s best performing currency. And as Crumb points out, gold has maintained its purchasing power better than any other savings option throughout history.
“If you want to buy actual gold, how do you do it? Coins and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have fees,” explains Crumb, the company’s chief strategy officer.
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