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Next-Generation Gold Tracking

By Gregor Gregersen, CEO, CACHE

Published on September 8, 2020

Imagine yourself changing the jurisdiction of where your gold holdings are held – for example, in Singapore instead of the United States. Based on conventional ways of moving gold, you could hire a secure logistics company to fly it to Singapore. Alternatively, you could sell your gold in the United States and use the funds to buy gold again in Singapore, incurring buy-sell spread costs in the process.

But what if there were an easier and faster option that saved you the hassle and expense that comes with international logistical transfers and navigating the customs requirements of different jurisdictions for precious metals?

Singapore-based technology company CACHE is attempting to overcome these obstacles with the introduction of CACHE Gold tokens (CGT), which are ERC-20 tokens, each backed by 1 gram of pure, investment-grade gold. The company does not buy nor sell gold or tokens to the general public – its scope of operations is limited to tokenizing physical gold and facilitating the redemption of tokens for physical gold.

CACHE plans to develop a marketplace comprising global vaults and bullion dealers to allow gold owners to easily swap between bullion and CGT across jurisdictions. The CACHE marketplace currently has gold stored in the vaults of Loomis, Dillon Gage’s wholly owned IDS and The Safe House, which can be redeemed using CACHE Gold tokens.

Investors can therefore bring gold bars to Dillon Gage’s vault in Texas and have them tokenized into CGT, which can then be redeemed for physical gold held in Singapore at The Safe House vault. In a matter of minutes, your gold holdings have switched jurisdictions without the need to engage a secure logistics company or wait several weeks for the delivery to be completed. Such transactions can be done between vaults on the CACHE marketplace, giving gold holders a myriad of options to better manage their holdings.

Viewing gold stored within the CACHE Gold ecosystem using the CACHE Explorer

SECURITY AND CONVENIENCE

Each gold bar that backs CGTs is deposited in commercial vaults using the GramChain asset tracking system, which enforces transparency through specialised RFID scanners, tamper-evident bags and data hashes broadcasted in real-time to the ethereum blockchain. This guarantees that the event history of each bar cannot be surreptitiously tampered or manipulated in any way by anyone, including CACHE.

CGT stored in digital wallets can be securely carried anywhere in the world or traded on digital exchanges with no impediment. The tokens are essentially warehouse receipts that can be redeemed for physical gold bars as small as 100 grams. Redeemed gold can also be sold to participating bullion dealers on the CACHE Marketplace or shipped to the token holder’s address.

CGT is also freely transferable on the ethereum blockchain and can be traded on select digital exchanges. Token holders are free to choose their preferred ERC-20 compatible wallets and can trade without an account with CACHE unless redemption of gold is required.

Holders of CGT can also redeem and sell their gold to participating dealers who offer bids at specific vaults within the CACHE marketplace. As CACHE Gold is investment-grade gold of known provenance, it is an attractive way for dealers to obtain gold at the prices they are willing to pay. Secondly, by bidding slightly more for gold in one jurisdiction, such as in Singapore compared to Dallas, dealers can obtain the gold in the jurisdiction they need it most and reduce the need to ship inventory between jurisdictions.

CACHE provides the foundational technologies to enable trusted gold digitalisation but leaves the trading to third-parties. This approach makes the CACHE marketplace highly scalable and its growth independent of CACHE. Users of CGT do not need the consent of CACHE to create new markets or find new uses for CGT, thereby allowing organic growth of its marketplace.

AS GOOD AS GOLD

The CACHE Gold Token is a powerful new asset class that offers the store-of-value function of physical gold, while also providing the convenience and flexibility of a public, non-proprietary, blockchain-based digital asset. It is not a replacement or substitute for physical gold but connects gold to the distributed digital trading world in a transparent and credible manner. CGT therefore complements physical gold and offers new options for wealth management.

Visit https://cache.gold for more information.

GREGOR GREGERSEN is the Chief Executive Officer of CACHE. He was a Senior Data Architect with Commerzbank AG where he witnessed first-hand the fragility of the financial system during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. It started him on a journey to seek safe haven assets such as precious metals and led to his founding of Silver Bullion, a Singapore-based company specialising in wealth protection from systemic risks. Gregor also founded The Safe House, a 630-tonne capacity precious metals vault in Singapore.

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