GoldMint Quarterly Report
Introduction
GoldMint is a blockchain project whose main purpose is to create a stable crypto asset, GOLD, that is 100% backed by futures and physical gold. During the ICO, which the company successfully completed in November 2017, GoldMint sold the utility token MNTP. Also, the company is developing a vending gold depository: Custody Bot.
This document is GoldMint’s first report on the work undertaken during the first quarter. The key achievements of the period were the release of the crypto asset GOLD on the bancor.network, idex.market and simex.globalexchanges, the development of the first Custody Bot demo, and the beginning of the integration of the Sumus blockchain.
The release of digital gold: crypto asset GOLD
In accordance with the plans described in the project roadmap, we have successfully completed preparations for the launch of the crypto asset GOLD on the Ethereum blockchain. At present, you can buy and sell the crypto asset on the bancor.network, idex.market and simex.global exchanges for one of the crypto-currencies represented on it.
We have a ready-made smart contract, available on GitHub, that regulates the turnover of GOLD. Also, we have completed the development of a personal cabinet for holders of the GOLD asset.
Personal accounts
In the near future, investors will be able to buy and sell GOLD for fiat currencies, as well as to exchange it for physical gold in their personal accounts. However, there are currently restrictions on working with fiat currencies. We negotiated with 23 banks and 14 card payment systems from 25 countries to receive money from individuals for the purchase and/or sale of the GOLD crypto asset. We registered the company in Estonia and underwent the procedure of filing notifications to operate with crypto-currency legally and to provide investors with the opportunity to buy and sell digital gold for fiat money. However, despite the full compliance of KYC/AML with our requirements, banks are cautious about operations with crypto currency assets, so we do not have partners in this direction yet.
In practice, we discovered that Estonian banks refuse to open accounts for companies operating with gold and crypto assets, even if they have Estonian permits and notifications. Swedbank and SEP Bank do not work with companies that are not closely connected with Estonia. TBB and LHV explicitly report that they do not want to open accounts for companies operating in the crypto-currency area. Similarly, we received the same response from the Singaporean banks DBS and OCBC.
We are in the process of solving this problem, and we have every reason to believe that, over time, the fiat-crypto currency gateway will be successfully opened.
Legal Aspects and the SEC Notification
During the ICO, we didn’t sell MNTP tokens to US, Chinese, Canadian, and Singaporean citizens because in those countries, the position of the regulator was clearly expressed at the time of the ICO. Now, we are in the process of filing with the SEC and the MAS (regulator of Singapore). After this process, we plan to start advertising our project in the abovementioned territories, and we can also start the process of listing the MNTP token and the GOLD asset on the biggest exchanges.
When buying or selling GOLD with a fiat currency, we plan to use the KYC identification system of our customers from Shufti Pro. Because we plan to conduct KYC’s procedures for the sale of GOLD and its buyback, we will be able to provide the necessary level of control over cash flows. Moreover, we will comply with anti-money laundry procedures for each of our clients.
“We carefully monitor all the changes in crypto-currency–related legislation of possible jurisdictions. Over the past six months, the situation has changed dramatically: now, crypto-currencies are the focus of regulators’ attention. In several countries, there is a clearly expressed position (often negative) with regard to bitcoins, but there is no regulatory framework for the circulation of crypto assets. Although our GOLD token will help protect the interests of the investor, we must be extremely cautious in our actions.”
Vasily Shadrin,
The Head of GoldMint legal department
The company bears the obligation to buy back GOLD coin as follows at https://www.goldmint.io/legal
GOLD on Bancor, Idex and Simex
Because of the prohibitive policy of banks and payment systems, we made the decision to list GOLD on the bancor.network, idex.market and simex.global exchanges without waiting for the fiat gateway. On the bancor exchange, you can buy and sell GOLD for any of the 50 crypto-currencies that are part of the bancor.network. We, in turn, will carry out market-making, supporting the GOLD course in accordance with the course for CME. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to ensure a 100% correspondence, considering the delays in the purchase and sale of GoldMint assets. However, in general, our users will receive a stable, gold-secured crypto asset and will finally be able to use our second utility — the MNTP token — for one of our goals: to obtain preferential commission terms for transactions with GOLD.
We plan to sell the crypto currency received on bancor.network, idex.market and simex.global for dollars on exchanges (Simex and Cex) and to use them to buy gold.
“First and foremost, GOLD is needed for active trades. In the case of a sharp drop in the currency rate, they need to quickly stabilize their portfolio by converting high-volatility assets into low-volatility ones (i.e., GOLD). Currently, traders are using Tether (USDT) to hedge risks, but given that the company continues to issue tokens and cannot or does not want to confirm its security with dollars, the use of Tether is becoming more and more dangerous. Traders understand this and are looking for another tool. The GOLD smart contract is written in such a way that we cannot issue more coins than there are gold futures. Thus, the company can redeem all GOLD as soon as there is rapid market growth and traders begin to trade actively again. The bancor.network is one of the most famous and most convenient platforms for converting tokens, widely used by traders.”
Olga Svyatenko,
COO GoldMint
In order to always have sufficient funds to repurchase all of GOLD’s crypto assets at the current price of gold, GoldMint successfully opened an account with the well-known broker WedBush on March 5 after undergoing multiple tests. This broker provides us with the opportunity to buy and sell supply futures (and physical gold at London’s OTC market) on both the CME and the LME exchange.
We also agreed to partnership with the Singapore precious metals exchange (sgpmx.com). This partnership will allow our customers to exchange GOLD tokens for physical gold and vice versa, provided they also have an account on SGPMX. The gold can be delivered directly to the customer’s home after the payment of transportation fees.
More information about transparency issues available here: https://www.goldmint.io/transparency
GOLD Fees
Gold’s supply
In its initial strategy, our company relied on the acquisition of physical gold but not gold ETF or non-deliverable (“paper”) futures. ETF tokens might find themselves at a significant disadvantage compared to gold due to major fund management expenses (operation fees). As far as the paper futures are concerned, they can differ significantly from the price of physical goods during crises upon reaching the expiration date (e.g., gold and silver prices in the “silver swindle” of the Hunt brothers in 1980). Even though they are quite rare, such events might re-occur in the future.
Unlike “paper” futures, whose volume can significantly exceed the amount of real goods, the delivery futures market and over-the-counter (OTC) market behave quite stably. We work with delivery futures in Chicago (CME) and, later in 2018, in London (LME). As a subject of the OTC market, we chose SGPMX (Singapore), which is well suited for our customers from Southeast Asia.
The storage of delivered CME gold takes place in the two nearest banks of the US Federal Reserve System: New York (FRBNY) and Chicago (FRBC). Clients uncertain of whether to store their physical gold in the USA are free to use any of the four SGPMX (Singapore) storage facilities.
In addition to this, the company, like any participant, admitted to trading professionally in physical gold and has an account with Brinks (an American company — the oldest and largest carrier of gold and other valuables. This allows gold to be sent instantaneously to another company’s client, as long as that client has a Brinks account set up (it also allows them to then, subsequently, apply for physical delivery). This also allows gold stored on the client’s Brinks account to be instantaneously “tokenized” (converted into GOLD tokens). Such operations are understandably profitable at high volumes due to the large commissions.
MNTP Tokens and Exchange Market Entry
In 2017, we successfully completed the distribution of MNTP tokens to investors and brought the tokens to several exchanges to ensure liquidity. At the moment, the token can be bought or sold on the bancor.network, Yobit, Simex, IDEX, and ForkDelta. The team’s key achievement in this direction was the withdrawal of MNTP to the bancor.network exchange, where it is possible to exchange a token not only for BTC and ETH but also for the crypto-currencies of other projects.
“We are negotiating with the new exchanges, and in the near future, we are going to announce the listing of the token on several major exchanges. We have held dozens of negotiations with traders, foundations, and private crypto-investors interested in exchanging high-volatility crypto-currencies for stable GOLD. After GOLD receives official status as a crypto asset in the SEC, we plan to bring it to the biggest exchange that will obtain licenses to work with security.”
Eugene Wolfman,
CBDO GoldMint
Blockchain Development
Over the course of research and development related to the blockchain, we have decided to switch from the originally announced Graphene blockchain to Sumus, a new solution from an international development team. Since January, we have been actively working on adapting the Sumus blockchain to fit our needs, and we will present it in the second quarter of this year, as previously planned.
“I can say that one of the features of the PoS blockchain Sumus is a unique consensus algorithm. To obtain the right to get the masternode, you need to reserve 10,000 MNTP tokens. Then, during the verification of each blockchain block (once every two minutes), randomly (equiprobable and difficult to predict), from all active n master nodes, n escorting nodes are selected. Then, from the n escorting masternodes, the main masternode is selected. This masternode closes the block when a consensus is reached within the n escorting nodes.
Because of the variety of technical solutions and innovations used in the development of the Sumus blockchain, the source code will not be published by any public media sources until there is at least one GoldMint project in place that is going to use said code”.
Konstantin Pichugin,
GoldMint CTO
Custody Bot — vending gold depository
Custody Bot is a unique gold depository from the GoldMint developers. Its main tasks are the purchase, sale, and storage of gold. The device, which resembles an ATM, is equipped with a spectrometer, scale, and cells for storage. One feature of Custody Bot is the integration of the blockchain into it, which stores data about the gold valuation. This solution will allow GOLD assets owners to invest in the industry of the lombard business with minimal risk thanks to the transparency of the vending depository operations.
At the moment, the company is actively developing Custody Bot, and we already have the first demo version finished.
Below is the video showing Custody Bot demo:
Tokenization of Assets
At the international conferences in Singapore and London, we were convinced that the tokenization of assets is an important step in the development of the market. Even today, we are negotiating the launch of new commodity assets based on our blockchain: silver, aluminum, molybdenum, coal, artificial diamonds, and even uranium.
Before the wide announcement of GOLD coin launch, it is high time to buy some MNTP.
BUY MNTP
Yours faithfully,
the GoldMint team
