Blockchain for Tracking Gold By Royal Mint Gold UK

11/03/2017 - 14:16 UTC
Blockchain For Gold Ownership by Royal Mint Gold

How easy is it to lose a gold bar? It is easy enough to lose an admittedly heavy lump of gold worth more than $40,000.

During the London Blockchain Summit this week, Nicola Robinson, senior strategic marketing manager at the U.K.'s Royal Mint, which owns 5.4 percent of the global bullion market, "lost" a gold bar as a stunt. The purpose of the said stunt was to promote RMG Blockchain, the first of it kind, a blockchain based application of ownership management.

Robinson
    "It's simple; it's so simple, it's just a digital representation of real gold. The most exciting thing about RMG is that its life, it's out there, it's working."

Originally revealed in November 2016 as a way to implement a reliable record of gold ownership and the near instantaneous sale of the precious metal, at the event, Robinson announced that the first test transaction on the RMG blockchain was completed on Aug 2017, with a genesis block that includes an easter egg: a picture of the developers.

Royal Mint Gold Blockchain Genesis Block Developers

And while the blockchain – which was created in partnership with financial market giant CME Group using wallet startup BitGo's technology – is not yet open to the public, it has currently verified more than 50,000 blocks, Robinson said.

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice on Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies or finance in general.