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The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 34, August 23, 2020, Article 30

UTAH'S GOLDBACK ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY

Remember when Utah passed a Legal Tender act allowing gold currency? Here's one produce developed under its provisions: the "Goldback" alternative currency. -Editor

Goldbacks

The Utah series was the first Goldback series available in 2019. Nevada and New Hampshire are scheduled to be done in 2020. There are many projects in the works. Goldbacks may be used anywhere people chose to accept gold.

The Goldback is the world's first voluntary, complementary currency to be made of a spendable, beautiful, small denomination, physical gold.

The Goldback project truly began in spirit with the passage of the Utah Legal Tender Act in 2011 which recognized certain types of Gold as currency within the state. Since that time the technology to mint gold into a spendable form for small transactions has come to fruition. Goldbacks may be used almost anywhere in the world for barter transactions. Goldback Inc. is using cutting edge vacuum deposition technology to circulate gold as it never has before.

Goldback artwork We are working to make it possible for an anyone to have a choice on whether or not they want their regular spending money to be subject to inflation. The Goldback is meant to be the best physical complementary currency for retaining value. Our goal is for people to be able to pay for anything with the Goldback whether it is a new home or a lemonade. Each Goldback is at least valued at the current rate on Goldback.com by businesses.

Some people feel like there may come a day when regular fiat currency will no longer retain much value due to some economic, political, or natural disaster. Over the past century hundreds of fiat currencies have had their values wiped out. For this reason, many people hold some amount of gold and silver. However, it may be difficult to spend a theoretical $1,500 gold coin or even an $80 silver coin for the purchase of toilet paper if an EMP blast wipes out the power grid for several months. It makes sense to keep a portion of this hedge in Goldbacks.

Our team has been working in the precious metals industry since our General Counsel, Lawrence Hilton, authored and championed the passage of the Utah Legal Tender Act in 2011. The Utah Precious Metals Association formed in 2012 from the "Citizens for Sound Money" and began offering legal tender gold accounts that same year. We have been innovating in the space ever since.

The site includes an interesting readable history of the notes, including the story of the artwork. I've excerpted some paragraphs below, bt it's all worth checking out, inluding the additional linked pages. -Editor

Goldback wallet Every Goldback is a quarter inch taller than the previous denomination except for the ‘fifty', which has a half inch jump from the ‘twenty-five'. The ‘fifty' is also the only one that is 3 inches wide. We wanted the larger denominations to always be physically bigger than the smaller ones because it feels more intuitive to have it that way. Also, having different sizes makes each Goldback easier to identify when stacked on each other, and they are more friendly to the visually impaired. In fact, most countries use different size denominations for their currency. (But they don't use any real gold!!!)

The first image for the ‘one' denomination was done (we thought) so we had it scanned and sent to Valaurum for the digital aspects of the art to be finished. Bonnie Edwards was/is the second artist. She designed everything on the Goldbacks that wasn't done by pencil, which is about half of what you see on the Goldback. She spent quite a bit of time on each denomination adding unique security designs, colors, and fonts to give the Goldbacks balance, continuity, and individuality. She also cropped and adjusted the pencil art so it would be displayed appropriately. Chris and I worked with Bonnie back and forth quite a bit, but oddly, Bonnie and Cheri only talked to each other only once or twice. It is interesting to note that the art on the Utah Goldbacks is of women and was drawn, designed, and put together by only female artists. We got the demos of the ‘one' about a month before Freedomfest. The ‘one' denomination was the most artistically challenging by far.

I don't fault anyone for being skeptical or worried about the possible negative repercussions of doing the Goldback. Chris and I were worried about even naming the currency a "Goldback" for fear of "the boogeyman." We knew what happened to the Liberty Dollar so we committed ourselves to studying that event so that we could avoid every mistake they made. We went as far as to read the entire 50 page case by the FBI against them.

The final task that was done during this timeframe was the creation of the Goldback wallet. This wallet is designed to fit Goldbacks so that they don't bend. Goldbacks can be bent, but that wears them out faster than necessary. The wallet was designed by our own Jeff McClellan who worked tirelessly with the manufacturers to get 800 said wallets produced. All of them have since been sold, and reorders have had to be placed.

Since that time, Goldbacks have taken the internet by storm on Reddit and YouTube. UPMA did a promotion offering a Goldback for a new account and they grew by 500% in just a few months; over 20,000 new accounts. Goldbacks are now offered by some of the biggest names in the industry, like APMEX and JMBullion. Goldbacks constantly sell out and they are the #1 most sought after small denomination gold product in America, according to some of our retailers. Our struggle now is keeping up with demand. Valaurum is constantly raising money so they can scale. It is hard to imagine the project turning out better.

To visit the Goldback website, see:
https://goldback.com/

Fricke E-Sylum ad02 Coppers


Wayne Homren, Editor

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