[ann] bitcoin tangible trust: digital gold coins on counterparty

 


Our Mission:
Bitcoin Tangible Trust. Our mission is to digitize gold into gold coins on the Counterparty Protocol. We aim to allow our customers to bet on gold prices and to avoid volatility risk from bitcoins or the many other altcoins. We aim to be a physical gold custodian, digital gold asset issuer, and P2P decentralized exchange platform for our gold customers. We are powered by XCP!

How does it work? Three Easy Steps
Step 1:  Purchase gold bars with Bitcoin (BTC) and assign BitcoinTangibleTrust as your custodian
 
Step 2: BitcoinTangibleTrust Issues you a unique Digital Gold Coin on Counterparty Protocol backed by your gold in custody
 
Step 3: Trade your Digital Gold Coin for bitcoins on our decentralized exchange or redeem gold for delivery from custody. Digital signatures are required for all redemption and delivery orders.


Our Customers:
Our best customers have the following characteristics:
Strongly believe in gold as a secure store of value
[list]
[li]Want to bet on the price of gold relative to bitcoin or any altcoin[/li]
[li]Are afraid of bitcoin/altcoin volatility risk on their coin holdings[/li]
[li]Want extremely fast mobility into and out of safety of gold[/li]
[li]Don’t want to hold physical gold or worry about custodian services[/li]
[li]Don’t wish to pay trading fees or broker fees for selling their gold assets[/li]
[li]Want peace of mind that their assets (physical and digital) are secure[/li]
[/list]

Our Technology (Powered by XCP):
We are built on the Counterparty protocol for the following reasons:
Built on the bitcoin blockchain, a tested and secure platform
[list]
[li]Rapid development and go-to-market Counterparty developer team[/li]
[li]Low XCP Asset issuance costs and programmatic redemption features[/li]
[li]Community support of open-source wallet technology. Special thanks to JahPowerBit’s wallet which powers our P2P Trading[/li]
[li]Amazing solutions-focused community to get XCP launched[/li]
[/list]

Our Gold and Bitcoin Expertise:
Our team has combined 50 years of technology in the following areas:
Finance and Asset Management
[list]
[li]Custodian Law[/li]
[li]Open Source application development[/li]
[li]IT Security[/li]
[li]Bitcoin actively trading since 2012[/li]
[/list]

Our Ask of you, the Counterparty Community:
Today we would like your help to review our initial website: http://bitcointangibletrust.com/ We would like to improve our site as we welcome more customers to our platform.

Will you the Counterparty Community help us in the following?
Ask us any questions in this thread that we should address on our FAQ
[list]
[li]Tell us your thoughts about the issues you think are important to making this Counterparty startup a success.[/li]
[li]Offer us any partnership opportunities that will help your XCP business as well. We’d be happy to discuss.[/li]
[/list]

Contact us and let us launch Counterparty Gold together: info@bitcointangibletrust.com

EDIT: Adding our Public Key for future message verification

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That is great!  I will read the FAQ and come back and ask some questions.

Thanks

[quote author=etherbroker link=topic=179.msg1222#msg1222 date=1394674679]
That is great!  I will read the FAQ and come back and ask some questions.

Thanks
[/quote]

Yes! More questions! Please help us improve and ask the tough questions!

So are you saying you are buying physical gold from people?  Because it seems like if you are the custodian, you are holding the gold.

But you are also offering to digitize gold that people have…  So they will have to send it to you?  I must not be getting the whole idea.

If you can create trust, I am sure it will be successful. 

[quote author=etherbroker link=topic=179.msg1274#msg1274 date=1394854761]
So are you saying you are buying physical gold from people?  Because it seems like if you are the custodian, you are holding the gold.

But you are also offering to digitize gold that people have…  So they will have to send it to you?  I must not be getting the whole idea.

If you can create trust, I am sure it will be successful.
[/quote]

Great questions etherbroker. I will add these to our FAQ today as well.

Answer 1: No, we are not buying physical gold FROM anyone but reputable Gold sellers. We have customers who already hold gold and wish to digitize that gold into BTC. These customers will need to send us their gold so that we may hold them in custody and deliver Proof of Custody and Proof of Possession.

Answer 2: Yes, we are offering to digitize gold already held in custody by any of our customers. We could do a better job of putting that on our website.

Answer 3: No, they don’t have to send the gold to us, but they will need to deliver the gold to one of our custodian partners.

Yes, we’re working on putting trustless systems in place, but given that we are working with centralized entities, we’ll need to do some manual Proof of Custody and Proof of Possession.

Thank you for the excellent questions. Please do check our FAQ and let us know whether we are missing any further questions/answers?

Yes, I understand.

Do you have any examples of custodians you use?  Is it something I would recognize, like Brinks in Salt Lake City?

Do you plan to have custodians all over the globe and can the Counterparty user choose a custodian by geography?

And could you you tell me what advantage I might get from digitizing gold?  I think some things are obvious, like maybe I could cross a border but still have access to my bullion.  Any others?

And finally do you plan to work with silver, if it meets a large minimum?

Thanks

[quote author=etherbroker link=topic=179.msg1627#msg1627 date=1395970762]
Yes, I understand.

Do you have any examples of custodians you use?  Is it something I would recognize, like Brinks in Salt Lake City?

Do you plan to have custodians all over the globe and can the Counterparty user choose a custodian by geography?

And could you you tell me what advantage I might get from digitizing gold?  I think some things are obvious, like maybe I could cross a border but still have access to my bullion.  Any others?

And finally do you plan to work with silver, if it meets a large minimum?

Thanks
[/quote]

Hello etherbroker,

Thanks for the questions. My answers are below:

A1: You may check our partners list online here: http://www.bitcointangibletrust.com/partners

A2: Yes. We plan to have custodians globally which would really be exciting to allow you to purchase any precious metal anywhere and store it safely in custody, anywhere, to then trade on the DEx with anyone! 

A3: Why you will want to digitize gold?
1) You want to buy gold, but not take delivery. However, you don’t wish to simply purchase an ETF because you still want the choice to take the physical gold
2) You want to bet on BTC and Gold prices as a possible hedge, but you don’t want to worry about gold storage
3) You want to quickly exit your gold purchase in minutes vs. days
4) You want to move out of BTC into Gold to keep your cyrpto investment value protected, but you don’t want to move into fiat just yet
5) You want to borrow against your physical gold, but you have no way to store the gold with a third party that can transfer ownership quickly
6) You want to trade gold in minutes
7) You want a partner to put your physical gold up for trade and secure offers for your gold without having to make the sale yourself.

These are the reasons we started BTT. We are working to validate that these needs and hope you will let us know. If these aren’t important to you, please let us know what matters in your precious metals investment activity.

[size=13px][font=arial][/font][/size][left][size=13px][font=arial][color=#000000]So you mean, counterparty will be backed by gold and produce a Digital Gold Coin? Maybe that would be a strong and tangible trust, but I don’t think people will believe in “digital gold”, metals are metals—it’s purely physical.[/color][/font][/size][/left]

[quote author=SUEhoward link=topic=179.msg2171#msg2171 date=1399030348]
[left][size=13px][font=arial][color=#000000]So you mean, counterparty will be backed by gold and produce a Digital Gold Coin? Maybe that would be a strong and tangible trust, but I don’t think people will believe in “digital gold”, metals are metals—it’s purely physical.[/color][/font][/size][/left]
[/quote]


I think “digital gold” is shorthand, and perhaps misleading. I think it would be best to describe what BTT offers as a claim check on specific amounts and forms of gold. At any time you can redeem your BTT “claim check” for physical gold, and have the physical metal sent to you by one of their custodians. This is a desirable protocol for people who don’t want to or don’t know how to secure their precious metals in their home.


You used the word “believe” in your response, and I think this is an important word. Here is where belief comes in. A person will use the investment and custodial services offered by BTT if: 1.) that person believes that gold is a valuable asset worth having; 2.) that person believes that BTT is a reliable and trustworthy enterprise which will do what they say regarding the money entrusted to them, and 3.) that person believes that Counterparty is a reliable and trustworthy vehicle for BTT and client trades to pass through. Belief results from performance. So follow along and see whether gold, Counterparty, and BTT are all performing in a way that warrants your trust.



Going to go in with an immediately important question;


How do we trust you?