All About E - Gold

A New Beginning of E Gold

2009-07-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

November 2008 will mark the 12th anniversary of e-gold's debut as an alternative global payment system enabling Users - individuals or businesses - to receive payment in gold at extremely low cost and without risk of the sort of payment reversals that characterize all credit based systems.

e-gold has been a pioneer in numerous areas and I am proud of its innovative accomplishments. Since 1996, the Internet has witnessed multiple online payment initiatives, several of them funded with $20-90 million of start-up capital, with distinguished founders and executive cadre, high profile brand name strategic allies, and favorable reception in the business press. But whereas Digicash, Cybercash, Beenz, Flooz, Peppercoin and a host of others each was promoted as the next big thing, all of them combined cumulatively [in their original incarnations - some have been restructured into other business models] executed less transaction volume than e-gold did in a typical single quarter.

But this note is not about success. It is about e-gold's failure to date to emerge, its failure to transition from a marginal player for early adopters to a respected institution integrated into the global financial mainstream. I am talking about a vision that has not yet been realized… and a determination to fix what needs to be improved.

e-gold's failure to emerge so far is a result of many factors but the root causes were design flaws in the account creation and provisioning logic that led to the unfortunate consequence of vulnerability to criminal abuse. Criminal abuse of the e-gold system, in turn, led to a self-reinforcing negative reputation.

Ultimately, criminal abuse of e-gold reached the point where the US Department of Justice intervened, bringing criminal charges against e-gold Ltd., Gold & Silver Reserve., Inc., (the Operator of e-gold and also of the online exchange service OmniPay), myself, and the other directors for violations of 18 USC 1960 [Operation of an unlicensed Money Transmitting Business] and 18 USC 1956 [Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering]. The criminal case has been resolved. The resolution of the criminal case however provides for a second chance, an opportunity to address the flaws embedded in the e-gold system and to transform the "e-gold Operation" into the institutions I, the other directors, and our longsuffering employees and contractors have always envisioned, one that serves to advance the material welfare of mankind.

In harmony with this transformation, we acknowledge that e-gold is indeed a Financial Institution or Agency as defined in US law and should be regulated as a Financial Institution. E-gold Ltd. has submitted an application to FinCEN to be registered as a Money Services Business and will be seeking licensure in all states that require it. Most importantly, working in conjunction with US government agencies, we will be exerting every effort to bring e-gold into compliance with US law and regulation as quickly as possible.

I am going to briefly describe the systemic problems we are undertaking to rectify and a roadmap of where the system is heading. Going from where we are now to where we need to be is going to be a bumpy road, especially at first. Many legitimate e-gold Users have already suffered loss over the past year as the measures undertaken by the government to prevent dissipation of assets have severely impacted exchange markets with resulting illiquidity of a magnitude as to effectively make it impracticable to exchange e-gold for conventional money. There will be more disruption in the next few months but it will be temporary and will set the stage for powerful new features that enhance the usability and global reach of e-gold. If there is a silver lining, it is that the more illiquid e-gold has become, the more valuable it has become due to the (apparently ongoing) decline of the US dollar relative to gold and other non-financial assets.

e-gold User Agreement Changes

Before proceeding, however, let me make something clear that should have been made more emphatically clear long ago. Use of the e-gold system for criminal activity will not be tolerated. Memorializing this resolve, the following provisions are being added to the e-gold Account User Agreement:

2.3. User agrees to not use e-gold in any manner that violates the laws of whatever jurisdiction to which the User is subject.

4.6.1.1. If e-gold investigators reasonably suspect that the e-gold account of User is being used to launder the proceeds of crime or for any other criminal purpose, Issuer may freeze the e-gold account and any other e-gold accounts of User. Additionally, at the sole discretion of Issuer, User will be subject to damages and other penalties, including criminal prosecution where available and the notification of the general public of User’s actions, at the sole discretion of Issuer.

Design flaws in legacy e-gold system

A systemic flaw in the e-gold design, present from the very beginning, made it vexingly difficult for e-gold to expel a User, in a truly effective way, for criminal abuse of the system. e-gold investigative staff might detect suspicious activity, block or freeze the offending account, and later discover the same perpetrator had created additional accounts.

One element was logic that allowed an e-gold account full privileges from the moment of creation and only revoked those privileges in the event of suspicion that the account holder was seeking to mask their identity or actually engage in illicit activity.

Compounding this weakness was an unrestricted ability for Users to create multiple accounts without any obligatory indicator that they were all under the control of one person.

The next generation of the e-gold application will undertake to enforce a "one-human being/one e-gold User" rule. Instead of the existing logic where a User logs directly into an account, a User in the next generation system logs in as a User. Only validated Users are empowered with the ability to create multiple accounts.

The advantage from the cybercrime-thwarting standpoint will be an ever-stronger ability to blacklist a person who has abused the e-gold system.

e-gold is intensively working on this next generation User-based log-in system but it is likely to be another 6-9 months to deployment. Meanwhile, emergency surgery is required NOW.

Shock Therapy phase [may it be brief!]

1) Effective immediately, new e-gold account creation is suspended until a compliant interim solution for Customer Identification can be ensured.

2) We are requesting that autoexchangers - even though the technical beauty of the autoexchanger concept is sublime – cease supporting exchanges to or from e-gold for the time being. The problem with the autoexchanger concept is that although the autoexchangers themselves may be perfectly compliant with requirements [promulgated by Webmoney and e-gold] to automatically put tracking data in their memo fields, and despite the fact that Webmoney is also committed to aiding in the suppression of cybercrime, the fact is that a substantial proportion of the cybercriminals that abuse e-gold have evolved into a modus operandi that involves autoexchanging possible proceeds of crime into Webmoney, sometimes within minutes of receiving the value, thus making interdiction a matter of catch-up or closing the barn door after the horse is gone.

Looking Forward

We are confident that a regulated e-gold rebuilt to a more systematic specification will be less hospitable to criminals, and more attractive to mainstream business use without being less accessible to those disregarded by legacy payment systems.

Please accept our apologies for the occasional turbulence you may experience on this journey. And, as always...

Thank you for using e-gold.

E - Gold Tips

2007-01-27T23:32:00.000-08:00

Egold is the main payment processor in HYIP and autosurf program and it is also a favorite haven of hackers to steal funds from account holders. Here are simple tips that may prevent your account from being compromised given the proliferation of internet fraud.Choose your browser For making online transactions use Mozilla browser. The internet explorer browser has security bugs being exploited by hackers.

Use egold's SRK
The SRK feature of your egold could prevent you from exposing your passphrase to keyloggers which may be running in your PC. If you send funds, use the SRK button to key in your passphrase.

Avoid suspicious email
"Phishing" is common in HYIP. If there is a mail requiring you to click to update your egold information, don't click. Egold and other payment processors never ask you to update your information.

Check your URL
As "Phishing" is common, always on the lookout where the site you're visiting is the genuine website of egold. "Phishing" makes it appear that you are actually on a genuine site but actually just a cloned site that will trick you to expose sensitive username and passwords.

Change password regularly
Always make it habit to update your password . Alphanumeric combination should be preferred.

TRUSTWORTHY
Pursuant to the e-gold Account User Agreement, the physical bullion that comprises the value backing e-gold must be insulated from physical, legal and political risks. Title is held by The e-gold Bullion Reserve Special Purpose Trust that exists for the express purpose of holding bullion for the exclusive benefit of all e-gold account holders collectively. The bullion is held in the form of certified good delivery bars in allocated storage at repositories certified by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). Metal is held free of any lien or encumbrance whatsoever and explicitly may not be attached to any liabilities of e-gold Ltd. or any other entity. No metal may be removed from storage or any other disposition made without the signatures of both e-gold Ltd. and a third party Escrow Agent of good reputation.

BENEFITS ALL USERS OF MONEY
The target market for e-gold is simply people who use money. How do you presently use money? Chances are any of these activities would benefit from the increased soundness, security, efficiency, and lower cost of e-gold. Here are some examples of how e-gold is presently used:
· e-commerce
· Business-to-business payments
· Point of service sales
· Person-to-person payments
· Payroll
· Bill payments
· Charitable donations
· Monetary base of the AUG* economy

EVOLVING EXCHANGE MARKET
The e-gold system is designed to be absolutely free of any financial risk. There can be no debt or contingent liabilities associated with e-gold. For this reason, e-gold Ltd. does not possess any national currency of any nation and has no bank accounts. Thus, e-gold Ltd. is not able to offer currency exchange services. Instead, a growing number of independent exchange services around the world support exchange between national currencies and e-gold, accepting various remittance methods, including credit cards, bank wires, checks, and money orders.

NO BARRIERS TO ENTRY
It costs nothing to open an e-gold account. There is no credit check. There is no minimum balance requirement. There is no concept of a "merchant account" in that all e-gold accounts may Spend e-gold or receive e-gold payments.In short, you are minutes away from opening your first e-gold account at:

Digital Gold Currency

2006-08-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

What is E-Gold?

E-Gold is a digital gold currency. It is issued by e-gold Ltd., a Nevis Corporation. It was established way back in 1996. This electronic currency is backed ounce for ounce by actual gold bullion. This system of online payment allows the transfer of money between e-gold account holders. Acco4rding to recent estimates, there are approximately 2.4 million e-gold account holders at present.You will find that e-gold Ltd. offers a variety of e-metals. So, there is e-silver, 100% backed by silver, e-platinum, 100% backed by platinum, and e-palladium, 100% backed by palladium. But without doubt e-gold beats all these metal currencies hands down. e-gold is has been integrated into an account based payment system. What this means is that an e-gold account holder can use gold as money. To be more precise, with e-gold system, you can transfer desired weights of gold to other e-gold accounts. What is more interesting to note is that in reality only the ownership changes. The gold in the treasury vaults remains there itself.

What should be understood though, is that e-gold is in no way connected to banking. When you use an online system that utilizes a currency based online exchange system, you are considered to be engaged into banking transactions and as such you come under the jurisdiction of federal laws regarding banking. But when you exchange e-gold, you are just exchanging the actual ownership of the gold and nothing else and that is why you are in no way engaged in banking and consequently don’t come under the purview of such federal laws like "Know your customers."Now, for the part that e-gold is one hundred percent backed by gold. This means that when you are engaged in transactions through your e-gold account (if you buy something or if someone spends to your account) you are in reality receiving a weight of gold. The best thing about this type of transaction is that the amount of gold that you have is not going to change until you spend or redeem it for a currency or take delivery of it. But with currencies, the actual purchasing capacity of the currencies is sure to fluctuate. You would be at the mercy of economic policies of the government and the inflation that there wrong policies could bring. But with e-gold you are completely safe.

E-gold is considered a pioneer in the field of alternative currencies. It is considered the best alternative to traditional forms of payments. Most of the times, traditional forms of payment and that too in online transactions prove to be more costly and quite inefficient. When you deal in e-gold, you are provided with a system of transaction which clears instantly. And you must have dealt with cheques or credit card where a typical transaction takes days to process. Similarly, with most of the online payment systems like paypal, they make a distinction between merchant and non-merchant accounts. There is no such thing as merchant and non-merchant e-gold accounts and consequently all the e-gold accounts carry the same fees besides they also have the same capacity to receive and transfer e-gold account holdings.Thus, we find that e-gold account is one of the finest ways of managing an online account and it has become a benchmark in online transactions.

HOW TO FUND YOUR E-GOLD ACCOUNT?

Creating an e-gold account is a child’s play. Anyone can do it. And what’s more there is no fee to open an e-gold account and there is no minimum balance also. There are absolutely no restrictions on opening an e-gold account. No restrictions based on geographic locality, age, status or for that matter anything. To open a new e-gold account you just need to open the "new account page" on the e-gold site and then you just need to fill the simple form provided on it. The whole process won’t take you more than five minutes or so.But what use would be your e-gold account, if you won’t have any e-gold in it. And you will find that funding your account would prove to be more difficult than the process of creation of the account. It is quite surprising (and I have not come across reason for this!) that e-gold does not offer any way to buy or sell e-gold themselves. You will have to make use of a third party called a Market Maker. A market maker is someone who exchanges national currencies for e-currencies. And when you send him the request, this merchant places the e-gold in your online currency account. The whole process can be reversed also. If you wish to exchange your e-gold, they would buy your e-currency and would pay you in your national currency.Funding an e-gold account is being made more and more convenient. So, you can fund your e-gold with PayPal. You can also buy e-gold with a credit card. This option should generally be avoided because the market maker would charge you anything from 15% to 20% for it. This high cost is most probably because of cost to him of fraudulent charge backs. You can also use debit card, bank wire, bank draft, cash, electronic banking, and many more. As the time is passing the options are also being broadened.

You will find that e-gold provides a page that lists several market makers and you will find that there exist some differences in the fees charged by different market makers. On an average the fee varies from 4.5% to 10% for small transactions. You will also find that there are some market makers who don’t bother about small transactions at all. Most of the market makers tend to prefer bank wire transfers and money orders to fund an e-gold account. As we have already discussed, one can also use PayPal or credit cards (avoidable because of high transaction fees). There are also some market makers who give you the option of going to a bank branch to deposit the funds directly and we think that in case you are situated near one of those banks, nothing can be better than that. You will also find that the transaction fee is lower for this kind of transaction. What’s more, there is less delay and inconvenience than a wire transfer or money order.There is one drawback with funding your e-gold account. This funding is never instantaneous. It always takes some time. If you are funding your account with a credit card, it will take time so that your card may be verified first and the whole process may take a few hours to a day. You may also be required to respond to their verification phone call. Yes, the next time would be quite fast because your credit card would be already verified.So, happy funding.

For Those who lives in Indonesia you can fund your e-gold via Indochanger.com and you can cash it to BCA Bank, Permata bank and also Mandiri bank or you can use another e-gold changer such as sentra e-gold :