...and the trainwreck continues... Cheers, RAH --- begin forwarded text Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 16:53:19 -0400 (AST) From: Ian Grigg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: in search of new metals Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sometime last week (the 2nd of August, 2001, to be precise) marked the expiry of a two-year exclusive that Systemics provided to DigiGold.net Ltd for its issuance of metals-based contracts for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Agreeing to that exclusive was something that I have not ever regretted, much to the dismay of the other would-be metals issuers. It allowed DigiGold to make their best effort to succeed without having to look over their shoulders all the time. Douglas Jackson, being the negotiating face of DigiGold, argued strongly for an exclusive on issuances denominated in the four precious metals, from 2nd August 1999 for two years, and this was accepted and signed into the agreement, and also memorialised in other evidence. Sad to say, the agreement with DigiGold.net Ltd didn't work out. The documents filed in the Anguilla High Court show that on or about November 2000, Systemics accepted DigiGold.net's termination of the agreement. The exclusive died as part of the agreement. It was never a question as to whether the exclusive died with the agreement itself, but one can imagine the court arguments on this issue. We decided to not really push the point until we could be sure. As of the 2nd of August, we know that the exclusive is expired as well as terminated. We have the dates set in the contract, and the retained emails to back up the full intention of both the parties on the meaning of those dates, so that any other interpretation by the courts or arbitrator would be obscure, indeed. This means that Systemics is now actively in search of issuers of metals. We are not offering an exclusive this time, as that makes less sense than it did two years ago. However, we are advising the people we are talking to to focus their offerings on a particular segment. There really is no point in just invading other people's patches at this stage in the market, as there are so many uncontested patches to gather without competition. An issuer of metal does not have a particularly hard job of it, compared to some other issuances. The contracts have been written, for the most part, by various parties, already; and we are starting to establish a contractual track record with the subsequent revisions by legal experts over the last twelve months. For repositories, there are now several easy choices. It is not necessary to store physical metal, as there are several systems that promise to do it for you; the last twelve months have seen the arisal of half a dozen new "gold backed currencies," so much so that they have a new acronym: GBC. The main consideration that arises is to pick a GBC as a repository that gives you the governance equation and a marketing message that are aligned with your business. There is little point in picking a "gaming" GBC for a savings and investment concept; likewise, there may not be any point in paying percentage points for a top of the line governance system if you are only going to be offering gambling to your punters. Another thing that is very important to the business is having a customer base. The mousetrap strategy -- build it and they will come -- is not going to work any more. It will be too slow, because exponential growth is extraordinarily pathetic in the first few years, when measured in absolute terms. You probably need to have access, somehow, to a significant user base. In other words, you had better have a marketing strategy along with the skills, resources, and good luck to carry it out. One benefit of our current nascent metals world, the so- called "gold economy," is the presence of market makers or exchange providers. The loading problem that bedevilled the payment systems experiments of the second half of the 1990s is a thing of the past now. Start to get to know those exchange providers, they are a critical part of the network. The major questions all derive from the marketing equation that one would set. What will users use this new currency for? There should be an application in mind, it is well established that you need to direct your marketing efforts to the activities of the users and not play the money-is-its-own-application card. Systemics provides the payment system, we call it Ricardo. But we don't necessarily provide the application. The most obvious application is retail, as we call it, and for that, we direct people to Intertrader, who have this handy-dandy CashBox product that helps to do the middleware. That product is demonstrable right now with SOX/Ricardo payments, and is now looking for some retail attention. We are hoping to be able to use it for our major exchange providers in the future. Ricardo excels at those applications that require serious non-revocability of the payment. Unlike the systems used by the GBCs, Ricardo includes the governance and auditing chains built in to the software to ensure the servers are as safe from the operators as they are from external agents. For this reason, Ricardo may be the ideal choice for gaming applications, and for financial instrument trading. We can point you at partners in both areas. There are yet more applications waiting to be developed, including some esoteric ones written up in papers and on the mailgroups. In closing, we have the systems, and we would like to see some more metals issuances. Do not think that this is a cheap business. You will need serious funds for this. It is not a garage business by any stretch; the current record is held by DeutschesBank, who were rumoured to have paid a million dollars _per_month_, way back when, for a shot at their cash system. We don't charge that much :) If you have access to a user base and a great idea, contact us. iang --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Did you know that the new e-gold Secure Random Keypad can help you to protect your passphrase from both keystroke & mouse- click "sniffing" trojan viruses? You can find out more about computer security at: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/home_networks.html
