How will we physically trade gold & silver at $5000 & $500?

> Shelby-
>
> Sure, you can publish your replies to me (as anonymous).
>
> I find your thoughts interesting, as I've not viewed high liquidity in the
> physical silver market as important. My thoughts have purely been around
> preservation of value, and an ultimate transfer of that value into
> something
> else as the fundamentals become increasingly apparent. I guess I've
> figured
> on taking my lumps on the bid/offer spread.
>
> To elaborate, I expect silver to take off and trade up to $50 (in today's
> dollars). I figure I might have to hit the bid at 5% below the FMV, but
> it's not a big enough spread to concern me greatly.


This occurred to me also, but the problem I see is that I don't think we will be allowed to sell our silver at $350. I think it will be confiscated via taxation. USA is bankrupt. What happens when a country is bankrupt? Weimber Germany was bankrupted by war reparations.

Alternative scenarios? You really think the "muddle through" scenario with a new Amero/NAU is going to allow silver investors to take profits??

I think there is no way we physical holders will be allowed to profit off this monetary disaster. Soceity will demand that we suffer for trying to profit off their demise.


>
> Relative Value:
>
> As a commodities trader, I specialized in spread trading, so it's become
> second nature to me to assess certain values to commodities and then move
> in
> and out of them as price dictates.


Agreed, but everyone is assuming that business will operate as did. I am assuming a catastrophic shift, and the Chinese will not allow anyone to profit but them in developing world (they already control the Philippines). And if you stay in the Western boat, you will be separated from your net worth via bankruptcy of the society and taxation.

Everything is changing. We westerners need to wake up to a new reality before we are trapped.


> For instance, I plan on moving the
> remaining SLV I own into (oil fund at certain ratio)

> DISCLAIMER: I must state that I believe there are many
> risks with ETFs (especially SLV), and that I would rather (and do) own the
> preponderance in physical.


...Again the problem is will ETFs be allowed to perform sanely, or will they be routed like the mining stocks were recently, i.e. Obama confiscates the 401(k)s.

Every since I discovered the depth of the fraud in all the markets, I believe the markets will completely die when the dollar does. I am seeing a scorched earth outcome, with the Chinese in firm communist grip on the developing world and westerners trapped by paper tower of babel disintegrating to rubble.


>
> I would also transfer half of my physical silver into local tillable land
> at
> a 30:1 ratio.

Interesting that you use SLV to oil and not to GLD. Silver hit $21 when oil fund hit $87, so the ratio is saying silver is much higher now! What does that mean?

I don't think this is 1970s. At that time people were aware that silver was money and were fighting the debasement. Now people are clueless. So I see we get a spike at the very end when people say "oh shit!" and that is very dangerous. It means the people will be voilent and desperate. This is a 4th turning point that comes every 80 to 100 years. Did you oil trigger work during the Great Depression??



> I will confess that I have these type of triggers for far
> too
> many different value items, and it has served me well in the past.
>
> You stated that "...we are disintegrating as a market. Not building."
>
> I don't believe our market will be moved mightily by the wise and
> righteous,
> but by the same greed that has infected our financial system. I believe
> the
> "safe haven" will provide a definite boost, but ultimately it will be the
> same attitude as those trampling others at a pre-Christmas sale at
> WalMart.


Agreed. But I think people would much prefer to have their drugs and latte and let the govt steal the silver back via taxation and capital controls. I think there will be some very aggressive spikes and behavior and society will quickly send in the troops to keep the mainstream in their "fix" zone.

>
> Most people aren't as confident as you and I, and feel more comfortable
> buying at $35/ounce when they see everyone and their mother piling in.

When that happens, it doesn't go to $35, it goes to $350. And tell me what does that do to your ratio? And what does that mean in terms of chaos and a disjoint result set vis a vi society-at-large? Doesn't that mean I total collapse of the financial system? I think so. I think that can't be tolerated by society.


> Sad
> to say, but most folks are almost completely void of critical thinking.


Exactly. So why do you expect the result to be orderly and ratios apply? I believe Mandelbrot and chaos will rule at 4th turning point.


>
> You mentioned that..."You guys are herding yourselves for the cabal."
> In general, that is correct, but I don't feel it is for my situation. I
> live in a fairly remote location, and we've been very discreet. The folks
> within our valley are some of the most resourceful and land-wise you'll
> ever
> meet, and freedom and liberty are still important here. I'd rather take a
> stand somewhere than have a bunch of demons win by default.


That "sounds" wise. I have not been discreet enough. But now I want to scare you. Remember what happened in Germany. Remember how everyone tried to be discreet and look the other way. Eventually they came for everyone. You either had to join the bad side or be a victim. There was only one choice, as Bush said clearly, "You are with us, or you are against us".



>
> Lastly, you wrote:
> "I think a very simple life is one of the best defenses. But what about
> the offense of being reading to invest and be competitive with the Chinese
> who want to turn the world into a controlled sanitarium???"
>
> I understand your concerns in this regard, but feel strongly that God has
> put me in this place to assist my local community in dealing with the
> hardships and future opportunities. If folks like you and I can help
> change
> just a few lives for the better, imagine what the possibilities are?


I don't think the local community can stand up to the gestapo that is coming. Maybe I am wrong about rural setting in USA. But I think everyone has a driver's license (to be RFID and Real Id by 2010 now that states are bankrupt they will cave in), they have to get some resources outside their local community, they will give up their guns when the blue hats come to disarm everyone as they did in New Orleans during the Katrina trial run.

We all using paper money and fiat. We are just looking the other way, knowing full well what is coming, and pretending it won't happen.

I hope I am wrong. Many have said they don't expect a Weimer type result (which preceded Hitler). And many people were saying they didn't expect a great depression before this commodity secular cycle ends. When many people don't think something will actually happen, then the contrarian in me thinks there is a chance it will. And the total bankruptcy of the dollar makes me think it is very likely.

If you knew it was likely that all of us will lose all our net worth in this coming crisis, how would you change your actions?? I think that is a good thought experiment for all of us. I am starting to think that way. I am thinking more and more about what I can do now, knowing that I may only have now and not tomorrow.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/06/10/7-keys-to-smart-bartering.html

Looks like there are no very well established websites for bartering?

Seems very hard to search for barter (very inefficient):

http://seattle.craigslist.org/bar/

My idea is to avoid the IRS barter reporting requirement, by simply offering listings and not tracking the completion of the trade. SwapThing.com appears to be doing this, but the problem is what if I want a motorcycle and I want to pay in silver. I have no way to quick search for a matching barter. I think there is no site where you can enter the things you are willing to barter for and trade (dual terms search). So perhaps this feature could be really popular and like a wildfire of market share? Dollars could be one option so you could trade metals (and other things) for cash as well.

However I have no idea how to handle reputation, squelch fraud, and make the process efficient (avoid all the non-serious inquires).

And look at all the free auction sites:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free+auction+sites

How does anyone build market share? Looks like we head for more fragmentation. Would my feature of letting you search for both what you want and what you want to trade, at same time, giving you only relevant items...would that make it easier and build a exponentially growing usership???

Is someone already offering this feature? I did not find any that you let you search for both items of a trade at same time, and which allow trades to offer multiple possibilities (e.g. I will take cash, silver, rice, etc).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=barter+search

Perhaps currently barter classified done in a more efficient way than craigslist.org, is the way to build usership for a trading platform we need to lower our spreads/costs on metal trading and be ready for the masses panic buying of metals that will come later. And maybe not tracking the transaction is the most free market way and maybe it totally avoids the IRS's tracking capabilities and laws. There is not illegal about letting people list trades. There is no Patriot Act applicability I think. I think the IRS barter reporting requirements mention barter websites, but they mention *ONLY* in terms of "transactions" (and I proposing not to track transactions):

http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099b/ar02.html#d0e300

That seems to be the loophole we've been searching for!! There is no way the govt is going to be able crackdown on people listing barters, if the transactions themselves are not being tracked and listed.

See prior post also where I initially explained this idea.

You would be able to use this proposed site to trade your silver and gold for cash, each other, or other goods, and then bypass the huge spreads of the dealers, by pass closed-market monopolies such as seekbullion.com. In other words, a free market in physical goods trade (and fiat as an option) could be grown (and later adding digital 999cash.com and other egold).

I registered today the domains:

payjunk.com
spendjunk.com
spendstuff.com

I had one other idea, but didn't register it:

stufstitute.com

It occurs to me that in a disintegrating economy (stagflation, or worse "dep-flation"), then the masses will be more preoccupied with make all their McJunk liquid-- also the McJunk/ebay culture of westerner is a near universal addiction and will be a natural activity that the masses gravitate to. When they can't borrow money, they will borrow from their junk, so they can continue consuming.

The people with net worth will be simultaneously driving the silver and gold price up, as their focus will be on the "inflation" (more of a debasement, exchange and confiscation by taxation risk, since we will have deflation of all debt consumer goods, including houses in west).

So I see such a barter site which monetizes junk, as the perfect prelude to trading silver and gold for goods and services! I think I have now the idea I need for a long-term and immediate exponentially growing market! Precious metals are a very small market right now, but junk trading in general (not for cash, but monetizing junk in barter) seems to be at it's infancy but could quickly become popular if was made as fun, lucrative, and efficient as ebay.

It has also occured to me that none of the barter sites that I have seen, are allowing people to enter two lists:

1. Items & Quantity I have to trade
   
2. Items I want

So that any combination can match up another person's lists. There are some details to work out (i.e. how to match up quantities ask and bid so people don't waste time contacting people who are asking too much or bidding too low). But essentially the epipheny is that we should be able to list up all our junk (or silver or gold or what ever), and be able to get a short list of eligible matches, not have to search irrelevant offers as most barter sites do waste a lot of time.

Making barter very efficient seems to be the key. Here is the big epipheny:

The internet can probably solve an age old problem with barter-- which is how to trade things that people in contact with you don't want. Money solved this problem, being a common thing that everyone wanted. But with the reach and diversity of the internet, coupled with my idea to make matching more exact and thus instant and efficient, then barter can become much more efficient and realistic. It still won't compete with money, but when money is dying, then an efficient barter looks attractive. Then bartering silver and gold can come into the fray as even better money over time (i.e. 999cash.com).

Also "cash" can be one of the items in either list, so that still can function as an optional classified site, but with additional barter opportunities.

I am initially inspired. I need to think this out more, but this is the first time in a while that something seems realistic. Hey I don't need credit cards! I don't need to deal with banks! I don't need to deal with spot! I don't even need to deal with any regulations! I will simply be matching up people. And I can take it global almost immediately, as I am not dealing with any physical issues or laws afaik

(figure europe may have some regulations on classified ads sites, but I won't bump up against these until site is very popular, and any way there is nothing for the authorities to confiscate! I will not be keeping any physical items and not keeping any transactional records or personal information!!)

I figure it will be free. But there will be an optional listing fee for those who want to go to the top of the list, because you know the free listing will get a lot of spam entries and so paid listings should be more prominant.

Please what do you think? Do you understand? Pipe dream or interesting and possibly realistic?

Hope have a winning idea, because I do not want to waste any more effort. Seems simpler to implement than other projects I have tried lately.

This is my 500th post in this forum. Coincidence?



====
ADD:

The proposal is for a site where people can list their stuff for trade, and make is easier to match up different kinds of stuff that people want to trade. There is no need for security or worry about big brother, because listing personal ads is not regulated.

The big advance would be to return exact matches to what people want to trade. I do not propose tracking the trades/transactions between private parties. Think of the super popular craigslist.org, but on steriods for barter, returning exact matches.

Now private parties could offer to barter anything, including they might barter metals and fiat for each other or for other goods/services. So then this is where big brother might come into the fray, but currently there is no regulation on sites that offer personal ads for metal trades. Only the transaction is regulated, but I am proposing my site will leave the transaction to the private parties and will only be involved in the match making stage. So again, no need for some "non big brother" jurisdiction.

Now in future, one optional barter item might be my proposed 999cash.com (goldmoney.com, egold, etc). Again SpendStuff.com would not be handling the final transaction of what is traded, so again afaik under current laws, there is no big brother threat.

Now for the e-metal services, they do indeed need to worry about big brother regulation, but that is separate from my proposal for SpendStuff.com. Those e-metal services either need to be in complete compliance with Patriot Act, money laundering, tax laws, etc..., or they need to be in some jurisdiction that does not have those. I currently think there is no such jurisdiction. And I think there is no practical way to use internet anonymization to solve this because the user wants to the service to be non-anonymous and for the metal to be audited, thus big brother always knows where the metal is also.

That is why the e-metal can not be the breakthrough force. We need first to make barter ads very popular, then e-metal can be market driven demand by society! That is why I am so inspired that SpendStuff.com could go global easily, as I think any e-metal popular overturning of big brother laws, will have to come from overwhelming global popularity. The cabal fears most is the fact that disorder is always increasing in the universe:

http://financialsense.com/editorials/petrov/2009/0112.html (recent)
http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Mass-Entropy_Equivalence.html (April 5, 2008 by me, and numerous posts in Hommel forum in the Tesla thread in 2007, saying essentially the same as Petrov's recent essay above).

They know that one flap of a butterfly's wings could set off some popular movement that has a natural exponential growth. The cabal relies on their ability to control the mind and desires of the masses. Popular natural phenomenon are something they fear.

Listen near the end of this interview with the Rothschild, where he smiles while saying the masses are unable to think clearly, because they are always using electronic devices:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze4riLuy_e8

The one thing I haven't figured out is how to handle reputations or even at all, on a barter site. I think that is where local trading comes in (your find people you can drive to in many cases), which is what craigslist does, and where metal comes in as it is fungible. Remember I pointed out that 1oz silver coins are nearly impossible to fake, if you use a few common sense tests:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/goldwetrustcom-f1/detecting-fake-bullion-t36.htm#335

Good questions, as I perhaps didn't explain that thoroughly in my prior 2 posts on this idea.

How is this much different than the wildly popular Craig's List?

Please re-read my post, I already attempted to explain it. Try finding what you want to barter on craigslist and it should be immediately apparent that it is very inefficient non-exact matches listed.

Shelby-

I briefly reviewed your idea, and here are some quick thoughts:

I think a barter board (set up regionally) would be helpful to folks, and
that you might consider setting up bid and offers based on troy ounces of
gold/silver AND other specific items of need.

For example, Joe Six Pack needs a car, and can't afford new. He has a
fishing boat he needs to sell, but he would trade that boat for either 500
troy ounces of silver or a car of equivalent value. People can either use
the PMs to leg into something in the conventional market, or use this
platform to swap outright.

I think your main challenge would be the non-fungibility of most assets, and
the difficulty of prospective buyers (via PMs or otherwise) to feel
comfortable with a value. Also, it may be too akin to eBay to get people
excited...

Fungibility is precisely what I would improve, and also this would then illuminate the advantage of silver in trade (as it is fungible), when paper is dying and has 3rd party/govt controls risk.

Specifically I would let users list ALL the things they have to trade and ALL the things they want to trade for, let them assign relative values, and then the system would automatically match up only those offers that match in kind. This would be an entire paradigm shift in barter. Even though it would be improve barter, and immediately standout from eBay as the home page would be a form to list the above inputs and get exact matches, the granularity of "stuff" is not as granular as money (silver, gold, and fiat), thus we would have these money options as well.

...On another related note:

I keep wondering if the internet will be reliable under a chaotic situation.
I expect power disruptions, long-term blackouts, etc. as things unravel, and
I've prepared via foodstuffs, back-up power, and studying life off-the-grid.
I'm wondering how you reconcile your dire attitude toward the impending
societal changes with building on-line businesses? It seems to me that we
may be have to go backward with technology for awhile, and one idea (online
business) seems to conflict with your expectation of the not-too-distant
future. Just curious here, as I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to
technology.

I believe the internet will become even more important, because the wire or wireless is the lowest cost and most efficient way to react to chaos (more efficient to think & network than to move physically), and so thus I see even more investment and use of the internet during the crisis. Which fits well with the cabal's need for the everything to go electronic in order to complete the 666 in the end.

Let me explain better my idea for improving barter on the internet.

I envision a form where the user enters a list:

Qty	Items I have to Trade	Value$	Items I want to get in Trade	Value$
___	_________________	_____	_________________	_____
___	_________________	_____	_________________	_____
___	_________________	_____	_________________	_____
___	_________________	_____	_________________	_____
___	_________________	_____	_________________	_____

Where the items above are options. Meaning the person would take any combination that balances in Value$. I might also need an "All or None" checkbox (or Min Qty) for the Qty (quantity).

After the user submits the above form, then I can use that data to match them to barter offer(s) from other users, so they see barters that will balance out (within some tolerance, e.g. 10% or perhaps user setting). So they don't have to waste any time. I can use the Value$ to determine which quantities of which things match up, based on what people have and what they want in trade. In future, Value$ could be expressed in silver, gold, or any currency as an option.

The point being that instead of searching for single item you want to get where you may get no matching offers to what you are willing to trade (or get a huge list of irrelevant barter offers if no search is offered, e.g. craigslist), instead you search for all the things you are willing to offer and all the thing you are wanting to get, and see only offers from others that match up in value that you have assigned. So you are sent directly ONLY to relevant trades you can do.

Have you seen any site do that? Don't you think that would be much more efficient than wading through 100s of irrelevant craiglists barter ads?

Then we can start trading our silver and gold for cash, goods, and each other, as well as barter everything else. I can see people listing land, services, stocks, ....anything!!!

Wow! I have not seen anyone do this.

I am trying to think what is the flaw. Apparently barter is on the rise world wide. Flea markets and bazaars have always been a fixture of human life, even since my childhood, and especially around the world.

This could be a major blow to paper currencies and their fraud of not representing real value, i.e. how the Chinese currency is pegged undervalued, and the dollar is manipulated overvalued.

Let the dam burst! And maybe a little of it burst into my wallet for a change (and all of you profiting from trading on the site, being early adopters).

ADD:

Also I am getting more serious about the concept of storing 1000oz bars at
First State, selling 999cash.com grams, and allowing people to withdraw in
1oz rounds at competitive premiums.

Simple we just make everyone comply with "know your customer
requirements". We let them buy grams without id. Then they must fax or
email some id documents before they withdraw or spend grams. Then we are
in compliance.

Before 2010, we can begin to offer some alternative vaulting locations outside the USA, so that people have 2 options to protect themselves (take delivery of rounds, or select an alternative vault outside USA). I envision people keeping some in grams, taking some out in rounds, and keeping some in an alternative vault outside USA (for a worst case scenario flight option plan C).

I was also thinking we might offer to buyback rounds at very low spreads, as long as the rounds were purchased from us and remain in the same "brand new" condition and mint tubes. This would help us get more customers, because they would know they have a market to sell back for spendable grams at low spreads. And would give us yet another commission opportunity. Win win.

I like the feature idea of being able to search.

What would keep "craigslist" from implementing the search feature? Leveraging and monetizing their users? Perhaps they do not have any desire? Or do you think it would grow so quickly that the first to market phenom would apply, just as it does for craigslist. Just some thoughts.

Jeremy wrote:I like the feature idea of being able to search.

What would keep "craigslist" from implementing the search feature? Leveraging and monetizing their users? Perhaps they do not have any desire? Or do you think it would grow so quickly that the first to market phenom would apply, just as it does for craigslist. Just some thoughts.

I see no one advertising for "barter" at Google. I remember Hommel said PUBLICLY he pays $5 for a new free SilverStockReport.com newsletter signup from Google ads when silver is rising in price and $10 when silver is falling. Figure I woulld pay less than $5 initially, as there is no competition in that advertising space on Google, so if I can charge more than $5 per paid listing, and assuming that I can provide some compelling reasons to pay for listings versus the free option and considering the greater likelihood of geometric spread of "word-of-mouth" than for silver (no one wants to hear about silver, but many people want to hear about new paradigms of consumerism), then I think yes it can grow very very fast. In fact, if I am going to do this, I should launch it within a couple of weeks. And I should aim for it to be already sweeping the internet by March.

I can not predict what craigslist will do, but afaik, no one has succeeded on the internet by copying the ingenuity of others. If I have one good idea, I will have more, and that would be "out of character" with the way the rest of craigslist works and their audience in general. We would be building a specific audience for a specific feature set. Apples and bananas....

Jeremy email me in private, as I am willing to have an investor to help on funding the initial Google ads to seed the site interest, and to do some website "look & feel" design. I am willing to do the programming. Again I want to re-iterate that we should get moving on the 999cash as well, and the key breakthrough in thinking on that, is that we offer to buy back the rounds for e-grams (not cash). Thus people will prefer to buy our rounds, because our prices will be competitive (or less) and on top of that, they know they can always sell back for a low fixed premium (we should track who we sold rounds to and only buy back from them, so we are sure we getting brand new rounds back that are 0.999). We create a fungible, liquid market for physical 0.999 coins. No one has done that yet! We know we can always buy them back, because we are giving spendable e-grams, not cash (it is just a computer entry, that is all). And thus this is another way for us to profit on our brand name and the market we create, but still the customer is happy because no where can they get 0.5% buy back spread (the least is like 20% for silver). Then the e-grams become very spendable because of our control of the barter site, SpendStuff.com, as well we can encourage by advertising on our site any 3rd parties that take e-grams and give out cash. By lowering the spread buy&sell silver to 0.5%, then we will have made silver money again, and have done something that no one has done since the govts demonetized silver and closed their mints!! We will use digital e-grams technology to reopen the mints!!!

We can keep the govt off our back by 100% compliance with "know your customer" requirements and not putting "Dollar" or attempt parasite "$" as the mistake LibertyDollar made. Users reading this should remember you are never anonymous, the govt is tracking all your purchases any way at dealers. Don't kid yourself. Who cares if we must give our identity when we buy, we are not yet in 666 id system, we must make a stand while we can in this regime. If you want to move to anonymity, then just take possession of the rounds, then govt will not know what you did with your silver. And then before 2010, we will work hard to get new vaults working outside the USA, so that people can keep some outside the Patriot Act jurisdiction for an "anonymous" flight option. Eventually the USA will clamp down on all things, but we have a little time yet, as Obama can't just declare the entire system in lockdown tomorrow...it will be a gradual process in a series of waves, so if we hurry we still have time to grow something within our borders and then branch it out internationally in time... we need to stop wasting our time on other things which can't scale fast enough...

The 999cash e-grams would be spendable with a click of a button, just like GoldMoney.com, but the advantages being:

1. You don't have to provide id before you can locking spot and buy e-grams (probably spot+4%, same as GoldMoney.com), you only provide id before you can spend or withdraw in rounds, at your leisure
   
2. You can withdraw in brand new 1oz rounds at lowest premiums (probably less than $1, given you already paid 40 cents on the e-grams). Whereas GoldMoney makes you withdraw strictly to your funding bank account in cash (what if you bank goes belly up or banking goes into lockdown/capital controls/holiday!).
   
3. You can sell back your rounds for e-grams (probably for only 0.5% spread!!! and convert these to cash if you want via 3rd parties vendors), spend these on SpendStuff.com and else where growing due to our novel method for generating geometric usage above for SpendStuff.com

It is an entire system for getting trading and investment growing into mass market, liquid, fungible, legal, branching outside of USA asap, etc...

Let's get to work on what we need. I am so sick and tired of failing! I play to win. And to help people. Does no one want this? Let me hear from ALL OF you now please. I need your encouragement if you want me to be serious about bringing these to market immediately!

All e-grams should be convertible at 3rd parties to GoldMoney.com, e-gold, etc...


P.S. I am still thinking to offer gold as an option at 999cash.com also (probably at spot+1%), and then if you withdraw rounds, you get silver not gold. Or you can convert/spend your gold e-grams to cash at 3rd parties. Remember silver is the money of coin, not gold. Gold coins are really silly and very obscure market.

Looks like a total failure on Hommel's Obama rounds, he got 0 bids at SeekBullion.com. As I said, Hommel is self-destructing, going off on false idol tangents. We should have been working together make silver money:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/goldwetrustcom-f1/bulliondirectcom-bd-vs-goldwetrustcom-gwt-vs-seekbullioncom-sb-vs-goldandsilvernowcom-gsn-vs-apmexcom-vs-nwtmintcom-nwt-t21-45.htm#788

I understand people won't place much value on the e-grams, until one can spend them (e.g. spendstuff.com). They probably rather just buy rounds directly, except as I said the advantage of buying e-gram at 5% premiums, then wait and get the rounds at much lower PERCENTAGE premiums as silver prices rise (currently 55 cents + our commission). Example if they buy rounds now at spot+$1.50, that is spot+13.6%. If they buy e-grams at spot+5%, then later with silver at $21, then 55 cents is only an additional 2.6%, so they've saved 6% (or 5% if we take 1% commission on rounds).

But if I add the interchange to Goldmoney.com, then they can convert our e-grams to cash, at goldmoney.com's 4% spread. So that means a total 9% spread in and out. Doesn't sound that compelling, given they can buy goldmoney directly (except can't get rounds and will lose the 4% if take cash out to buy rounds) and only 4% in/out spread, so again it appears that if I can't convert the e-grams to cash, then the e-gram won't have much demand until they can become spendable, except for the one advantage in the first paragraph.

Thus it appears I should work first on spendstuff.com. Create demand first for barter, then e-grams will be a natural fit.

However, it may be possible for 999cash to cash out e-grams at spot (thus 5% in/out spread), given will have new incoming flow of buying which we will be momentarily hedging to spot in Comex bar increments, as we buy the actual bars in 1000oz increments every couple of days. In that case, we have parity with GoldMoney (maybe 1% higher cost/spread), with the advantage of the first paragraph. This might then mean we could launch 999cash immediately?

Also I bought a new domain:

SpendStuff.com

The idea is people can enter all the crap they have to get rid of and the value they attach to them, and all the crap they would like to get and values. Then the system will find optimum matches in the geographic area you choose. The idea is people won't have cash, so they will trade their junk for what they need. Silver coins will enter the fray I hope.

We felt that 999cash.com sounded too much like spam.

The key is to market the vault as local and delivery as the security
blanket. The name should reflect that advantage over goldmoney.com,
why would mainstream americans want their silver stored in European vaults,
where they can't take delivery in crisis? Those cabal (mainstream political/financial system) vaults are not a
"safe haven", just as the Silver ETF (SLV) is not safe. I would much rather
have the silver stored locally where I can take delivery in person (or shipped)
within 48 hours by making a phone call. Agreed??

Btw, I realized that I can list on the website all bars and coins stored
at First State (First State can independently publish their weekly audit!!),
then provide a total of all e-grams, so that users can see
the grams are backed up. Also, they can have the option with the click of
a button to deliver bars or coins (coins will require a minting charge) +
S&H&I. And will provide a phone number option, so they don't have to rely
on the internet. Therefor our big advantage over GoldMoney, will be that
users will have that security blanket that they can get the physical at
any time. The metal will be local in their country and they can
physically take possession. I think this would be a big selling point to
many people, as compared to GoldMoney.

So there is the quick synopsis of how it will work and the advantages, and the following complies with all known laws and regulations in USA:

1. You join the site and click a button to indicate how much $ you wire. You will be shown the wire instructions.
   
2. Upon receipt of your wire, you will be sent an email, you can then login to your account at any time you wish, then click a button to buy e-grams of silver and/or gold at current spot. Silver grams will probably be spot+5% and gold spot+1%. The is roughly the same pricing as GoldMoney.com. You can convert any portion of your fiat balance to e-grams or all of it.
   
3. At any time (after you have emailed or faxed some basic id, goldmoney requires this also), you may click a button to take delivery of large bars of silver, or brand new 1oz rounds of silver (currently the popular Buffalo+Indian Head design). The 1oz choice will require you pay a minting charge of roughly $0.55+1% per oz coin. You can convert any portion of your e-grams gold/silver balance to silver bars and/or coins. You can have these shipped to you or schedule to pick them up at First State depository in Delaware. There will also be a phone number option, so you don't have to rely on the internet. In short, you can always get your silver within a couple of days. GoldMoney.com does not let you take delivery, and certainly does not let you make a telephone call and pick up bars/coins in person within 48 hours as we will offer as an option. The bars do not incur any additional charge.
   
4. This means if you buy e-grams of silver now at $11, then you wait and take delivery of rounds when silver is $21, then you will only be paying about spot+8.5% total, where as most dealers are currently selling those rounds for spot+$1.99, which at $11 (you lockin price now), is spot+18%. So you would end up with 10% more silver using our system in that scenario. Also your e-grams would be spendable as money on the internet** (see footnote), as I launch spendstuff.com and work with other sites to accept these e-grams as payment.
   
5. Any coins you buy from us, you can sell back if they are in brand new condition in the mint tubes, simply by login to your account and click a button and provide a tracking number for your shipment. You will be given e-grams (gold and/or silver) at current spot, so you will lose only the mint charge, as a small small restocking fee.
   
6. There will be button you can click to sell e-grams for cash, and you will be given spot+3%. Thus unlike most dealers which are only paying spot+$0.50 for the 1oz rounds that they sell to you for spot+$1.99, meaning you lose -14% if you need to sell (at $11 spot), you will only lose -2%+$0.55+1% with our system (-2% - minting charge), or roughly -8%. If you are just selling e-grams (you didn't convert to coins), then you only lose -2%, versus -4% for goldmoney.com
   
7. There will be a small annual storage fee of probably 0.5%. I think GoldMoney's storage fee is higher.
   
8. If this goes big time, then I could envision ATM machines spitting out silver coins, although we would probably switch to 90% silver for that. That could come in 2010 or 2011, if we get this rolling now. Coin dispensing machines are standard items. We can simply use the existing 90% coin or mint new in the same formats, as they fit existing coin change making machines (you see them at arcades).

Is this something of interest to anyone? Should I launch this?


** The e-grams will be spendable by simply clicking a button to send e-grams to any person. They do not even need to be a member of CoinATM.com. That person will receive an email, then they need to login (or create an account) at CoinATM.com to use (cash out, convert to coins, hold, or spend) their e-grams.

Note if you end up using SpendStuff.com to buy things at firesale prices, do you really want to be carrying precious metal coins to someone's house that you've never met? I think much better you bring your Nokia 810 (or iPhone or whatever) to their house and click a button to transfer e-grams to them when you take possession of whatever you are buying. Ditto if you are selling. Do really want people bringing you coins physically? In some cases yes, but in many other cases it would be more convenient to have a precious metal ATM card, which is what this service will be.

Thus you can see that membership in CoinATM.com will grow virally, just as Paypal did, with people sending payments to non-members email address. Then the non-member joins to redeem.

This will blow away SilverStockReport.com 85,000 membership. This should be be exponential viral growth. People do not resist money, when someone sends them money.


On the issue of providing your identification, note that goldmoney, fidelitrade and some other dealers already do this. By 2010, all credit card & paypal transactions will be reported to IRS, which means apmex will implicitly be reporting your id. You simply are not anonymous, no matter what you do. Once you take delivery of coins, the govt can't track what you did with them ("I lost them"). If we want to make gold and silver spendable as money, we have to go mainstream. I bet all coin dealers will be required to take id and file forms soon any way, Canada just implemented that in Jan 2009. I have no problem with the govt knowing that I am buying silver and gold, because they know that anyway about all of us. The more important thing to make it so popular, that a large % of people are doing it, so then we don't stand out like cold sores in the general population. And by making silver and gold work as money, we fix the whole conundrum that faces us otherwise. Anonymity will not work, except it always works for your physical coinage. But remember that physical coinage is useful diversification, it won't scale enough to keep the economy from going bezerk and into a tempest. We need a liquid metals digital cash in order to save our country and our world! What is better, my design or GoldMoney??????????????

Btw I wish no ill will to James Turk and would readily make GoldMoney interchangeable, and will intend on discussing this with him if I can make my proposed service popular. I have traded emails with Mr Turk a couple of times. He is a nice person.

See the edits I made to prior post, especially those at end explaining the viral growth method and the discussion of identification.

Note that it would be the intention to launch vaults in other countries, or interchange with new services that do, and so I see other ways to get out from the "identification" in future, besides just taking physical delivery of coins in USA. I.e. you might be able to transfer e-grams to another country in near future and take delivery there. Anonymity will be a feature of the plans for the service in ways that fit with the cabal system.

I came to realization that I want to build something popular, mainstream, and I have to work within the system in order to change it.

I had most of the features of this new design in the current GoldWeTrust.com system, but I just had the wrong idea of the market. The market is not a plurality of small investors selling to a plurality of small investor buyers. Most people are accumulating. The selling is only from mines and above ground stockpiles. The use as money will grow from a small seed now. What we need to do is lower the SPREAD cost of obtaining silver for people to use as money and enable the use of money both electronic and physical. I am sorry but this will kill Jason Hommel's business model, because it will drive the cost of bullion below his cost of production. This could also put pressure on the existing dealers, as people realize that a fungible silver is much better than all these silly forms of bullion which are not useful!!! They are just false idols that we are buying that do not add any utility. Silver is silver! The key is to make it money again, as I have proposed to do in prior post.

Why is this different from LibertyDollar that got raided? Because it is in complete compliance with "know your customer" requirements, and because it is not trying to compete with the coinage acts as "dollars". And because it is legal now to store your silver at First State, and to have it minted into rounds. I am not proposing to do anything unordinary, just packaging it together in a novel way that helps people. LibertyDollar was ponzi scheme designed to parasite on the dollar, because it forced confused merchants to accept them as "dollars". It enabled people to become dealers and sell the dollars for markups, because they were constantly rebasing it the "dollar" value, so older Liberty dollars were worth more than newer ones. So new entrants paid profit to prior entrants. That is a ponzi or pyramid scheme. Success is not obtained by doing debasement and Bernie Madoff ponzi schemes. I just think if you go into fraudulent types of business models where you are creating value out of thin air, but competing with the cabal's ability to create value out of thin air, then are asking for public angst and to be attacked. I am not proposing to do any thing but sell the instrinsic value. So I am not competing with the cabal's power to counterfeit and debase money. I will simply be enabling the legal things to be used together in a way that works better as a money system.

egold was not doing "know your customer" and thus they almost got shut down for providing a means of money laundering. Our system would not be susceptible to that because we will do "know your customer" and we will only rebuy the rounds we previously sold. You might be able to use 3rd parties to convert e-grams to cash outside of our system, in that case our only responsibility is to give the authorities the id of those 3rd party accounts, should we receive a request from the authorities. And I will re-iterate that if you take delivery of coins, the govt can't possibly know what you did with them. You keep money in your bank account and the bank has your identification. You provide identification or your signature every time you buy something with your credit card in a retail store.

I like the e-grams idea.

a few things...how much is wire transfer fee? Once the money is transfered into e-grams, how long will it take to get phyisical bullion in your hands? What are shipping charges to get the bullion?

Sounds like a good system. Many people will just be worried sending their money to an unproven company to hold though... Thats the only bummer behind this....

vipergq wrote:I like the e-grams idea.

a few things...how much is wire transfer fee? Once the money is transfered into e-grams, how long will it take to get phyisical bullion in your hands? What are shipping charges to get the bullion?

Sounds like a good system. Many people will just be worried sending their money to an unproven company to hold though... Thats the only bummer behind this....

Correct people won't easily trust a new system, but people who do trust it, can send money using it to their relatives and those people are not going to refuse the money. So that will plant the seeds of exponential growth.

Also realize that people are not going to trust having their metal stored in Europe, as the mad rush into precious metals comes this year and next. So then who do they trust? Do they buy the SLV (I will debunk that on my site)? Do they buy all these useless bullion from dealers (I will debunk those succinctly)? No I think they want something that they can turn back into cash at low spreads, but which they can also get immediate delivery if they feel things are getting too bad in world. So our system is the only one that will offer this. I think mainstream will prefer to let us hold their metal at the vault, so they only lose -2% when they convert back to cash, and they have the security blanket of knowing they call the vault any time to get their metal. Another way we can endear trust, is to set up a system with the vault, where the owner of e-grams can bypass our system to get their bars.

As for fees, the idea is that we will be the lowest cost way for you to get rounds, in any quantity. So even if we charge a $20 wire fee and $20 shipping fee, if you are buying < 100 oz, then Apmex is going to charge you $2.49 per oz coin + 20 shipping and tulving won't sell to you and you will pay much more on eBay and seekbullion.com. So we will still be by far the lowest cost for rounds whether you buy small or large volume. And our shipping will be Fedex and insured by Lloyds, not US Postal as what Apex and Seekbullion use, which afaik have 60 - 90 day payouts on insurance claims if lost.

Note there is someone selling rounds for about $1.60 over spot shipping included for 100oz, and I am selling them $1.50 per oz plus about $20 shipping. I think the CoinATM.com will be competitive with that, and even less over time. If you buy e-grams now to lock in your silver price, then wait and get your rounds in a couple of months when silver is higher, you will effectively be getting < $1 over spot in percentage terms at current spot for comparison. In short, CoinATM.com will be lowest price, with extra benefits. And you can get even lower price, if you hold e-grams until silver price is higher, then click the button to get your rounds. Your choice: lowest price now for immediate delivery of rounds, or lockin e-grams and then even lower price in percentage terms (how much silver you get for your $$) for rounds when silver price is higher. You could even spend some of your e-grams to pay the minting charge. So you would end up with more silver that way by waiting to mint!

As for speed, if you wire today, you can click a button to buy e-grams tomorrow, and 2 seconds later click a button to deliver rounds. If you wired enough for the minting charge, then the shipment can go out that day usually or the 2nd day at latest. So we will blow away the speed of the other dealers, including blowing away SeekBullion, because you don't have to wait for the auction to close.

And remember if you buy from us, then you know that if ever you need to sell your rounds for cash, then you will not lose -14% as with other dealers, but only the small minting charge.

And I urge you to keep some in e-grams and send e-grams as gifts to relatives to get them used to the system. How nice for them to take delivery in rounds or just spend the e-grams at SpendStuff.com, which will be like an eBay of barter! They can spend their e-grams for all kinds of firesale flea market stuff online!

Thanks for the feedback. Can we get more feedback? Even negative?

Someone asked me in email how would we be able to guarantee that we can always provide rounds and convert e-grams to cash.

I think we should constantly publish how many Comex bars and rounds we have in the vault (First State can provide independent verification), backing up the users' e-grams, also we can publish our projected production schedule for minting. So that way, we do not guarantee rounds are available (the e-grams are always backed by metal and bars are always deliverable), but users can see clearly if we are able to meet their orders for rounds. And of course we will increase the rate of minting, if users increase their rate of orders. The mint has a huge and expanding capacity. For example, I have 11,054oz of 1oz rounds coming next week to the vault. I know the mint can handle 100,000oz orders.

As for cashing out e-grams, we will keep a certain amount of cash in the SLV (or other liquid fiat vehicle which can track the silver spot price), but this will not be backing the e-grams. This will be the company's cash, so no e-grams are ever at risk of SLV failure. This will not be more cash than the company can afford to lose, if the SLV were to ever default.

So if an e-gram cashout order was in excess of the cash the company had available, then the company would need to sell some silver. If there were no buyers of e-grams, the company might be forced to sell Comex bars to a 3rd party. The company will always have at least 1 extra comex bar than what is necessary to back up the e-grams, so that when it sells comex bar(s), then there is not a deficiency in e-gram backing.

Thus I think the cashout (to cash) of e-grams will incur a few days delay (where we sell SLV with 3 day stock clearing period, or we sell Comex bar(s)). This delay will not apply to taking delivery of bars and rounds (that are in stock in the vault).

Also I think we need to modify the cashout spread. I wrote in prior post that it would be spot+3% for silver (given the silver e-grams were bought at spot+5%), but that would only be possible when we are selling SLV to supply the cash. If the order exceeded the amount of SLV cash we have, then we would need to make it spot-1% because we have to sell Comex bars which currently sell for around spot afaik, minus our 1% commission for cashout. Note we might be able to get the price of buying e-grams down to spot+4%, and commission down to 0.5% if our volume become great, so then cashout would be perhaps spot-0.5%. This would make us competitive with GoldMoney.com, which offers spot+4% on buying e-grams and spot on cashout. I think we could publish how much cash we have available in SLV at any given time, so that users can target their cashout to the better rate (spot+3%), as we will always replenish this cash as new buyers of e-grams are coming in over time. So if you are in hurry to take a huge cashout, then you might suffer GoldMoney type spread, but if you only take a little cash at a time then our cashout with be 3% higher than GoldMoney! So I really see we are better than GoldMoney in every way.

Also GoldMoney.com appears to have fluctuating rates. I see today they are spot+2.6% for gold and spot+6% for silver. And they are cashout at spot. Note GoldMoney charges 1% per annum for storage of silver, and we propose only to charge 0.5 - 0.75%.

Also I think our "know your customer" id requirements can perhaps be less stringent than GoldMoney.com. I will need to look into this, because Paypal is not requiring such banking level identification. Perhaps we only need to have id on customers that will be sending e-grams to other users. I think as long as we are not payment system, then the user does not need to provide any identity documents. Dealers don't need to identify their customers when selling rounds apparently (as I had studied before I created GoldWeTrust.com). Let me look into this a bit more.

I registered bullionatm.com just now, and I don't plan to use it (I prefer CoinATM), but just to block copycats.

Got this feedback in email:

> This concept sounds great and I think you should proceed. That's easy for
> me
> to say, because you're doing the work. Good luck.

And this:

This sounds like a workable idea! Liked the paypal-comparison

Thank you! I want to do work, as long as it is will be used and not go wasted.

And this:

> What about taking a page from BV and GM and allow low spread gram trading
> between users as well as the payment option? To complicated? Thoughts?
>
> ...deleted...
> coinmoneynow.com
> safebullion.com
> silverspotgold.com
> payinbullion.com

Btw, I have traded numerous emails with Paul Tustain, the creator of BV back in 2006. He was very a friendly and nice person.

Who is your market? People who want to trade will use the most liquid market, the SLV. That is not our market. Also the domain names below are a "dime a dozen" (except for the one I deleted which is interesting), they don't stand out nor have any significant meaning.

I am trying to target two markets:

1) People who want to accumulate physical with the low possible costs, and more flexibility on how they will be able to use that metal when it matters.

2) People who want to get their relatives into gold and silver by sending them some CoinATM.com e-grams. Making gold and silver as easy as Paypal, so that as the masses rush into gold and silver, we will be ideally positioned to capture it.

My understanding of marketing is I shouldn't create a great new business by just redoing the strengths of well established and more liquid competitors. And I shouldn't try to be a "jack of all things". I should focus on what our market needs, and what I can do best for our market (most added value, highest specialization of my labor). This would be my suggestion to Jason Hommel, that he moved far away from what he does best (free market silver commentary/reporting), and has lowered the specialization his labor and thus lowered his value immensely (now focused on closed market silver bullion selling, which is something many people can do and some can program things to do it better than he can).

I am trying to target a lower cost way for people to accumulate silver and gold, and then convert to 1oz coins at their leisure and when minting cost is a lower % of the metal price (so they get more metal for their $).

Also to enable people to send CoinATM grams to their relatives, to grow the interest virally.

I think this may be the winning idea. Viral businesses tend to grow exponentially. And I think this concept is mainstream. Everybody loves to have a few coins, especially if they receive them as a gift in their email. Who refuses money? And silver and gold bugs love to spread the idea to their relatives.

Btw, if you are wondering how people can sell various bullion and leverage CoinATM for that (the original intended focus of GoldWeTrust), I think that it will be in CoinATM's interest to link to people who accept CoinATM grams in exchange for products, especially bullion products. So if you want to sell 100oz bars to our users, I think we will be happy with that and help you.




About how to grow a system, see how Paypal did it:

http://www.novosec.com/documents/PayPal_TheNewWorldCurrency_en_020926.pdf





Also in the prior post, I changed:

...we do not guarantee anything, but users can see clearly if we are able to meet their orders for rounds...

To:

...we do not guarantee rounds are available (the e-grams are always backed by metal and bars are always deliverable), but users can see clearly if we are able to meet their orders for rounds...