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Government bans issuance of gold-covered crypto currency Royal Mint Gold

On Thursday 25 October, Royal Mint announced that it would discontinue the Royal Mint Gold project. Royal Mint Gold (RMG) is a stable coin covered by gold. According to Reuters, the blame lies with the CME and the British government. After the partnership between CME and Royal Mint broke down, the government banned Royal Mint’s alternative plan to offer the RMG via a crypto exchange.

The more than 1,000 year old Royal Mint is the mint of the United Kingdom and is 100 percent owned by the government. Together with the US stock exchange group CME, it announced in 2016 that it would develop a blockchain for gold trading. The token of this blockchain, the Royal Mint Gold (RMG), was to be covered by gold stored at Royal Mint. At that time, the publishers indicated that they could issue “gold tokens” worth up to one billion US dollars. However, CME reportedly withdrew at the last minute just before the launch scheduled for autumn 2017. Royal Mint therefore wanted to launch the token together with a crypto exchange as an alternative. However, the British Treasury considered this project too risky for its own credibility and banned the partnership.

Gold tokens from other countries and stable coins

For the reasons of the failure Royal Mint stated market conditions:

“Unfortunately, this was not possible at the time due to market conditions, but we will reassess it if and when market conditions fit.

CME does not give any concrete reasons. Although there have been reports of a “change in strategy” and digitisation is deprioritised, CME denies this and believes:

“It is not correct to say that we have de-prioritized digitization and continue to pursue our digitization strategy.”

Deprioritisation or not, other countries are sticking to their crypto-gold plans. These include the Royal Canadian Mint and the Australian Perth Mint. However, the Australian central bank sees no need for a crypto-based Australian dollar.

The future of (state) crypto currencies

Looking back, one could get the impression that all governments were simultaneously interested in state crypto currencies. Conversely, one could therefore assume a similar group thinking at the beginning of disinterest. As Canada and Australia show, this is not the case – at least currently. Because the true reasons for the failure of the RMG are open. If they are indeed “market conditions”, one can assume that it is only temporary and that the British will at some point “reassess” the gold tokens again. If, on the other hand, there are fundamental reasons such as technical inefficiency, this could prompt other governments to reconsider their attitude towards (state-run) crypto currencies.

About the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy in north-western Europe. For several centuries, the United Kingdom was the dominant industrial and maritime nation. At its height, the British Empire covered two fifths of the earth’s land area. During the two world wars, the country lost its world power, although it was on the winning side both times. In the second half of the 20th century the empire was dissolved except for a few small remains.

After the loss of the Empire, the United Kingdom was forced to turn more towards Europe (continental Europe), but is still reluctant to integrate. Although it is a member of the European Union, it did not adopt the euro. As part of a constitutional reform, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were given their own parliaments in 1999. On 23 June 2016, Great Britain decided in a referendum to withdraw from the EU. The colloquial term England for Great Britain can be found mainly in continental Europe and can be traced back to England’s centuries of dominance within the kingdom.

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