Announcing Marketplace.Gold

I’m excited to announce something that the world deserves, which is a new marketplace website to do commerce in gold, more specifically digital gold currency.

Remarkably, this hasn’t existed up until now. Since I can remember, there has been a burgeoning interest among libertarian minded folks in doing commerce in gold. Gold always made a lot of sense to me.

• It holds its value and protects the wealth of its owner through economic ups and downs.
• Its held its value for at least 5000 years.
• There will always be someone interested in buying your gold.
• Very little gold is worth quite a lot of money, it’s literally and figuratively a very dense store of value.
• It has actually utility; it’s used in electronics, jewelry, computers, dentistry and even medicine.

However, for the time being gold serves just two major purposes.
a) As a store of value. A place to park and protect wealth.
b) Bling. Watches and jewelry that you buy to make your wife happy or to signal status (or to signal that you would like to be mugged!)
I know there’s some other uses like making dental fillings or cell phone parts but those two are indisputably the primary uses of gold.

That’s now changed with the advent of digital gold currencies. The one certainty of modernity is that technology, especially internet technologies, will transform the world; the way we live and do commerce. Digital gold currencies like BitGold are poised to change how gold is traded and used in the world.

Up until now if you wanted to do commerce in gold you had to do it in a very roundabout way…

Suppose you had a boat, but you hated your boat (as all boat owners do) because the damn thing leaked, then at a libertarian conference you were lucky to find yourself conversing with a nice fellow that had what the Spanish conquistadors lusted most for in their hearts — gold! But the fellow with the gold had grown bored of the gold and lusted for something else, girls in polka dot bikinis. The best way to get girls in bikinis is of course a boat! And you have a boat. So you and the fellow sit down and agree upon a fair price for the boat. But, not anticipating this delightful transaction, you have neither the gold nor the boat at the libertarian convention, so you go home and so does he. And you arrange to meet a month later at some nautical midpoint between the two of you, you bring the boat, the boat’s title and he brings the gold. You measure the gold payment meticulously, sign over the title of the boat and he sails off into the sunset (hopefully, with girls in polka dot bikinis on board!)

Ok, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration of the inconvenience that doing commerce in gold has been but it’s no wonder that up until now there has not been a real consumer market of buying and selling of goods and services in gold.

But, this has all changed in the last couple of years with the evolution of digital gold into a viable currency. I say…

the evolution of digital gold into a viable currency

Instead of…

the invention of the digital gold

…because digital gold currencies are have actually been around for a while and they’ve matured. If digital gold was a person they would be an older teenager who is just about finished going through their rebellious phase and has just gotten their first real job.

The major digital gold currency that should be on your radar is BitGold. As its name would imply this is a currency that is as easy to use as Bitcoin but the major distinction is that it’s backed by gold. It’s a none-fiat digital currency.

If you accumulate enough of it, you can ask the company that administrates it, Goldmoney to send you actual physical gold instead.

I was surprised to find that there’s really not a directory of merchants, small businesses or entrepreneurs that you can buy goods and services from using digital gold currency. That’s a demand that Marketplace.Gold will satisfy.

To clarify a few things

• Marketplace.Gold will not be a middle man to transactions. We don’t take a commission from transactions.
• We are not an escrow company.
• We don’t handle disputes.
• Marketplace.Gold is simply a place to find people to do commerce with.
• Marketplace.Gold is a powerful ratings and review engine that I’ll hope you use to give feedback to those who you do business with — these reviews will be scrutinized for accuracy and legitimacy.

Marketplace.Gold has six different directories for different types of commerce

1. Local Businesses that Accept Gold — This is a geo-directory of businesses large and small near you that accept payment in digital gold.

2. For Sale for Gold — Here’s where businesses can list individual products, goods and offers for sale for gold.

3. Software and Digital Goods — A growing sector of the economy is digital products; software, apps, video games, ebooks, infoproducts, online courses, etc. You can find them all for sale for gold here.

4. Consulting & Freelance Services — A free market of skilled professionals and freelancers. You can find the gold standard of web developers, copywriters and marketing consultants here.

5. Jobs that Pay in Gold — Creating a truly sound economy based upon gold requires a job marketplace of talent for hire for gold.

6. Classifieds — Want to sell real estate, used furniture or a laptop for gold? This is the place!

For now at least, Marketplace.Gold will be totally free for both consumers and business. Business large and small can add as many products, services, locations or jobs as they want to website.

For now at least, Marketplace.Gold will be totally free for both consumers and business. Business large and small can add as many products, services, locations or jobs as they want to website.

About Jonathan Roseland

For a while I thought that perhaps it would be best if I were an unseen owner/operator of Marketplace.Gold, there’s some real advantages to just leaving the about page on your website an anonymous generic mission statement

• You don’t face personal reputation repercussions for mistakes that your company may make.
• You maintain a veil of privacy between your semi-public life as a social media user and a business owner.
• It’s easier to flip your company for easy profit if there’s not a personality inextricably associated with it.
• I’m far from a vanilla-milk toast startup founder as I’ve written and spoken publicly about everything from my sex life, and smart drug usage to my political and philosophical views.

But despite all these good reasons to remain the man behind the curtain, ultimately I decided to put my face and my real name on my website for better reasons…

• I really believe digital gold currency is something that may change the world for the better and mitigate some of the worst of demons of human nature which are incentivized to manifest because of our unsound monetary system.
• I’m not going to stake my reputation on any specific digital gold currency, in fact I encourage you to be skeptical; do your due diligence on any digital gold currency that you plan to use. However, I really believe in the project of sound currency.
• I’m a pretty good pitchman; if I really believe something is good, I will sell it with all my heart! I’ll do my damnedest to create a logical and emotional airtight case for it! This space lacks a persuasive and witty yet informative pitchman proselytizing digital gold currency. I can do that!

Buy and Sell with Real Gold

Marketplace.Gold is not exclusively for doing commerce in digital gold currency. You can also buy or sell using real gold, you’ll have to meet the other party to do the transaction in person with a very reliable scale or use an escrow service. The listings in the marketplace will indicate if this is an option with a given seller.

Prices

You’ll notice that on the site the prices of a given product are listed in dollars (or whatever currency) instead of ounces of gold, this is because the site is a marketplace for the real world, were the vast majority of people think in terms of dollars, euros or whatever their currency is.

Buy and Sell with Cryptocurrency?

Some people may ask…

So it’s a marketplace to buy and sell in digital gold currency, why not offer the option to buy and sell in other digital currencies or cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin?

I’m a major fan of Bitcoin and have been using it for several years, and it’s an option on the site’s listings but Marketplace.Gold will focus on promoting digital gold to become the truly transformational currency that I think it can be…

• Cryptocurrency has a bit of credibility problem. There’s a lot of scams and questionable practices. There’s this Cambrian explosion of alt-coins, I don’t care to be in the business of discerning which ones are actually legitimate.
• There are some gold backed cryptocurrencies; my interest is certainly piqued by the idea of gold transactions validated by the blockchain but I’m a bit suspicious. I’d need to see some evidence that you can reliably transform these cryptocurrencies into shiny yellow stuff that you can hold in your hand. In future content we’ll examine the veracity of these gold backed cryptocurrencies.
• The cryptosphere attracts a lot unprincipled opportunists. For the past 5 years I’ve worked in an industry that attracts really high quality ethical people who have been a pleasure to work with. I’m wary of dabbling in businesses that entails dealing with people of bad character.
• There’s already several good cryptocurrency geo-marketplace directories.
• Remarkably, you can convert cryptocurrency into digital gold with GoldMoney who can then send you the real gold.

What would you buy with your digital (or real) gold if someone were smart enough to sell it?

We’re a growing marketplace, I hope that you’ll support by using this form to let us know which products or services you would like to pay for with gold.

I don’t mind making sales calls and I’ll actually reach out businesses offering what you want and encourage them to join Marketplace.Gold. Talk about a win-win-win!

Business Model

You maybe curious about our business model…
Our primary business model will be providing premium content marketing services. In 2018 the best way for your product, service or brand to be found by the best customers is to create premium quality content demonstrating expertise; this means thorough, well written articles, infographics, videos and podcasts.

• We won’t be placing any unsightly banner ads on our website. Banner advertising is an inelegant and dying business model that does little good for anybody.
• Adding a listing to Marketplace.Gold is free and you can add as many as you would like.
• We’re not going to get involved with dodgy affiliate schemes.

With Marketplace.Gold we are going to resist business models that entail moral hazard. Providing digital marketing services is something I’m good at and is an honest way to make a buck (or an ounce!)

Operating a marketing firm for 9 years, I learned that some of the most capable small business owners have a real weakness when it comes to producing content. Namely, sitting down in front of a blank word document and hammering out 2000 words or more about why they are awesome at what they do.

Of course, you can pay for our premium content marketing services WITH digital gold currency, and we hope you will!

So that’s what we’re offering, if you or your team are really skilled at…

• Adcopy and article writing
• Video blogging and video production
• Design of infographics
• Managing social media

…then you won’t really need us, BUT if you’re NOT then I’d encourage you to try out our premium content services.

Also, GoldMoney is fundamentally in the business of selling gold and they sell it at industry leading low margins. If I refer them customers (or users) who purchase Bitgold, they pay me a very small commission. although I predict that providing the marketing services will be a much greater source of revenue. If you don’t yet have digital gold currency, create a GoldMoney account and buy some Gold.

Furthermore, I have several products and services for sale for digital gold that I can feature on this website.