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I get excited about the prospect of a gold backed debit card from that is not prepaid. I call this type of card a “point of sale gold backed debit card”.

Saving and Spending Gold

I believe that gold is going much higher in the coming years and that dollars will continue to lose value. Saving in gold makes a lot of sense.

Goldmoney is an excellent way to buy physical gold online and store it at locations around the world.

The whole point of saving is to have money to purchase goods and services in the future.

I don’t know any retailers that accept gold as payment. If I want to spend gold I have to convert it to dollars. That’s where the debit card comes in.

Prepaid versus Point of Sale

Prepaid gold backed debit card: Gold is sold for dollars in advance, dollars are spent
Point of Sale gold backed debit card: Dollars are spent, gold is sold to cover sale and pay vendor in dollars

Point of Sale Gold Backed Debit Card

I was over on the “social medes” and asked Goldmoney co-founder Roy Sebag about this.

Roy says that this type of point of sale gold backed debit card should be available in 60 days, which would be early October.

Prepaid Debit Card

Goldmoney (formerly BitGold) currently offers a prepaid gold backed debit card. What this means is a person with gold in a Goldmoney personal account could sell all or a portion of his gold, the proceeds from the sale fund the prepaid card (denominated in USD, GBP, or EUR), the card arrives in the mail and then the debit card can be used to buy things just like any other debit card.

The card can be reloaded or auto-loaded by selling additional gold to load the card with dollars (or EUR or GBP).

If price inflation picks up even more this could be an invaluable tool.

Point of Sale Gold Backed Debit Card

What I am even more exited about is a gold backed debit card that sells gold at the point of sale.

The critical difference between a prepaid gold backed debit card and a point of sale gold backed debit card is convenience.

I could get a prepaid card from Goldmoney and then load it right before each purchase by selling just enough gold to cover the purchase.

I could also load it with a set amount of dollars but at that point the card is really just dollars–it’s no longer really gold backed.

For example, if I were to load a prepaid card with $500 and gold goes up 5% I would miss out on those gains. True, it would work in the opposite as well and protect from losses, but I anticipate a rise in the USD price of gold.

If the card is not prepaid Goldmoney does the math for me. When I make a purchase with my point of sale gold backed debit card, my savings remain 100% in gold until the charge comes across and only then is enough gold sold to cover the purchase.

I wouldn’t have to anticipate how many dollars I was going to spend and sell gold to cover it in advance. I could simply make the purchase and the gold would be sold to cover it.

Again, the difference is subtle but in practice I think a point of sale gold backed card provides the maximum convenience and gold exposure.

If you’d like to setup an account where you can save and spend gold, check out Goldmoney.com and get free gold when you setup and fund an account using this link: Goldmoney.com/r/1HWLl0.