E-Bullion

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The correct title of this article is e-Bullion. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

e-Bullion is a digital gold currency founded by Jim Fayed and his wife, Pam Fayed. The company was incorporated in December, 2000, and launched on July 4, 2001. Similar to competing systems such as e-gold, e-Bullion allows for the instant transfer of gold and silver between user accounts. e-Bullion is a registered legal corporate entity of Panama.

At the end of 2004, e-Bullion had 19,519 oz (605,109 grams) of gold in storage, which is worth nearly $9.8 million. It also held 79,568 oz (2,466,623 grams) of silver at that time, currently valued at nearly $680,000. ^{[citation needed]}

1 Features
2 Criticism
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Features

As with any digital gold currency, the main focus is keeping assets away from fiat currencies so as to avoid inflationary risks associated with such currencies. The headline benefit of e-Bullion, in comparison to other digital gold currencies, is the lack of transfer fees.

It has also moved its primary servers to Switzerland. The redundant servers and equipment are also outside of United States jurisdiction.
Unlike e-gold, e-Bullion provides its own in-house currency exchange service. An e-Bullion account can be funded directly via wire transfer from a bank account.
It is also the only digital gold currency (DGC) that allows direct funding to and redemption from an account with precious metals.
e-Bullion was the first DGC to issue its own debit card linked to an account.
e-Bullion was the first to use CRYPTOCard technology to physically protect user accounts.
The majority of the precious metals held by e-Bullion is outside the United States, and spread around the world in treasury-grade vaults.
Users can hold and transfer value in gold, silver, or US dollars, which they designate as "ecurrency". They have trade marked the name "ecurrency", however, it was already in the public domain.

[edit] Criticism

Two of e-Bullion's vaults are located in the United States. One is in Los Angeles, and the other in Delaware. Although the vault in Delaware is not used, a small amount of metal is stored in Los Angeles. This is seen as a drawback by those who may be worried about possible asset seizure by U.S. authorities (see Executive Order 6102 and Gold Reserve Act).

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) currently rate e-Bullion.com "F" [1], which they define as:

"We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices."

However, it must be noted that the BBB have only collected a minimal amount of data on e-Bullion over the last 36 months. As of September 2006, that consisted of only four unanswered customer complaints.