Digital Monetary Trust
Digital Monetary Trust was an anonymous internet banking system using electronic money.
It consisted of a three-layered computer system. Its function was to abstract the identity of the account owner from the accounts. That is, the account holders transfer money into the DMT network, which becomes the legal owner of the money. Then, the account holder can make a private DMT transfer to another account in the system. The system is based on trust between the "bank" and the account holders, hence the name.
It was allegedly owned and maintained by James Orlin Grabbe and hosted on Dubai Internet City servers.
DMT rand
As well as USD, EUR, GBP, Yen, CHF, e-gold and gold, the DMT offered a private currency known as the rand , named after Ayn Rand (not related to the South African Rand).
It was a private currency and unit of account, defined in terms of highly liquid assets whose prices, or values, were readily determined in markets around the world.
Fraud allegations
In June 2004, claims were made that DMT had failed to deliver services. After an independent investigation as of August 2004 this was resolved with no indication of fraud on DMT's part (see last external link). However, independence of this investigation is disputed by some (see links below) and was not conducted by the appropriate authorities.
DMT stopped accepting inbound monetary transfers on October 10, 2004 due to abuse of the system by fraudsters via eBay 'passthough' scams.
The websites and related systems were shut down on June 24, 2005.