Goldbacks are often sold out. The market is still trying to discover their true value.
What is a Goldback worth? This question had been haunting me and the rest of the Goldback team for months. The price we had posted on our own website was virtually unobtainable at any of the dealers on our guide by as much as 10% and sometimes by much more than that. Were all of our retailers just gouging or what was really going on?
The better question to ask may have been: What is a Goldback anyway? Is it another gold product or something more? We claim that the Goldback is the truest gold money that has ever existed on earth. This is certainly a bold claim. So, what was going on with the price? Why do Goldbacks cost $8 on ebay while we state their value at around $3.00?
Well, who dictates the value of money? Is it the government? the banks? or is it the market? Any student of economics will tell you that it is the latter of the three. This lesson has been learned the hard way many times. What we believe we are seeing is actually simple: The market is demanding Goldbacks at a rate much higher than we can currently produce them. There is also no evidence that this problem will go away in the short-term.
Believe it or not, Goldback Inc. has been actively trying to avoid advertising or promoting Goldbacks. We’ve turned away offers for stories from reporters, we’ve all but ignored our own social media and YouTube accounts, and we’ve never paid for any internet advertising beyond sponsoring a couple of videos. We have even gone as far as to ask our retailers to not highlight their Goldbacks too much because we don’t have high confidence that we can keep them supplied. This is evidenced by “Sold-Out” notifications all over the web. Also, for a cheap laugh, check out our social media accounts. We basically made placeholders so no one else would pretend to be us. This is hardly the behavior of a thriving company/product... or is it?
So why are Goldbacks constantly selling out everywhere anyway? It turns out that everyone wants them. People will go out and show each other or spend them constantly. There are people that purchase a stack of a hundred Goldbacks and “make it rain” on their entire family/friend network. Rather than be the “crazy uncle,” complaining about the valueless dollar, people are opting to show others what sound money can truly be with just a bit of ultra high-end technology. There are over 100,000 people today that own at least one Goldback by our lowest estimation. We’ve been doing this for about 18 months.
As it stands, we have over a hundred retailers asking us directly how they can get involved in selling Goldbacks themselves. We know that there are even more than a hundred retailers asking our other retailers that do have some supply.
Things may get a tad better in September of 2021, when the new facility goes into full production. This facility can generate Goldbacks four times as fast as the old one! I suspect that it won’t be close to enough, or will simply be a short-term relief. In anticipation of this there are even bigger production plans in the works.
The bottom line is that money is a $100 trillion+ market and we are only making about 600,000 Goldbacks a month. Even when we move that production to 3,000,000 Goldbacks a month it will still be a tiny drop in the bucket of the overall currency markets. The Goldback isn’t a gold product. It is history’s truest realization of physical gold money. And the proof is in the pricing.
It is for these reasons that we changed the exchange rate formula on Goldback.com to reflect a market average of the Goldback prices at our retailers as opposed to imposing on the market what we think a Goldback should be worth. The MMRP can still be found on the exchange rate page, but this number is only so helpful. We put it there anyway so no one would feel like we weren’t doing our best to be transparent, as it represents the lowest a retailer can sell Goldbacks for. It isn’t impossible that the price could get pushed back down to MMRP later this year, if we catch up to demand for a moment. This change doesn’t generate any revenue for Goldback Inc. as our wholesale pricing hasn’t changed. We are simply trying to acknowledge reality in a more helpful way. Plus, the new average will be the rate at which you can spend the Goldbacks with merchants in our Business Network, which will help the spread of sound money. You can find them on our website, for those in Utah. Not that this would be a bad exchange rate to use anywhere else.
I’ve got a few other bold predictions for how this all might pan out in the long run, but this is enough for one blog at the moment. Until then, I hope you know that the team at Goldback Inc. appreciates you and your personal efforts to establish sound money in the world. This project is a lot bigger than just our small team. We just feel blessed to be able to participate. If you have any feedback for us, please send it along to info@Goldback.com. We read all of it.
Jeremy Cordon
President of Goldback Inc.