We at ScamFraudAlert would like to know What is e-gold? Are These Investment Instruments?

Google Definition:

1. E-gold is an electronic way of purchasing, owning, and storing gold. For more
information about this interesting way to invest click here.

2. E-gold is a modern privately issued digital gold currency. Its website (which
has existed at the current URL since 1998 according to the Wayback
(machine) claims that the system has existed since 1996. It is a form of
escrow. E-gold account holdings at all times represent a claim to a
specified quantity of gold. The user may take physical delivery of the gold
upon payment of an additional charge. However, most users permit the
operator to retain possession of the purchased gold. E-gold transactions
are completed electronically, usually over the Internet

See Wikipedia Definition

What is e-gold?

e-gold is the first electronic currency that unleashes the potential of worldwide ecommerce by enabling secure payments over the Internet. e-gold is the largest, fastest growing, privately issued currency in the world.

G&SR, Inc. administers the exchange system between various national currencies and the e-gold economy. e-gold Ltd. serves as bailee for an inventory of bullion bars held in allocated storage by third party custodians. A quantity of e-gold constitutes title to a precise weight (fine) of the physical gold.

Top Ten Reasons to Prefer e-gold
1. Low Cost
Creating an e-gold account costs nothing. Clicking a payment costs
nothing. The maximum fee for receiving any e-gold payment is 0.05
grams, about fifty cents (in 2002 US dollars or about 70 cents in 2004)
worth of e-metal®.
2. Safe e-gold is 100% backed by physical gold.
3. Secure - No one can draw upon another person's account. With e-gold
when you get paid, you stay paid. If you keep your passphrase secure,
then your e-metal is secure.
4. Fast An e-gold payment settles in seconds. You have spendable money
right away.
5. Flexible - Your e-gold account is instantly accessible anywhere you can
reach the Internet.
6. Convenient
7. G&SR can remit the proceeds of an OutExchangeâ„¢ by check (cheque) or
wire to anyone you choose, in a variety of national currencies. (USD,
JPY, GBP, FFR, EUR, DEM, CHF, CAD, AUD.) You can review detailed
transaction records securely.
8. Transparent
You can audit total physical metal reserves in real time with Examinerâ„¢,
an automated report that displays live data from the e-gold system.
9. Portable
A transfer of physical gold is risky, expensive, and slow. With an e-gold
transaction your metal stays safe ... only its ownership changes.
10. Automated Conversion
You can specify e-gold payments using familiar national currency units or
by weight.
11. Micropayments e-gold is highly divisible, enabling very small payments if
desired.

Better Money
e-gold is the world's first electronic currency designed for borderless eCommerce, enabling the worldwide use of gold as money. It merges the digital transaction efficiencies of an electronic payment system with a universally accepted basis of value.
Advantages of e-gold

* Low transaction fees - The maximum payment processing fee is 0.05
grams. For a $1000 value payment, this is less than one twentieth as
much as credit cards.
* Immediate settlement - e-gold payments clear instantaneously, no
matter how large or small the payment, no matter how far apart the
spender and recipient.
* Non-repudiation - No chargebacks. Get paid, stay paid.
* Direct access with bi-directionality - Anyone can pay or be paid.
* Automation support - The e-gold Shopping Cart Interface is easily
implemented and provides immediate authenticated notification of
completed payment.
* Zero financial risk - e-gold is the world's first remote payment system
backed 100% by physical gold in allocated storage.

e-gold is succeeding where other electronic payment initiatives are failing because it is designed specifically for worldwide eCommerce. All others merely add additional layers of liability to legacy systems. The promise of the Internet - elimination of barriers to the free and instant flow of information and value - is being fulfilled.

Currency of E-Commerce
Gold seeks role as currency of e-commerce

By Steve Hays, Reuters July 10, 2001 7:05 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) -- World markets need a digital currency that is independent of national economies, and gold is already showing it fits that bill, a dot.com firm based on the Caribbean island of Nevis says.

"In the past there wasn't enough gold to finance wars, but there's more than enough around now to finance commercial transactions,'' Douglas Jackson, president and chief executive of e-gold Ltd, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Jackson said the firm turned gold into an online currency and started up its e-gold system in November 1996, since when 3.2 million transactions had been conducted via the network.

Jackson said each unit of e-gold as a digital currency was backed by an equivalent weight in gold metal held in secure third-party vaults. That meant there was no credit risk or contingent liability in using e-gold for any transactions.

A Canadian, for example, can pay a German the correct weight of gold for goods or services as easily as if the price had been quoted in a national currency.

Internet penetration
Most deals had been done by small businesses in the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia that could not afford to wait weeks to receive funds from credit card transactions or were not in the credit card system.

"We've also seen interest from areas where there are weak currencies and good internet penetration, particularly Malaysia and New Zealand,'' he added.

Banks could mobilise reserves

Jackson is in London to discuss using e-gold for bullion banks to settle business among themselves.

He said a digital currency also offered central banks a way to mobilize their gold reserves.

"The central banks, and the IMF, are sitting there with thousands of tons of gold as a major part of their assets, but they can't be used for capital transactions.''

Official gold holdings stood at about 30,000 tons worldwide at the end of 2000, out of total global above-ground stocks of 142,600 tons, according to industry analysts Gold Fields Mineral Services.

The United States was ranked first with 8,137 tons, followed by Germany with 3,469 and France with 3,025.

"During its recent economic distress Turkey needed to defend itself with open-market operations, but it was sitting on 100 tons of gold reserves that it couldn't easily draw into that effort,'' Jackson said.

He added that the absence of credit risk exposure in using digital gold, rather than a traditional hard currency, could also change the way financial markets did business -- for example, in allowing the immediate settlement of securities trades and the clearing of multiple dissimilar financial assets.

"In theory a grandmother in Bangladesh with a few grams of gold could get access to the global financial system for the first time,'' Jackson said.

Gold was fixed at $267.45 a troy ounce in London on Tuesday afternoon, and there are 32,151 troy ounces in one ton.

http://ao.com.au/e-gold.htm