DGC 2007: The Year In Review

What a year! Violence continued in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan doubling the cost of oil and topping $100 per barrel. The price of gold passed $840 per ounce which is up more than $200 an ounce for the year and the US dollar dropped like a rock. What happened in the DGC world?

January

During the World Economic Forum, Microsoft® announced that they are developing an online payment system which might be based around their existing Microsoft Points Framework. We all hope to hear more on their new system in 2008.

The Canadian financial institution, North York Credit Union, closed and took with it many well known digital currency debit cards including the wildly popular BestGoldCard plus IGEcard, IMTcard, Agronex jCard, Bluebanking, GoldtoCard, ROBOXchange, gCard and Evergreen Cards.

e-gold® celebrated their 10 year anniversary.

January 10, 2007 e-gold, one of the world´s foremost Internet payment systems, celebrates its tenth anniversary this month. As the pioneer of Internet payments, e-gold has flourished due to its strong fundamental principles of freedom from default and finality of settlement. e-gold has settled over 70M transactions, serves customers in 165 countries, and holds nearly 3.5 metric tonnes of gold. e-gold has continued to successfully serve its customers, while other payment systems have come and gone losing millions of investment dollars. e-gold has always held true to meeting its User obligations. When merchants are paid they stay paid, and consumers can make payments without compromising their personal information online.

PayPal® decided to take a pro-active approach to phishing and introduced an electronic password security key (fob) and made it available to all account holders for the small price of $5.

Micropayments provider BitPass closed, blaming "circumstances beyond our control".

February

GoldMoney® was awarded its 4th Patent.

US Patent No. 7,143,062 was issued to GoldMoney. Entitled "Electronic cash eliminating payment risk", the patent describes a system and method to allow gold to circulate as digital cash through a global computer network such as the Internet and/or private communication networks, much like cash currently circulates in the physical world.

Brink´s Global Services decided they will no longer "vault gold for internet gold services".

e-gold® updated their software to offer compliance with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 by empowering online gambling sites to refuse payments from US Persons.

March

The 10th annual Digital Money Forum in London, was a big success. The goal of the Forum is to encourage discussion and debate around the real issues at the heart of electronic money in all its forms. Don´t miss this year´s forum co-sponsored by Webmoney.

GoldMoney announced some great new client services - ´Customer Segregated Funds'

In addition to a GoldMoney digital bullion accounts, they are now offering clients a segregated national currency ´connecting account´ with their local Jersey bank. Customers can now deposit funds directly into their segregated accounts using any of 4 different currencies: US dollars, British pounds, euros or Canadian dollars.

Bernard von NotHaus and the Liberty Dollar organization, sued the Federal Government.

Liberty Dollar v Henry M. Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, Edmond C. Moy, Director, US Mint

The Webmoney Transfer 2006 annual report was released showing excellent growth.

Number of registrations during the past year has exceeded 1.1 million — for January 1, 2007 there were 3.145 registrations in the System. Total turnover equivalent to USD, has reached 1.46 billion and has exceeded 2005´ results: WMZ — grew 2 times bigger, WMR- three times bigger, WMU — 4 times bigger. Number of transactions is more than 15 million.

ALFII and My Icis were closed by the authorities. Attorney for Arkansas Securities Department, said:

"… the FBI and IRS have confirmed there is an ongoing criminal investigation underway naming Hicks and My Icis, and they are asking for complainants to come forward."

The Best Gold Card version 2.0 was canceled due to an unrelated bank problem.

Webmoney moved into mainstream e-commerce by partnering with merchant card processor CronoPay.

E-Gold was indicted for alleged money laundering and illegal money transmitting but today remains open and seems un phased. e-gold® founder Dr. Douglas Jackson vigorously denied all criminal charges in a public letter on the e-gold web site.

Around 60 e-gold accounts are frozen and an estimated $16-20 million of e-gold is force liquidated through OmniPay and the proceeds are seized by the US Government Department of Justice pending the outcome of the charges.

1MDC effectively closes.

"It appears that a U.S. Government court order has forced e-gold(R) to close down or confiscate all of 1mdc´s accounts. All 1mdc account´s have been closed at e-gold by order of the US Government."

OmniPay primary dealer for e-gold announced they are moving to Africa. As of January 1, 2008 that move and their new operation appears still pending.

"The OmniPay exchange service will suspend operation pending provisioning of a suitable bank account for OmniPay Africa. It is anticipated this service interruption will start May 24, 2007 with service resuming on or about June 18, 2007. With resumption, all bank wires from customers must be directed to the new bank coordinates which will be posted on the omnipay.com website."

e-gold video´s appeared on YouTube detailing Dr. Jackson´s testimony before Congress regarding the prevention of payments in the child pornography business. Two ten minute videos including questioning by some seriously ignorant Congressional representatives.

June

Patrick Chkoreff´s Loom Gold software gained popularity and even has its own a tutorial video out.

July

Webmoney Transfer announced a new digital gold purse. The WMG, Webmoney Gold Currency-1 WMG equals 1 gram of Gold.

c-gold digital gold currency debuted. This unique new start up comes from the successful CyberFrontier team. At present, Commerce Gold is showing 32 kilos in the vault. c-gold is working to offer walk in locations for over-the-counter bailment and redemptions.

V-money relocates to Panama. The parent company was issued a commercial license number 2007-4886 to process online payments.

"We are pleased to announce that V-Money is now running on secure encrypted servers located in Panama. We have just secured a lease agreement for office space in one of the most prestigious Panama locations, right in the heart of the Financial District, in the new Global Bank Tower."

Cyber Space ATM (CSATM) previewed which is one of the earliest versions of the Loom software.

Global Digital Currencies Association (GDCA) issued a warning regarding e-bullion.

"...Global Digital Currencies Association would like consumers and merchants to be aware that E-bullion.com closes and/or freezes accounts..."

August

Webmoney Transfer reached 4 Million customer registrations

GoldNowBanc Issues Gold Grams on Loom.cc

e-gold gets a new blog. Dr. Jackson and associates now offer direct information and commentary to the blogosphere.

Webmoney Transfer partners with cashU.

"cashU, one of the largest Internet payment systems in the Middle East and Africa, announced they have now partnered with Webmoney Transfer."

September

Google Adwords bans the term ´e-gold´ in their popular advertising medium.

The Liberty Reserve web site gets a new blog.

"We created this blog to provide news, updates, introduction to new features, and as a way to receive feedback from you, our client."

October

GoldMoney introduces a new storage facility in Zurich, Switzerland.

Liberty Reserve introduced their Euro account.

Webmoney audit reveals 30 kilos of gold bullion backing the currently issued WMG

Pecunix pilots a new ´scam warning screen´ which is an experimental scheme to dissuade customers from misusing their system.

"Pecunix accounts are now actively monitored for HYIP activity and each account that is discovered or recognized gets ´marked´. All ´marked´ accounts then receive the following payment interface upgrade. Once upgraded, the effect is the same whether you use a payment link, the PRI (shopping cart) interface or a standard account to account payment, so all payment activity for that account is covered. Anyone attempting a payment through the marked account will meet a large warning screen."

GoldMoney announced a new tax efficient way for UK customers to own GoldMoney through a newly created Self Invested Personal Pension ("SIPP") which is designed especially for holding gold bullion.

November

C-gold opened their primary walk in location in Penang, Malaysia

e-gold web site became 100% available in the French language.

Global Digital Currencies Association (GDCA) issued a NetPay warning and suspends their membership.

FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville as the price of gold moved above $800 an ounce.

December

WebMoney wins the National Bank Award for best online payment system.

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