What about the idea to enter the physical world by the virtual bitcoin? “Great!” replied the authorities of the island Alderney, one of the British Crown Dependencies. If You open a map, You should see it among the Channel Islands, the most northern one, just between the main territory of the United Kingdom and France on the Continent. The first observation gives us a very humble image – just 1900 inhabitants on the area less than 8 square meters, to be precise – 7,8 km2. But as we already know – size does not matter in case of brilliance.
The Island of Alderney decided to become the global center of bitcoin for the whole crypto currency community. The main idea is to mint real, tangible, sensible and fully tactile money from gold. The allowance yet has been discussed with the Royal Mint of the United Kingdom. Every physical bitcoin has to equal 500 Pounds, which corresponds to present price of BTC all around the world – according to the BTC China and Mt.Gox it is estimated to be around the margin 1100-1200 dollars. Independent from the further changes of the price the coin will have a stabile value. If the rate will go down the owner still be able to sell the coin as a gold plate and receive fiat money of his own preference.
The coin will be a collector’s item from the commemorative collection, which includes not only coins, but also postal stamps highly valued by collectors all over the world. The coin itself will not have an embedded private key, like the Casascius, made of silver and only plated by gold. However, entering the island, the metal coin will be exchanged to the virtual money that could be spent. Otherwise the coin will have no walking as means of payment.
Other ideas to attract users of the digital currency include the bitcoin payment option by local merchants and retailers, exchanges and a bitcoin storage vault. Of course, everything right after the anti-money laundering rules to prevent speculations and kurtosis like the one of the Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht custody.
To understand the basics of the decision the background and history of the island is worth of a detailed observation. As one of the islands of the dependencies Alderney is rather independent in comparison with other territories of the United Kingdom. It is necessary to mention that such a specific status is highly appreciated by people using and establishing offshore financial services. All Channel Islands successfully use advantages to attract customers. As the third big island of the group Alderney searches for new opportunities to get more acknowledged in the world. It also has his own parliament consisting of 10 members, emitted their own coins, the Alderney Pound equal to the UK pound after the value in both a cuprum-nickel form for payments and in precious metals as collectibles. The territory is very appealing to the finance and business – there are almost no taxes, like the capital, inheritance or the value added tax, has an advanced infrastructure, its official language is English and now it tries to become more “green” as ever introducing wind-farming to produce alternative electricity.
The representative of the Royal Mint of the UK, David Janczewski has stated that the idea on physical bitcoin is still a concept and the possibility has yet to be explored.
To sum up the idea of the authorities of Alderney please look at the bitcoin introduction plan:
- An independent company providing tangible bitcoins;
- These bitcoins being put in an escrow account;
- Royal Mint receiving orders from customers for the physical bitcoin, as well as receiving money from the deals;
- Physical facilities will be opened in Alderney to store BTC backed up by the emitted coins.
- Coin issued by the Royal Mint for the price of the gold;
- Royalties will go to the economy of Alderney;
- The physical coins will be exchanged to digital ones on the Island.
Seems very simple – hope that soon we will be able to go on tour on the first bitcoin community gone outside the virtual world.