BitGold XAU on the TSE Venture Exchange

If I treat BitGold Inc. as just a gold storage company to store my gold or as a shareholder to invest in CA:XAU, but not charged annually for holding gold, then the company has to make money on transactions and nobody is doing that. I am not even sure it is cheaper.

Credit card companies charge 2.3% + 30 cents.

BitGold charges 1% to buy gold plus the bid/ask I believe which is another 1%. That's like you opening up a bank account with $10,000 but it costs you $200 to do so. Now you have $9800. Then if you want to withdraw it costs you 1% + bid/ask. So that's $200 more. Now you have $9600. Supposedly, gold will hold its value against currencies, so you will beat inflation by at least 2-3% per year, thus, break even on the fees charged here. The problem with that is that gold is not a producing asset. It would be better to find an investment to invest in.

If you want to buy something from a merchant, the merchant is charged 2% I believe, and you have to pay the bid/ask which, again, is 1% (not sure what the 1% to bitGold holders means and 2% to accept credit/debit on the fees page for sellers)

So if you buy a bike for $800 the cost is $8 bid/ask to you (never more than 1%) and $16 to the merchant. One could imagine this opens up to manipulation if the bid-ask prices are not fair or narrow enough?

I think this is too cumbersome always paying the bid/ask on gold. It's a sucking sound.

However, if I have misunderstood something, please correct me. I understand there is no additional cost for international transfers between various currencies which is a plus.

How does one even go about properly valuing this company? If it takes off like bitcoin then it is probably worth $100 at least because the whole planet is at its disposal.

But if basically nobody continues to use it for purchases then it is worth $3 CDN tops. It all depends if people prefer it for purchases than existing credit cards. Since the bid/ask cost and the 1% fee are painful, it is not cheaper as we looked at the fee structure.

It's 2.3% for credit cards, 2% for BitGold merchants, and 1% for customers (because of the bid/ask), and an additional 1% for buying and selling gold.