CAPITAL MARKETS

Torian invests in gold-backed cryptocurrency developer

GOLD explorer Torian Resources has agreed to invest US$1 million in BullionFX, a blockchain company developing a gold-backed cryptocurrency.

Staff reporter
Torian invests in gold-backed cryptocurrency developer

The 20c per share investment will be settled via the issue of 27.7 million Torian shares at 4.5c per share.

The investment will give Torian a 2.5% stake in BullionFX.

Torian will receive a further 10 million BullionFX shares for nominating a representative, executive director Peretz Schapiro, to BullionFX's board of advisers.

BullionFX, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, was founded by blockchain experts Stephen Moss, Martin Talvari and Don Gray.

Investors and advisers to the company include Ethereum founding member Mathias Gronnebaek, Yellow Brick Road founder Mark Bouris and the Tamas family.

Schapiro said Torian's advisory role would focus on the potential for resource companies to engage the use of existing projects' reserves to capture value.

"Gold has been regarded as a storage of wealth and a hedge against inflation for millennia. However, over recent years we have seen a rise in alternatives, specifically cryptocurrencies," he said.

"Among its many advantages, crypto offers a transportability and a payment mechanism that gold in its pure form simply lacks. For example, it is physically challenging to walk into a grocery store and pay for your shopping with a sliver of gold, whereas this can be done quite simply by paying with a fraction or multiples of a cryptocurrency.

"On the other hand, the majority of cryptocurrencies are backed by nothing, and as such lack the underlying asset backing and tangibility which are some of gold's key features. By marrying gold and cryptocurrencies and forming a crypto which is backed by physical gold, it brings together the best of both asset classes, and propels physical gold and gold ownership into the digital age.

"Digitising gold simply gives gold further utility, and if widely adopted would be a key factor in increasing the value of gold itself."

Torian's main focus is the Mt Stirling gold project outside Leonora in Western Australia.

The company is waiting on assays before delivering an interim resource update later this month.

The project already has an inferred resource of 50,284 ounces of gold across two deposits.

Earlier this year, fellow gold company Theta Gold Mines agreed to buy a 5% stake in Bullion Asset Management Services, which is "focused on financing, tokenisation of physical gold bullion and precious metals trading".

Shares in Torian rose 8.6% to A6.3c, close to a three-year high.

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