Frequently Asked Questions

NatGold Digital’s patent-pending digital mining model unlocks the monetary value of in-ground Certified NatGold Resources through a secure, ratio-controlled tokenization system. Without physically extracting the gold, this approach “exchanges” qualified gold resources for a precise amount of NatGold Tokens. By leaving the gold in nature’s vault, digital mining eliminates the environmental and social impacts of traditional mining. With the help of cutting-edge blockchain technology, digital mining offers a modern, eco-friendly, and responsible way to capture and invest in gold’s enduring value.

No it is not. The value of gold lies in its existence, not in its physical location. Gold’s worth has always been rooted in its universally recognized rarity, durability, and reliability as a financial asset—not simply in where it resides. Most investors never see or touch the gold they own; instead, they rely on financial instruments like ETFs or derivatives that represent its value. The critical factor is verifying the existence of gold resources, not physically removing them from the ground.

In the digital era, we can unlock gold’s investment value without traditional mining. By tokenizing verified in-ground gold deposits through blockchain technology and proprietary digital mining models, we create a digital representation of their worth. This approach preserves gold’s intrinsic appeal as a store of value while eliminating the high environmental, social, and financial costs associated with physical extraction. Gold’s investment value remains accessible and trustworthy, no matter where it physically resides.

The way we know the gold is there is through rigorous, independent technical reports prepared by Qualified or Competent Persons. These individuals are highly experienced, independent experts in geology who ensure that the mining company’s data collection, sampling, and analysis follow industry best practices. They don’t simply accept the company’s word; they audit the geological work, verify the methodologies, and assess the resource estimates against internationally recognized standards such as NI 43-101 and the JORC Code.

These two globally recognized standards are the most widely utilized in the industry and form an essential part of the tokenization certification process utilized by NatGold Digital. By relying on NI 43-101 and the JORC Code, the process ensures the highest degree of certainty and reliability available. In fact, stock exchanges require mining companies to have these verified technical reports before they are allowed to publicly disclose their resource estimates. Investment bankers and mining executives rely on these reports for billions of dollars in mine financing and acquisition decisions. Simply put, these reports are the cornerstone of integrity in the geological and financial world. Their credibility and thoroughness ensure that when they state a certain amount of gold is present in a deposit, it can be trusted.

In summary, we know ow the gold is there the same way mine financiers and mining executives do–the difference is that we choose to digitally mine it rather than physically extract it.

Everyone wins with the NatGold Digital Mining Model. Here’s how:

• Governments generate royalty and tax revenue from otherwise non-producing gold deposits, boosting local and national economies.
• Mining companies recoup stranded investments and unlock the potential for profitability without the environmental and social costs of traditional mining.
• Gold investors gain access to an eco-friendly, non-dilutive, tokenized version of gold—an option that was previously unavailable.
• Anti-gold mining activists can promote digital mining as a positive solution when opposing the permitting of new gold mines, offering an alternative that protects the environment.
• The planet and all of us benefit by preserving mountains, rivers, and ecosystems, ensuring a healthier future for everyone.

Governments generate revenue from digitally mined gold deposits in a manner that closely mirrors the traditional gold mining model, but with key distinctions. Much like how a traditional gold producer pays a royalty on extracted gold—often around 2%—a royalty on digitally mined gold would be paid upfront at the point of tokenization, since the entire mining process is instantaneous rather than spread out over time.

Once the NatGold Tokens are sold, taxes on the profits would apply just as they would with physical gold. Unless a government establishes a specific tax rate for digital mining, these taxes would be calculated based on existing tax frameworks. The fundamental distinction is that royalties are collected at the point of tokenization (the digital mining equivalent of extraction), while taxes are applied at the point of sale or disposition of the tokens, ensuring governments capture revenue both at the creation and the eventual realization of value.

Fireblocks Inc., headquartered in New York City, is a globally recognized leader in digital asset infrastructure. Fireblocks specializes in enabling institutions to tokenize and manage digital assets across multiple blockchain ecosystems. With a strong track record of serving internationally recognized financial institutions, they have established themselves as the premier provider of end-to-end solutions for tokenization, storage, and secure transfer of digital assets.

Within the NatGold Digital ecosystem, Fireblocks plays a pivotal role by providing the technological foundation that underpins the tokenization of Certified NatGold Resources. Their advanced multi-chain tokenization protocols enable NatGold Digital to maintain a robust, scalable infrastructure that supports the widespread global trading of NatGold Tokens.

Anchorage Digital, headquartered in San Francisco, is a leading provider of institutional digital asset custody and financial services. As the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, Anchorage is trusted by major financial institutions and investment firms worldwide. The company offers secure, regulatory-compliant custody solutions, staking services, and trading infrastructure for a broad range of digital assets.

Within the NatGold Digital ecosystem, Anchorage Digital plays a dual role. It acts as the secure, regulated custodian for NatGold Tokens, ensuring that these assets are stored safely. Additionally, its institutional trading platform facilitates efficient, transparent trading of NatGold Tokens. By working in tandem with NatGold Digital’s tokenizer, Fireblocks, Anchorage provides seamless, integrated custody and trading services that enhance institutional confidence and support the long-term success of NatGold Tokens in the global market.

NatGold Tokens will be available on a variety of leading digital asset platforms. Institutionally, they will be offered through our customized trading platform with Anchorage Digital. To ensure broad accessibility, we’re working to list them on major exchanges like Coinbase, OTC markets, and decentralized platforms. Register on our website to stay informed as we approach the inaugural NatGold Token minting, so you’re ready to acquire tokens as soon as they become available.

NatGold Integrity Vault™ LLC is a tax-efficient Delaware-based subsidiary of NatGold Digital Ltd. It serves as a “vault” for registering and holding mineral rights titles associated with Certified NatGold Resources, and acts as a form of trustee holding these titles for the benefit of all NatGold Token holders. By securely maintaining these titles, the LLC ensures that every NatGold Token is fully backed by verified gold resources stored safely in nature’s vault.

In addition, the LLC helps maintain the integrity, transparency, and auditability of the NatGold Digital Mining Ecosystem. By functioning as the legal custodian of the mineral rights titles, NatGold Integrity Vault LLC ensures that the tokenization process remains secure, compliant, and beneficial to NatGold Token holders.

To qualify for certification as Certified NatGold Resources™ and tokenization approval, in-ground gold resources must meet these seven strict criteria:

1. The gold resources must be verified in a JORC Code- or NI 43-101-compliant technical report.
2. Technical reports must pass a rigorous independent technical and mineral rights title review.
3. Titles must not be involved in active exploration or mining operations.
4. Titles must be fully transferable.
5. Titles must be perpetual ensuring ownership won’t expire.
6. Title owners must clear KYC and Anti-Money Laundering checks.
7. Titles must apply solely to subsurface minerals and have no ongoing costs.

The NatGold Tokenization Queue is a structured system that organizes and prioritizes the tokenization of Certified NatGold Resources. Once a mining company’s gold resources have been verified and certified as meeting NatGold Digital’s strict criteria, these resources are entered into the Tokenization Queue. The queue ensures an orderly process for minting NatGold Tokens, determining the sequence in which certified gold deposits are tokenized into NatGold Tokens.

Beyond its role in maintaining transparency and efficiency, the Tokenization Queue also assists in matching new token supply to market demand. By carefully managing the tokenization process, the queue helps maintain a stable and reliable marketplace for NatGold Tokens. Over time, this stability supports the long-term objective of enabling NatGold Tokens to function as a stablecoin-like asset, backed by verifiable in-ground gold resources.

Mineral rights titles that don’t expire ensure the long-term stability and value of the underlying gold resources. Permanent or perpetual-like titles provide certainty to investors that the resources backing NatGold Tokens remain secure and legally valid over time. This permanence removes the risk of ownership lapsing, which could otherwise undermine confidence in the tokens and disrupt the ecosystem’s integrity. By guaranteeing that mineral rights remain valid indefinitely, NatGold Digital can maintain a stable foundation for tokenization, ensuring that each NatGold Token continues to be fully backed by in-ground Certified NatGold Resources.

Ensuring that mineral rights titles come with no ongoing carrying costs or fees is critical to maintaining a stable, non-dilutive investment model. Traditional above-ground gold storage incurs various ongoing expenses such as insurance, security, and maintenance. By contrast, NatGold Tokens are underpinned by in-ground resources that do not require such overhead. This approach means that the full value of the gold remains intact, with no incremental costs eroding the baseline intrinsic value or diluting the investment over time.

NatGold tokenization ratios are the standardized conversion rates used to determine how many NatGold Tokens can be digitally minted from measured, indicated, and inferred gold resources. Embedded in a smart contract and integral to NatGold Digital’s patent-pending digital mining model, these ratios reflect the level of geological confidence for each resource type.

• Measured Resources: These are the most reliable resources and are tokenized at 80%, meaning one troy ounce of measured resources is represented by 0.80 of a NatGold Token.
• Indicated Resources: These resources are less certain than measured resources, resulting in a 40% representation—each troy ounce of indicated resources equals 0.40 of a NatGold Token.
• Inferred Resources: Being the least certain, inferred resources are tokenized at 20%, with one troy ounce represented by 0.20 of a NatGold Token.

These ratios were developed through established industry protocols and a data-driven analysis of resource reliability. This standardized approach ensures transparency and consistency, guaranteeing the uniform and homogenous nature of every NatGold Token minted. By maintaining a clear and consistent standard, NatGold Digital makes it easy to understand exactly how each type of resource converts into tokens, with all calculations based on the commonly understood measure of troy ounces.

Yes, all NatGold Tokens are homogeneous in value and structure. Each token represents a standardized, verified amount of Certified NatGold Resources, ensuring consistency and interchangeability. Gold itself is homogeneous by nature, whether stored above ground in vaults or securely vaulted below ground. This inherent uniformity ensures that NatGold Tokens maintain their equivalence across trading and investment platforms, regardless of the gold’s origin.

A one-troy ounce NatGold Token represents the digitally tokenized value of in-ground, Certified NatGold Resources. This measure allows for a straightforward comparison to traditional gold pricing, which is commonly quoted in troy ounces. By equating tokenized gold resources to the familiar metric of one troy ounce, NatGold Digital makes it simple to understand how resources are converted into tokens under its resource tokenization ratios. This approach also helps investors directly track and compare the NatGold baseline intrinsic value against the price of above-ground gold.

In exact terms, one troy ounce of NatGold is equated to one ounce of Certified NatGold Resources that remains securely vaulted in the earth.

Certainly! NatGold Tokens are designed to be highly divisible, allowing trading and ownership in much smaller fractions than a full troy ounce. In fact, each NatGold Token can be divided up to 18 decimal places, making it easy for investors to purchase and trade only as much as they need. The minimum tradable amount is 0.01 of a one troy ounce NatGold Token, providing unparalleled flexibility and accessibility for a wide range of investors, from large-scale institutional participants to individual investors who may prefer smaller increments.

The NatGold Digital ecosystem prohibits any form of mining exploration, extraction activity, or subsurface investigation. This is reinforced by the third of the seven tokenization approval criteria that a mining company must meet in order to have their resources certified as Certified NatGold Resources. Moreover, when a mining company transfers the mineral rights title for these Certified NatGold Resources to the NatGold Integrity Vault™ LLC, it effectively “sells” its title in exchange for a ratio-controlled amount of NatGold Tokens. At that point, the company no longer owns the mineral rights, and any exploration or extraction activity would be illegal.

In addition, the Operating Agreement of the NatGold Integrity Vault explicitly prohibits any exploration or production activity. As the rightful legal owner of the mineral rights title and associated Certified NatGold Resources, the NatGold Integrity Vault holds these rights on behalf of NatGold Token holders in a trustee relationship. This ensures that the resources remain untouched and fully backed by the ecosystem’s stringent compliance measures.

The NatGold Contingency Fund is a form of industry self-insurance that helps protect the integrity of tokenized Certified NatGold Resources. When NatGold Tokens are minted, 5% of each minting is set aside into the contingency fund. Administered by NatGold Integrity Vault™ LLC, these tokens are held in escrow and accumulate over time, creating a reserve that can address unforeseen events, such as illegal mining or other activities that might jeopardize previously tokenized gold resources.

If such a situation arises, the affected mineral rights title would be removed from the NatGold Integrity Vault along with the corresponding NatGold Tokens issued at the time of minting. These tokens would then be “burned” to ensure the integrity of the ecosystem, effectively removing both the compromised title and its related tokens from circulation. This fund serves as a safeguard, ensuring the ongoing trustworthiness and stability of the NatGold Digital ecosystem.

NatGold Community Watch is a form of democratized surveillance designed to enable anyone to report suspected or potential mining-related activity on properties holding subsurface mineral rights that have been tokenized as Certified NatGold Resources. In addition to making the relevant mineral rights titles, JORC or NI 43-101 technical reports, and other due diligence materials publicly accessible, NatGold Digital provides satellite monitoring links that allow users to observe activity at any listed site in real-time. If any suspicious mining activity is observed, individuals can send an alert to a dedicated NatGold Digital email account, prompting immediate follow-up to verify the situation.

It is important to note that NatGold Tokens only reflect subsurface mineral rights; surface rights are not tokenized. As such, what might appear to be unauthorized mining could actually be completely legal non-mining activities, such as real estate development. This program ensures transparency, encourages community oversight, and helps maintain the integrity of the NatGold Digital ecosystem.

Suspicious activity should be reported to surveillance@natgold.com.

NatGold Digital’s focus on gold stems from its unique role as a store of value, a quality that distinguishes it from all other metals. Gold’s primary utility is its ability to hold and preserve wealth, a characteristic that exists independent of its extraction or industrial use. Unlike other metals, gold’s investment value is inherent and does not require it to be mined and brought above ground to be realized.

Why Not Silver, Copper, or Other Metals?

While metals like silver, copper, nickel, and lithium are undoubtedly valuable, their worth is primarily tied to their above-ground industrial applications.

• Silver: Much of silver’s value comes from its use in electronics, solar panels, and other industrial processes. Although silver has a historical association with money, its modern demand is primarily driven by its utility in industry.
• Copper: Copper is almost entirely an industrial metal, essential for electrical wiring, construction, and renewable energy technologies. It lacks the intrinsic association with wealth storage that defines gold.
• Nickel, Lithium, and Others: These metals are critical for specific industries, such as battery production and energy storage, but their value is tied to evolving technologies and market cycles. They lack the universal, timeless appeal that makes gold ideal for tokenization.

Gold’s Unique Advantage

Gold’s value does not depend on its extraction or industrial utility. It serves as a store of wealth simply by existing. For thousands of years, gold has been held in reserve, minted into coins, or used in jewelry as a symbol of stability and prosperity. This makes it fundamentally different from metals whose worth is largely determined by their practical applications above the surface.

By focusing on gold, NatGold Digital ensures that its tokens represent a resource whose primary value is rooted in its role as a stable, universal investment.

The NatGold digital gold mining model is centered on tokenizing the existence of in-ground gold, and gold resources measure exactly that—the existence of gold, with probabilities assigned to each category. Measured and indicated gold resources can be converted into proven or probable reserves based on a range of factors that determine the economic viability of extraction—factors that have little to do with the gold’s existence itself. These factors include environmental characteristics, metallurgy, proximity to infrastructure, water resource availability, deposit depth, taxation considerations, political stability, gold price, security concerns, and, most critically, environmental and social permitting issues.

It’s essential to understand that the quantity of gold does not change when resources are reclassified as reserves. The gold’s existence remains constant. Since the NatGold model is focused on tokenizing the existence of gold and leaving it securely vaulted in the earth, it avoids the philosophical and logistical complexities of a model aimed at assessing the economic feasibility of extracting gold at a specific point in time.

Measured resources today could become proven reserves tomorrow and then revert back to measured resources as variables like gold prices or environmental permitting evolve. This highlights a key difference: while reserves are subject to subjective economic and logistical considerations, the classification of gold resources is based on objective geological processes designed to define the quantifiable existence of gold in the ground.

In the context of a digital gold mining model, what matters most is the existence of gold resources–making them the only relevant consideration for digital mining into NatGold Tokens.

A cutoff grade is the minimum concentration of gold in a deposit that can be economically extracted, considering current market conditions and costs. In technical terms, it acts as a benchmark or threshold, helping to define which parts of a mineral deposit are classified as resources. For example, think of a ladder where each rung represents a higher concentration of gold in the rock. Everything above a certain rung—the cutoff grade—is counted as part of the resource, while everything below it isn’t.

This threshold directly impacts the reported size and classification of measured, indicated, and inferred resources in technical reports like those compliant with JORC Code or NI 43-101 standards. Factors such as prevailing gold prices, production costs (AISC), and site-specific conditions influence the cutoff grade. As these economic and operational parameters change, the cutoff grade can be adjusted, causing the reported quantity of resources to shift even though the physical amount of gold in the ground remains unchanged. Ultimately, the cutoff grade is a critical component of resource estimation in the traditional mining model, where economic factors determine what portions of a deposit are economically viable to extract.

A standardized cutoff grade is crucial for maintaining consistency and reliability within the digital gold mining ecosystem. When mining the existence of gold that remains securely stored in the earth’s crust—without involving production cost-side variables—establishing a fixed cutoff grade allows a clear divergence from traditional production-focused approaches.

In conventional mining, cutoff grades fluctuate with changing economic conditions, leading to variable resource estimates. As the price of gold outpaces increases in All-In Sustaining Costs (AISC), a mining company can ask an engineering firm to recalculate its gold resources. Without drilling another hole or doing any new geological work, the company can capture more of a deposit’s lower-grade material simply by lowering the cutoff grade. This means that previously uneconomic gold is now potentially viable to mine. The key word here is “potentially”—because traditional mining is focused on the economics of physical extraction.

Digital gold mining is entirely different. It isn’t concerned with production costs or gold price fluctuations. The value of the gold lies solely in its existence, regardless of where it’s located on Earth. All gold in a digital mining model is homogenous, just as all refined gold above ground is homogenous. What matters is defining a single standardized digital mining cutoff grade and applying it universally across all Certified NatGold Resources™. This ensures consistent tokenization and the homogeneity of NatGold Tokens.

In this framework, gold price and extraction costs are irrelevant. NatGold Tokens represent a weight-based value transfer from the earth’s natural vault to a digital format. Once tokenized, gold market valuations may influence their market price, but they won’t affect the tokens’ standardized weight and consistency.

The NatGold Real-Time AISC Index is a continuously updated measure of the global average cost to mine, refine, and market a troy ounce of gold. It is derived from a comprehensive dataset of publicly traded gold producers, ensuring that it reflects the most current cost data as new financial reports are released.

This index is integral to determining the baseline intrinsic value of NatGold Tokens. By subtracting the NatGold Real-Time AISC Index from the current COMEX gold price, NatGold Digital can calculate the average profit margin per ounce of gold still in the ground. This calculation establishes the baseline intrinsic value of Certified NatGold Resources, providing a transparent, logical foundation for valuing NatGold Tokens.

Sustainability premium refers to the additional value created by environmentally and socially responsible investment attributes. NatGold Tokens align with key Environmental and Social principles—eliminating the high environmental, social, and financial costs associated with traditional gold mining. This alignment has the potential to significantly boost global interest in gold investments by appealing to values-driven investors who previously avoided gold due to its unsustainable production practices, further increasing the baseline intrinsic value of each NatGold Token.

NatGold Tokens are considered a non-dilutive investment because they are fully backed by Certified NatGold Resources left securely in the ground. Unlike traditional above-ground gold investments, where vaulting costs, storage fees, and other ongoing expenses can erode the value of an investment, NatGold’s approach eliminates these additional costs. This means that the value of each token remains tied directly to the intrinsic profitability of the in-ground gold resources, without being diminished by extra fees or hidden expenses.

This non-dilutive nature can add an additional premium to the token’s baseline intrinsic value. Investors recognize that the absence of ongoing costs ensures a purer gold-to-token relationship, making NatGold Tokens a more attractive, transparent, and efficient way to gain exposure to gold. Over time, this characteristic can attract a broader investor base, further increasing demand and boosting the token’s overall market value beyond the baseline intrinsic calculation.

The price of NatGold Tokens is designed to move in alignment with fluctuations in the price of gold. For example, if the price of a one-troy ounce gold coin increases by $100, a one-troy ounce-equivalent NatGold Token would be expected to see a comparable increase.

The value of NatGold Tokens reflects a discount to above-ground gold, calculated by subtracting the NatGold Real-Time AISC Index from the COMEX spot gold price. This calculation shows the average global profit per ounce of extracted gold, serving as the baseline intrinsic value of Certified NatGold Resources that remain in the ground.

Over time, the sustainable production attributes and non-dilutive nature of the NatGold Token may result in a gradual “premium creep” that reduces the discount. However, this process is expected to occur gradually and is not directly tied to daily gold price fluctuations. In the short term, changes in gold’s spot price are expected to be proportionately reflected in NatGold Tokens.

In summary, while long-term factors may influence the token’s overall value, NatGold Tokens are designed to mirror the daily price movements of gold.

NatGold Tokens could indeed be positioned as a type of stablecoin, given their backing by Certified NatGold Resources. Unlike traditional stablecoins, which are typically pegged to fiat currencies or other assets, NatGold Tokens derive their intrinsic value from the economic worth of untouched gold deposits. By tokenizing these verified resources through a transparent, blockchain-based process, NatGold Tokens provide a level of stability that mirrors the enduring appeal of gold itself.

To support market stability and reliability, NatGold Digital has introduced multiple supply-side controls. The NatGold Tokenization Queue regulates the pace of tokenization over time, ensuring a measured approach to introducing new tokens. Additionally, escrow trading restrictions on minted tokens serve as a flexible mechanism to release supply as market demand increases. This combination of steady tokenization and responsive supply adjustments is designed to maintain a balanced marketplace and prevent excessive volatility unrelated to the underlying gold value.

Over time, as more investors and markets recognize the tokens’ reliability and intrinsic gold backing, NatGold Tokens could be seen as eco-friendly, gold-backed stablecoins, providing a stable store of wealth within the broader digital asset ecosystem.