Interview With Free Market Money Guru, Jim Davidson of Vertoro 1 of 4
This is an interview with Jim Davidson of Vertoro.
Jim has been an ever present force in the digital currency world for almost a decade. He shares with me his ideas on free market money, precious metals and digital currency. I appreciate Jim taking time to answer my questions.
Where does the name Vertoro come from?
Vertoro is a combination of the French word “vert” meaning green, and the Italian word “oro” meaning gold.
So the name implies your motto, going from green American dollars to gold money?
Yes, that’s the idea. We think that it is vital for businesses and individuals to make that move from green to gold.
What are your reasons for urging people to do so?
The ones we tend to emphasize are going global with gold, hedging against inflation with gold and silver, and using free market currency to avoid anti-market forces.
Gold is a world currency and certainly one of the two oldest currencies. Gold and silver are both mentioned in the Old Testament, they were used in coins thousands of years ago, and they are widely accepted. In my own travels, I’ve been able to convert gold and silver coins to local currency in every country I’ve visited in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America.
Inflation is a tax on wealth. If you hold your wealth as dollars, you get hit with that tax. The guys who make dollars, both at the printing press and in the banks, generate more dollars all the time. Since dollars are not in fixed supply, the value of the dollars changes. Generally, over time, monetary policy has been inflationary.
Gold and silver also expand in supply, as more of these metals are discovered. But, they expand at a much more consistent rate over the long run than paper money.
Finally, gold and silver are market-chosen money. The free market principles which I believe are the best economic policy should be practiced not only at the national level, but more importantly at the local level. Individuals and businesses should use free market money - money with value derived from its acceptability in the market rather than any edict or decree.
What is your full name and your position at Vertoro?
People call me Jim. When you go to the Wikipedia disambiguation page on “Jim Davidson” you find me where it says “James Eric Davidson.” 
I’m the chief executive officer at Vertoro.
So, what does Vertoro do?
Vertoro is a consulting services company. We offer extensive services in communications security, privacy, data security, encryption, hardware and software systems for secure communications, free market money, web development, e-commerce, and marketing. As a result of our specialties, we do a lot of contract programming of one sort or another.
Those specialties sound rather diverse. Is there a common thread?
Yes, sure. In fact, the common thread is information. Money is just a special type of information. The very earliest data we have about money suggests that ancient man kept records of wealth represented by flocks of sheep or herds of cattle by notching bones with tally marks. Nowadays, we keep track of wealth by flipping bits in computer systems, so that a bank account shows a certain balance.
More significantly, the value of information may be the value of your entire business enterprise. If someone steals your laptop and gains access to all the confidential records of your customers, you may be out of business tomorrow. If you don’t have a secure backup, you may not be able to do business.
If your records are compromised, you may have to reimburse a lot of customers who expected you to keep their data secure. The government may shut you down for having lax data security. And that’s already happened - lots of laptops have been stolen and over 150 million customer records have been compromised as a result.
So, we create value by deploying effective information systems which use the latest techniques for data security. We also create value by providing access to markets around the world and in many specialty niches which simply cannot be reached without good data security, use of digital money, and online gold.
What would you consider to be your specialty?
The one thing I’m any good at is writing. I have a certain facility at taking ideas from various different technical specialties, thinking about them, and then writing about them in a clear, simple way. Sometimes, people find they understand what I’ve written.
How long have you worked in financial consulting and when did you open your first digital gold account?
My business school studies were in marketing and entrepreneurship. I guess my first job in financial consulting was working as an intern for Space Services Incorporated, developing their business plans, writing software for their real estate division, and helping them find a market for their payload launching business in the university science community. That would have been in 1986.
My first digital gold account came in December 1998. I was involved in a Texas constitution reform project and the guy running it agreed to reimburse my expenses with e-gold. So, I opened the 1,468th e-gold account. Once I got started, though, it became exciting. In those days, you could redeem two tenths of an ounce of e-gold and they would mail you a gold coin. It was fantastic. Occasionally I hear someone recite how large an upward move has taken place in the price of gold over the past two years, and then they tell me it’s too late to buy. Fools and their money are soon parted, my friend.
How many other people are employed at Vertoro and is there anyone I might know?
All our staff, including me, are contractors. We work closely with a team of consultants and contractors who provide all kinds of specialties including accounting, marketing, programming, web development, publicity, media relations, and other services. We have a chief technology officer, Kevin Wilkerson. We also have a set of very good relationships with financiers, so we place deals with them and help companies raise money. Our political risk consultant is Sandy Sandfort. You may have read a few things he’s written. Over the years he’s been published in places like Wired magazine and the like. He has forgotten more things about the law and international company structures than I’ve ever learned.
One of the guys I work with quite closely is Courtney Smith. He used to run a leading hedge fund and a top-rated newsletter and a top-rated stock fund. So, he’s something of a finance whiz. He and I have worked about half a dozen deals in the last year, taking companies public, bringing in new capital, going overseas to offshore stock markets to tap other sources of financing.
Is Kevin Wilkerson an important part of the Vertoro organization?
I would say so. He’s the chief technology officer. We rely on him to evaluate technology, develop systems, identify programmers, put together the project teams that actually implement software and hardware systems, and handle some of the parts of the market which he knows best.
What kinds of digital gold currency do you sell at Vertoro?
Mostly, that is e-gold and Pecunix. We sell a tiny bit of eCache. As a practical matter, we sell what the market wants. Pretty much we sell all kinds. That is, all the kinds that are actually gold. So, if we cannot verify that there is gold, if the currency cannot be redeemed into actual gold, we don’t touch it.
Is Vertoro an exchange provider and can I sell gold to the company?
Vertoro? No. Vertoro is a gold dealer. That means that we sell gold coins, silver coins, and digital warehouse receipts for gold or silver. We do not ever buy from the public. An exchange provider is a sort of money changer and, therefore, as we’ve been advised, a type of money service business. These days, money service businesses are regulated in most markets. A gold dealer, on the other hand, just sells gold or silver to the public. Since a gold dealer does not buy from the public, that’s not a money service business, again, as we’ve been advised, under the current legal and regulatory regime.
What type of ventures has Vertoro been involved with over the past several years?
Most of our work has been in asset protection, communications security, and systems integration. We have been consulting on private placement and public financial market offerings for about two years.
Can I raise equity financing through Vertoro?
We are not a broker nor a dealer in securities. To raise equity financing, we would refer you to our network of contacts in those industries, which are extensive.
Or can you arrange that for a private company wanting to go public?
We have contacts in the business of taking companies public, not only in the USA, but also in Europe and Asia.
In part 2 of this interview we talk about e-gold and the OmniPay legal situation plus what can be done to strengthen the industry.
Tags: digital-currency, e-bullion, e-gold, federal-reserve, free-market-money, Gold, GoldMoney, James-Eric-Davidson, Jim-davidson, kevin-wilkerson, Liberty Reserve, Pecunix, phoenixdollar, sandy-sandfort, silver, v-money, VertoroRelated Stories
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