The Industry Is Changing & Growing…Who Will Emerge As The Digital Currency Front-Runner?
E-gold is the most widely accepted digital gold currency online, Webmoney has the most agents and probably the most volume, Pecunix is considered to be the most private of the digital gold currencies while e-bullion seems as solid as a rock….but who will end up the front runner incorporated into the daily lives of all those online consumers? One or two years from now, who will be the leader in online retail sales?
This is a very big question.
E-gold is operated out of Melborne, FL (servers). This original digital gold currency is widely used in the US and around the globe. Many online businesses accept e-gold along with their regular payment line up which usually includes credit cards, Moneybookers and/or PayPal.
I feel that if you exclude the problems related to their location within US borders, e-gold has by far the greatest chance of becoming a retail household name. Their web site integration (SCI), the tools they offer, the large number of agents accepting US dollars, the integration with 1MDC, the fact that just about all of DGC debit cards accept e-gold and finally the monster amount of transparency they provide via the e-gold stats page makes this original digital gold currency the most plausible for widespread e-commerce use.
Don’t forget that while Webmoney has prepaid cards and the Ukash option, e-gold accounts can be accessed from just about anywhere using a wireless device or cell phone. This makes everyday brick & mortar use of e-gold a real possibility. You can check out that demo here, and the cell phone version works great I’ve used it many times.
Stumbling Blocks
e-gold has a tiny ‘in house’ directory which is also an extremely hard place to get a listing - for some reason. It includes many agents who may have been big years ago when e-gold started but now these agents may also be clinging to life trying to make it the Web 2.0 world. There are tons of new businesses and exchange agents doing huge e-gold business, but sadly you won’t find them previewed on this one page directory :-( You can check out their “home made” directory here. Please zip back through the Internet archive, it still looks the same as it did about a decade ago! Yes, it is sad for a company processing over a billion dollars each year in transactions to only offer this one page. Please compare this to Webmoney.
Additionally, it is interesting to note that the largest ‘cottage industry’ accepting e-gold is the online ‘investment’ world of HYIPs and AutoSurf programs (ponzi schemes). You can easily confirm this fact from the e-gold stats page. Notice that a majority of daily transactions weigh between 1 mg - 1 gm (most of these are less than $5-$10ea) and a majority of the active accounts hold a total balance of less than one gram (about $20).
This ‘micro’ finance world of payments is reflective of the HYIP industry. Its also funny to note, that even after acknowledging most of their current business comes from this arena, the guys at e-gold will not list any HYIPs on their directory page? I wonder why? Google adsense allows HYIP advertisements without restriction, I wonder why e-gold won’t proudly show them since it makes up such a large part of their daily business…hmmm?
We can only hope in the years ahead, that e-gold will grow, prosper and one day become a household name. In my opinion 1MDC and e-gold are truly two of the most ingenious financial creations on the Internet. If you have not already tried the 1MDC/e-gold combo, set up an account and try it out. It is amazing, free and only takes about 30 seconds to set up.
By a wide margin, I think Webmoney is more integrated into their user’s daily lives. There are plenty of webs like Roboxchange where you can use WM to pay for cable TV, cell phone use or even Internet access.
Integrating digital currency into a users daily life now seems more important than ever for the growth of that currency.
However, most of Webmoney’s client base is still in Russia. They are making a huge expansion now into Europe and the UK but are still not yet widely used in the US. They have excellent listings & a directory of companies and individuals that will accept Webmoney.
A more detailed description of WebMoney business solutions can be found online:
- Identification
- Exchanger
- WM Trust
- TELEPAT
- PAYMER
- Security
- Notification
- Softactivation
- Geo Information
So realistically, in the next year or two what digital currency do you think will take the lead in online commerce? Who will become a household name as the new global Alternate Payment System?
In my next post we will take a quick look at Pecunix and e-Bullion to see if they are making an effort to move into the retail area of online commerce.
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POSTED IN: Boosting Online Sales, Digital Gold Currency, Mobile Payments, WebMoney, e-gold
2 opinions for The Industry Is Changing & Growing…Who Will Emerge As The Digital Currency Front-Runner?
Oluniyi David Ajao
Apr 2, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Nice blog post. Always insightful, as always. One thing though, e-gold needs to get their act right. I have submitted Web4Africa to them before, as a merchant that accepts e-gold but they never listed it, or even acknowledged receiving the email.
They need to modernize their “directory”. Both Paypal and Moneybookers ACTIVELY promote merchants that use their payment system.
Mark
Apr 3, 2007 at 5:36 am
Thanks for the comment, yes, you are exactly correct. Its amazing that such a large ten year old company still has a home made directory. Its really hard to get listed there also, almost impossible unless you ‘know’ someone. The Moneybookers directory is very good, even though its in-house they do a good job. Webmoney is also excellent at promoting their merchants.
Mark
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