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Iâm really not convinced that owning a fraction of a bar in a vault in Zurich is any more safe than buying into a physically backed ETF and I can do the latter in an ISA or SIPP.
Are you going to rock up with a chisel and some scales and demand to chip your fraction off the bar?
Iâve had the card for a few months but havenât used it.
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Ok, so GlintPay caught my intrigue when it floated onto Crowdcube, compounding when a discussion started here. Having used it for a couple weeks now, I do have to say itâs pretty cool. âHey, so iâm just gonna pay for this coffee with some gold. No big deal.â 
Now aside from the cool factor, hereâs my take on GlintPay. Itâs essentially Coinbase for gold. I think thatâs great. Letâs be honest, most retail investors wonât want to figure out how to store and insure their own gold. So this is a solid option. How well does buy/sell/spend work? Very well for me. I topped up my account using a linked debit card in a matter of seconds. (Be aware that this method has a daily limit and bank transfer takes days longer). Buying that cup of coffee took the same time as a normal contactless card. Transparency is also there showing the rate you paid. Having said that, would I continue to spend the gold? Probably not. Thatâs not why you buy gold.
I also hear the arguments for gold ETFs. Several reasons why you may not want to invest in those: backed by gold doesnât mean redeemable into gold; weâve seen gold made illegal before in the US (1933) so be careful where your gold is; gold should really be seen as money and not an investable security - purchasing power preservation is the name of the game. On top of this thereâs a reason why large prominent investors have their physical gold stored in Swiss vaults - the security of some of these is unbelievable, seriously. Of course theyâre aware of ETFs.
Finally, the following made me a little annoyed since I only found this out yesterday. I expect some of the community members above will have the same feeling. Regarding Glintâs fee free gold transactions offer, you canât gradually build up your gold holdings to take advantage of it. Although it doesnât take away from the merits of the platform, thatâs a real shame.
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Because gold is somewhat uncorrelated to equities and so serves a useful purpose in a properly diversified portfolio.
One of my favourite sites is https://portfoliocharts.com which allows you to model the effects of different asset classes on your portfolio over time. It is very instructive to look at a portfolio such as the Golden Butterfly which has almost the same return as the overall stock market but with dramatically lower volatility and risk.
The other aspect of gold that is easy to overlook is that over thousands of years it has been the fallback as regimes fail. We live in a period of unprecedented stability, but things change, often in perilously short timescales. I wouldnât advocate ETF or Glint for such a situation, but if you had to flee the country because your particular group has become the villain of the day, a few oz of gold coins could go a long way to easing the burden.
I canât convince you either. Itâll come down to individual preferences/tolerances as to what Gold exposure/ownership decisions people take.
Iâll take this as a rhetorical question.
To be fair, likewise, I havenât used the card either. More so because I see benefits using the Glint account as apposed to the Glint Card yet.
Now youâve edited your response Iâm more inclined to engage.
I agree with you that exposure to gold is a benefit, I just donât see what glint gives me that I canât achieve by investing in a physically backed ETF that in addition gives me the potential to avoid CGT.
Your assertion that the customers own the gold has no real benefit as far as I can see - unless you own a full bullion gold bar (currently worth just under ÂŁ400k) you are not going to be able to take physical possession of your gold, so you are exposed to similar counter-party risks as a physical ETF.
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All of our clientsâ gold is London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), Good Delivery 12.5 kilo or 1 kilo refined bars, warranted to be 99.5% fine gold or better.
This page should be useful to many: https://glintpay.com/help-category/gold-storage-and-insurance/
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I personally see having gold as a security more than a currency. Gold is not something I plan to change to being the currency I use on daily bases mainly because such practices have stopped years and I mean years ago. I rather have a small amount of physical gold stored safely.
I think most people will use this app for those reasons more than others
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Right, of course. The idea of gold as money isnât the transacting of physical gold. Even during the gold standard, gold wasnât being lugged around, nor was it even being moved across borders to and from central banks frequently. Itâs an anchor that preserves sound monetary policy.
The debasement of money is what boosts gold. If held as part of an investment portfolio, sure paper gold is fine. Physical gold holders purchase gold to own it in a non-financialised form. The ETFs etc contain small print and counterparty risk that wouldnât necessarily protect an investor in a calamitous event. If AIG wasnât bailed out, all those prophetic subprime shorts⌠âThe Big Shortâ may have ended differently. Ultimately thereâs a distinction between the individuals holding the physical versus paper gold. Merits to both and it all just comes down to your personal reason for gold exposure. About Glint Iâll say what I did earlier - Coinbase for gold.
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Reviving an old thread.
Apparently Glint decided cancel that last crowdfunding, months after it had raised ÂŁ2.1 million.
2 people confirmed they received the same email last week. Anyone here invest and can confirm or knows whatâs going on there?
âDear Crowdcube Investor,
We are sorry for the delay in contacting you regarding your proposed investment in Glint. We hope it hasnât inconvenienced you too much.
Weâve been reviewing our operations and funding requirements and, after much thought, have decided not to proceed with this round of investment at this time. This decision has come about due to changes that have occurred in our Business, most notably the timescale for our US launch which has been rescheduled for technical reasons beyond our control. We expect to resolve these issues by the end of Q1, 2019 but we donât want to keep you waiting any longer.
We remain focussed on delivering a reliable gold-based alternative to traditional money and banking and on our US expansion plans. We very much hope that you understand our decision not to go ahead with your investment at present and weâd like to thank you very much for showing an interest in Glint. We very much hope to be able to offer you another exciting opportunity to invest in Glint next year.
Best regards
Jason Cozens
Chief Executiveâ
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Thatâs a little bit short of details. Perhaps they were overly ambitious with their plans? Itâs good that they decided to return the investment though, after such a significant change.
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Not sure if you know but whatâs is the crowdcube due diligence process like? Do they have to look at their plans and see if they can back up their claims?
Edit: Found a link. They check out all contracts and claims for accuracy
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Agreed, crowdcube need to up their game.
In general most crowdfunding companies have exteremly poor communication. It doesnât bode well for a company if they canât even manage their ownersâŚ
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Crowdcube does very simple checks. They even fail at this on times, search what happened with Smart Grid earlier this year 
Or how they have had at least 2 failures this year within weeks/months of a successful raise. Their due diligence is very poor.
The due diligence charter is a aspirational fluff piece. They mention things like âfairâ or âtransparentâ but fall short of expectations on both. Try asking them any question on their due diligence process and youâll see they cannot provide any answer.
In the âLive Pitch Monitoringâ section they say they monitor investment manipulation, however Crowdcube added the VC funding to their pitch total and didnât make it clear, only clarifying in the discussions when asked. If they truly believed in stopping manipulation then then they would list the pledges like Seedrs.
These are just a few causes for concerns out of many. Try looking at Crowdcube at any detail and youâll see you are on your own, so be very careful, invest only what you can afford to lose.
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Probably better to consider them as just a platform to enable crowdfunding then and leave the investor to do as many checks and ask as many questions as possible
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I received the email and there isnât much more info beyond that.
I DMed Crowdcube twice as the payment collection dragged on and didnât get much out of them. All in all, the timing of the cancel was perfect as it coincided with Monzoâs raise & it made me reevaluate what my investment philosophy having to deal with the frustration of this Glint raise while also seeing the fallout over Emoov.
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We knew about the US expansion already obviously but not the directors stepping down from the board too.
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Itâs now ânext yearâ
Any news on US expansion?
Any news on when we can invest in Glint ?
Have the 2 ex directors been replaced?
Howâs everything going in general?
GlintPay, Please update.
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