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Digital Gold
The World Gold Council (WGC) has proposed an initiative to build a physically-backed shared infrastructure to advance the growth of digital gold. WGC through a white paper has proposed the concept of 'Gold as a Service', a platform owned and operated by the World Gold Council and built as shared infrastructure that any market participant can access to build digital gold products without needing to develop their own end-to-end systems. While digital gold products exist, they operate across fragmented infrastructure with inconsistent custody standards, redemption terms and governance frameworks, WGC Chief Strategy Officer Terry Heymann told PTI. "The idea behind this initiative is to provide a shared infrastructure which could help gold to play a greater role in the digital economy. This will be backed by physical gold this will be accredited, inspected regularly, with processes in place to make sure that gold has been responsibly sourced and is accounted for," Heymann said. Gold as
Markets regulator Sebi on Saturday warned investors against investing in digital or e-gold products, saying such instruments fall outside its regulatory framework and involve significant risks. The cautionary statement came after Sebi observed that some online platforms have been promoting 'digital gold' or 'e-gold' products as an easy alternative to investing in physical gold. "In this context, it is informed that such digital gold products are different from Sebi-regulated gold products as they are neither notified as securities nor regulated as commodity derivatives. They operate entirely outside the purview of Sebi," the regulator said in a statement. "Such digital gold products may entail significant risks for investors and may expose investors to counter party and operational risks," it added. Sebi further clarified that investor protection mechanisms applicable to regulated securities will not extend to such unregulated digital gold schemes. The regulator said that investor